152: Elevate Your LinkedIn Profile with Jenn Smith

Coach Jenn Smith here! We’re back on the Career Clarity Show to dig deep into why LinkedIn is the most important tool for your job search… even more than your resume. We’ll discuss the basics of your LinkedIn profile, how to showcase your professional brand across your profile, and using LinkedIn in your job search. Lastly, we’ll wrap up with how to craft a content strategy to elevate your brand. 

Show Notes:

• Career Clarity Coach Jenn Smith
• LinkedIn: Jenn Smith
• LinkedIn Profile Guide
• Roadmap to a Fulfilling Career eBook

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Transcript

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:04  

Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. If you want to create a career path you’ll love, you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Lewis Miller, career change coach, published author and your host. And each week, we’ll bring you personal transformation stories, advice and insights from experts about how you can find a more fulfilling, soulful and joyful career.

Jenn Smith  0:30  

Welcome back to the Career Clarity Show, I’m Jen Smith, your host for today’s episode, which is all about elevating your LinkedIn profile. So for most of you working in a professional role, LinkedIn is the most powerful tool you can use in your job search and in your career. One caveat here is that I understand LinkedIn may not be regularly used for those in every industry. So if you work in hospitality, or the restaurant industry, or maybe you’re in the traditional education system, it might not be as important. But if you’re interested in a professional or a corporate role, LinkedIn is a highly valuable tool. So in this episode, I’m going to walk you through why LinkedIn is the most important tool. And I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I believe it’s even more important than your resume, which I will talk to you about in a second. We’ll walk through the basics of your profile, and then how to elevate your profile, and include that includes showcasing your professional brand across your LinkedIn profile, then I’ll introduce a simple way to get started using your LinkedIn in your job search. And then we’ll wrap up with how to craft a content strategy to elevate your brand. So first, let me just share a quick story. And this goes to why I believe that LinkedIn is more important than your resume. So I recently had a job seeker reached out to me for help with his resume. And the situation was that he ran into a former colleague, and they got into talking about their careers. And during the discussion, he found out that there was a role open at his former company that he was super excited about, it was definitely a change. It wasn’t just he was going from one company to another in the same role, it was a completely different role. So he’s trained as an operations leader in this role that he was really excited about was in talent management. So he had to do a little bit of a mindset shift when moving into this role in identifying his transferable skills, and so on. And so the first thing he thought to do was update his resume and apply. And that’s what most people think the first step is, and it makes sense, because this is what we’ve always been taught.

Jenn Smith  3:02  

Your resume is an important piece, but it’s not the most important piece. And so when we met for his strategy session, I made a gentle suggestion to reach out to the hiring manager on LinkedIn, to let him know that he was interested and that he wanted to apply. This job seeker did know of the hiring manager from his previous work experience, but he did not know the hiring manager personally. So from there, he thought that he would get enough nerve to go ahead and do that. So we ended our strategy session, I worked on his resume for a few days. And then a few days later sent him the first draft quickly received a reply that he was already in the interview process and receiving an offer for the job. So his resume became a complete afterthought. He actually used his old previous resume to apply, because he was already in the interview process. And they just wanted him in the role. So that LinkedIn outreach, kicked off the process. And he landed the job without even updating his resume. So this is just one example of a situation like this, there are plenty more that I could share. So if this story doesn’t pique your interest about LinkedIn, let me share some stats with you. And one of the reasons that I really love LinkedIn is because their mission is simple. It is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. That’s it. It’s not Facebook, it’s not Instagram. It’s not Twitter. It’s a professional network. And LinkedIn does a great job to keep it professional. So a couple stats here, there are 774 million professionals on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is available in 24 language jizz there are 57 million companies on LinkedIn. There are 300,000 job postings on LinkedIn. And this is my all time favorite stat is that three people are hired every minute through LinkedIn. Three people are hired every minute on LinkedIn. So to me having access to 774 million professionals across the world with a click of a button, and knowing that I could potentially get hired really quickly through LinkedIn is to me really eye opening in terms of leveraging this platform. And I know a lot of folks, job seekers, maybe some of you listening, use LinkedIn for that easy Apply button, it’s very attempting just to click the easy Apply button. But really, this tool can be so much more than that. When I worked in recruiting, we use LinkedIn to scout top talent. So when your profile is set up, it literally works for you when you sleep. And the way that this happens is that LinkedIn has a program for recruiters called LinkedIn recruiter, and companies buy seats for LinkedIn recruiter. And then as recruiters, if we are allotted a seat, we can use LinkedIn, like a search engine. So on the back end, I could put in some keywords or some job titles that I’m recruiting for or at a location, whatever it is that I’m recruiting for literally click a few buttons, and then the folks that have that information in their profile are going to show up for me. And then I can proactively reach out to them on LinkedIn, and start a conversation. Whereas with your resume, you have to actively use it to apply to a job opening. And sometimes companies are looking for open positions before they’re ever even posted. And that’s really where LinkedIn can can literally work for you in your sleep. So and I know some people are hesitant to use LinkedIn, because it’s visibility, which Trust me, I totally get it, it can be really scary. But hopefully some of these stats and that quick story can help you see the value of the tool.

Jenn Smith  7:24  

So these stats and the stories from clients that I hear about getting jobs through LinkedIn, is what makes me believe that LinkedIn is even more important than your resume in today’s job market. And then to stand out, you must create a compelling profile, and then try to use your profile and engage on a regular basis. So let’s talk a little bit about your profile. So I like to think of LinkedIn as your storyboard. It’s basically a story of your career. And it really can be an extension of your resume and your cover letter. It’s not limited by space or design. So you can include a lot more on your LinkedIn profile than you would in a resume. It’s very conversational to so you can talk in the first person, you can really own your story. And your profile can be really engaging with media. And it’s a great place to showcase your work in a way that again, your resume doesn’t allow for. So in terms of the basics of your profile, a couple of things. And this is when I do kind of audits with job seekers, these are the things that I’m looking for. So first, in terms of the basics is your contact information. So you definitely want to make sure you have some type of email or phone number to make it as easy as possible for someone to contact you. I always recommend checking your security and privacy settings and you can adjust those to your comfort level. Some people don’t want broadcast when they update their profile some people do, it’s totally up to you. So just check those security and privacy settings. Location and industry are really important kind of basic features to be more visible. And that helps you get scouted out by recruiters. So when you go and update your profile, you want to make sure your industry and location are up to date. And then also there’s a feature on kind of I call it on the inside, where you can let recruiters know that you’re open to work. And so this isn’t the banner on your profile picture. It’s on the inside. So kind of on the back end where you can say yes, I’m open to work. Here’s the type of work I’m open to here’s the type of roles and this is a great way to communicate, for lack of a better word with recruiters and talent scouts who are out there looking for top talent so basically just letting people know who you are and what you’re looking for. So then you are searchable by the recruiters. And I another stat here is that more than 95% of recruit readers will use LinkedIn regularly. So you want to make it easy for them to let them know what you’re looking for. So those are kind of the basics. And then if you want to kick it up a notch for what LinkedIn calls an all star profile, you definitely want to include a photo. So your profile will get 21 times more views. If you have a profile photo, then you also want to make sure that your current position is listed, as well as your last two positions. So including your work history will kick your profile up a notch. And then education is a great thing to include, especially to connect with alumni. So it’s a great way to network and connect with folks that went to your school that maybe work at a company that you’re interested in. In terms of skills, skills, the skill section, a lot of times people forget about and so I always take a quick peek, it’s towards the bottom, but your top three skills are keyword searchable. So you want to make sure you’re showcasing at least three, but you can have probably hundreds of skills listed there. But your top three are visible and most important. And that’s regardless of the endorsements you have. So if you’re changing careers, say you’re like the gentleman I was mentioning earlier went from operations to talent, your top three skills and operations might not translate to talent. So you want to make sure you have your top three skills are where you’re going if you are going through a career change. And then you want to make connections. So according to LinkedIn, all star, all star profile 50 connections will help you optimize your profile. So you definitely want to get out there and connect with folks either future colleagues, former colleagues, current colleagues, friends, family, get out there and connect with folks when you get your profile updated.

Jenn Smith  12:01  

So those are the basics of your storyboard. And now we’re going to talk a little bit about each of these sections, starting with places to show off your professional brands. So to show off your professional brand photo, your photo profile shot is a great place to start. So as humans, we are wired to look for faces, and it adds personality behind the words. It’s also the first thing people will see when visiting your profile. Don’t worry, you do not have to spend money to get a professional headshot done, you can take it with your iPhone sitting with a neutral background or something engaging that you behind you that you want to share with your with your network. I will say that I love pets and kids and family and spouses. They’re wonderful but not appropriate for LinkedIn. So you want a headshot of just you with some type of neutral or interesting background. Again, you don’t have to spend money, you can totally do this with your iPhone. And along the lines of photo is your background banner. A lot of times people do not include a background banner, which I think it’s a great way to help showcase your brand. So you could include a background banner related to the industry that you’re interested in. If you’re an outdoors person, put a nature banner, if you like patterns, and maybe a little bit more contemporary, add a pattern, put something in your background banner, it just makes your your entire profile come together a lot more professionally. And with photos, your profile is 21 times more likely to get views with then those without a photo. So then moving on to your headline, this is prime real estate, your headline should be compelling. It should be customized, I almost think of your headline. It’s almost like a newspaper headline. So like if you’re walking up to grab a coffee and the newspaper stand is right there. And you glance at it and you see a compelling headline, you might pick up the newspaper to read about that article. So same thing here. You want it to grab somebody’s attention so they continue reading. What LinkedIn does is the default for your headline goes to your current job title. So you want to make sure you get in there and change that. And you could include anything really so you could include some industry key words, your professional brand words that resonate with you. You want to let people know exactly what you do and what you’re passionate about. So for example, mine says career coach and consultant at my company, and then it also says Former talent acquisition and HR leader. So I want folks to know that I’m a career coach, and that I have experience on the inside assessing and hiring talent. You can also poke around in LinkedIn and get ideas from others. So maybe there’s some mentors or former colleagues or current colleagues that you want to check out with, they have for their headline, I did a training recently, and I saw a few good ones, there was one that said datacenter, tech by day and photographer by night. So somebody that has kind of a cool side hustle as a photographer, it sounds like. And then I saw another one for American Airlines, a pilot that said, connecting people to the world by piloting Boeing 750 sevens, I thought that was really compelling and interesting. So definitely want to put some thought in to your headline and showcase your brand, what you do and your significant skills. And then from there is your about section or the summary section. This should be conversational, and it is your time to shine. So what you want to do here is talking about yourself, you want to introduce yourself, you want to share what you do, why what you do matters and the impact that you want to have. And it’s really important to invite a conversation. So that’s really what this platform is intended to do. And so many times I audit people’s LinkedIn profiles, and their about section has like one sentence, or it’s completely skipped over. And this is just a great place. It’s almost like a landing page to introduce yourself to new professionals.

Jenn Smith  16:44  

So then we move on to the Work Experience section. So a couple more stats for you, your profile is eight times more likely to get viewed, when you have your updated work experience, you are also five times more likely to get connection requests when you have updated work experience. So in this section, you’re going to want to explain what you do and how you do it. So you really want to showcase your impact and show off your accomplishments. So one of the things I see on a lot of profiles here is that people put their company there, job title and the dates, but they don’t show off their accomplishments. So to me, again, going back to this idea that LinkedIn is more important than your resume, you might somebody might encounter your LinkedIn profile before they see your resume. So you definitely want to show off your accomplishments in your work experience section. And it can definitely be a copy and paste from your resume. That’s not a big deal, at least in my mind. But you want to showcase at least your top three to five accomplishments for each of your jobs. And another cool feature about LinkedIn is that you can add media in this section. So you can add visual content that shows examples of your work, you can have click outs, there’s a featured section actually right before your work experience section on LinkedIn, that you could showcase a project or something recent that you worked on that you want to let people know. So it’s one thing to tell people what you do, but now you can show them you know, through adding media and including your accomplishments in your profile. So now I just want to chat, chat about your skills one more time. And then we’ll go into the job search. So your top three skills, like I mentioned, are keyword searchable by recruiters. And just like adding skills on your resume, they can definitely help to build your brand story. And the skills also support your credibility, especially when you start getting endorsements for your skills. But again, if you are in a career change, you want your top three skills to match where you’re going. Regardless of how many endorsements you have. In terms of your skills, you can include both hard skills and soft skills. So creative problem solving might be a soft skill. And Salesforce CRM is a hard skill. So you can have a mix of both adding five or more will build your expertise and credibility and help you get discovered in searches. So now that we’ve talked about the important sections of your profile, let’s talk about how to use LinkedIn in your search. So true or false. You spend at least 15 minutes a day scrolling through some sort of social platform. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that that is probably true, and chances are, you fall into the same same old pattern, scroll read, click, scroll click read into this thoughtless, never ending black hole. And so what I always recommend is if you’re in the job search process, why not replace your mindless scrolling with strategic scrolling. And if you’re just getting started with LinkedIn, this is a fabulous way to start. So you can search out your top companies and follow them, and start noticing what they’re sharing and what they’re talking about. And this will help you become really valuable when you get into the interview process. You can seek out leaders at your top companies and start following them, you don’t even have to send a connection request, you can simply follow. And then they will show up when they share content share information, they will show up in your feed, and you can start engaging and seeing what they’re talking about and seeing what resonates with you. You can also seek out hashtags that your target companies are using, and follow the hashtags to join in on the conversation. Some companies have career specific handles, and they’ll start sharing news about upcoming job postings or events before they’re even posted. So you can leverage that information in your feed. So an example of a handle might be at PepsiCo jobs. So if you have your top AI companies identified, check and see if they have a specific career handle and make sure that you’re following that handle.

Jenn Smith  21:42  

So as I always say, if you’re going to spend time scrolling, you might as well make it worth your time. So now let’s switch gears and talk about how to elevate your brand on LinkedIn. And when I say elevate your brand, it’s really about using the LinkedIn platform to share your opinion, and elevate or rise as a leader in your industry. So it has been noted that LinkedIn is rated as one of the most trusted social media platforms. And again, the intention is to create space for connection and conversation. I totally get that not everybody is comfortable doing this. But if you are comfortable, it’s a fantastic way to show up as a leader start conversations and get noticed. So I want to talk a little bit about a content strategy, what it is and how to start. And then some tips on how to engage and get noticed. And then talk about how to add value on the platform. So basically, a content strategy is a plan for sharing what you know, and sharing your opinion. So it’s a way to talk about your professional experiences in a way that would be valuable for others. And it’s an opportunity to build your brand. And so, to do this, what you want to do is pick three to five topics that you love to talk about. So when you go to talk about the same things on a consistent basis, you start to become known as that expert and you become memorable, people will begin to expect to hear from you. And so these topics should be related to the industry or the role that you want to work in. So for example, my topics are career changes, practical tips, and the job search process and well being at work. If I started to talk about computer coding, and I don’t know sales and marketing, people would probably be very confused. So so that’s a big one. And it’s hard to narrow down your top three to five topics. So definitely want to spend some time on that before you move forward with a content strategy. Because the last thing you want to do is talk about all the things and then again, be known for nothing and then people will will be confused. Consistency is key here. I see people just get derailed all the time with us. So you want to keep it consistent. And you want to and when I say consistent, it’s consistent on topic and then consistent on timing. So if you post you know something one day and then post something three days later and then don’t post for six months, that inconsistency isn’t going to help you so you want to kind of think about consistency in terms of topic and then consistency in terms of timing. Some ideas of things to share, you could talk about hot topics related to your industry or role. You You could talk about successes or failures you faced at work, you could help people who are trying to build their skills in an area that you are an expert in, you could ask for advice. You could share how tos or lists of things that are related to the industry or role that you work in. Most importantly, you want to think of this as a way to start a conversation. So I know a lot of people get caught up in the idea of content creation, like how to think about things to talk about, you don’t necessarily have to create your own content, you could reshare posts that you find interesting. And if you do that, be sure to tag the author for a shout out. You could comment or react to posts you find interesting, and let people know that their content resonated with you. You could share an article that someone else wrote that resonated with you and then add one or two sentences as to why you’re sharing it. And then, of course, you can always add video or images, you know, to enhance your content. So to me, it’s really about again, inviting a conversation. So I try to post things that encourage a response and bring an opportunity to meet new professionals.

Jenn Smith  26:23  

Another way to elevate your brand is by simply engaging on the platform and adding value to others. So again, this notion of leading with purpose and service is really the essence of quote unquote, networking. And helping people is the best way to build a good reputation and cultivate relationships. So on LinkedIn, a great way to do this is by spreading the word about job opportunities. Simply clicking like on a job opportunity is going to help do that. Or you could reshare or you could comment and tag people. Another thing you can do is connect people to each other. So if you know somebody that is job searching, or you come in contact with somebody that is interested in a previous organization you worked at connects people, it’s a great and easy platform to do that. You can also write an endorsement or recommendation for somebody. So showcasing appreciation is a sure way to get recognized. And if you are looking for recommendations or endorsements yourself to boost your product profile, you could start by writing one for someone else and then asking them to do the same for you. So when it comes down to it, nothing beats doing something for somebody else. And this will make you memorable and elevate your brand. So in summary, LinkedIn is a powerful tool when job searching. Some of the big stats are that there are 57 million companies on LinkedIn. There are 300,000 job postings, and three people are hired every minute on LinkedIn. So think about all the potential mentors and connections and recruiters and colleagues and new opportunities at your fingertips. LinkedIn can be an extension of your resume. It’s not limited by space, and it’s much more conversational. Don’t forget that recruiters will use LinkedIn to scout out top talent, they use it as a search engine. So you want to make sure you have a compelling profile and you engage regularly. If you want to elevate your profile, creating a content strategy for your brand and leveraging LinkedIn is a great way to get noticed and drive people to get to know you better. The more you engage on the profile, the more visible you will become. And adding value and helping others is an excellent way to elevate your professional brand. So now it’s your turn to go ahead and update your profile and get out there and make some new connections. So I’m going to share a detailed resource guide for you in the show notes. And as always, you can find the notes from today’s episode at get Career Clarity show.com/podcast. That’s all for today’s episode, and I will talk to you next time.

Lisa Lewis Miller  29:30  

And that’s a wrap. Let us know what you thought about today’s episode. Leave us a review on Apple podcasts because not only can your stars and words help us find great guests and topics to feature on future episodes. Your input also helps other people find the resources they need to discover the work that lights them up. And make sure to check out my book Career Clarity: Finally Find the Work That Fits Your Values and Lifestyle. For the link to order it go to GetCareerClarity.com/book. And don’t forget to get your other tools, resources and helpful goodies at GetCareerClarity.com/podcast. Thanks again for joining us for the Career Clarity Show today. And remember, if you don’t love your work, we should talk because life is too short to be doing work that doesn’t light you up. Talk to you next time.