By Alisa Berry
Online Career Tips Contributor
Improving your professional clout is something everyone can easily work on and is easy to do with current social media. Having a great LinkedIn profile is going to be key.
So you signed up for LinkedIn but your profile looks like a skeleton? That’s okay. LinkedIn is a great site for those that want to keep their interactions in the social media realm professional. Personally, it’s been a great tool for me because I’ve been able to quickly connect with professionals I’ve met through networking and I’m able to easily update my work experiences. My profile is very much a breathing form of my resume. There are a few things you can do to add some depth to your profile and increase your presence to connections and potential jobs.
Add a professional photo.
Do not be wary of using one because it helps make your profile more personable. Jess Fee from Mashable stated that, “A photo provides a face for your digital personality and helps recruiters see you as a human, rather than a hyperlink”. Make sure to use an appropriate photo that you’d want business professionals to see.
Write about your education and experiences.
You’ve worked hard to get where you are, so present it with pride. Chronologically list your past and present jobs and develop well thought out descriptions of each to showcase the skills you had and acquired from those jobs. The more specific you get the better!
Get social and connect!
Once you’ve got your profile cleaned up, you’ll want to begin adding your professional connections. If you’re taking classes, it’s a great idea to add your peers that you’ve communicated with. Your professors are also great connections to make on LinkedIn because they can attest to the quality of work you produce in your classes with them. Another way to get social and learn more about your industry or industries you may be interested in going into is to join different LinkedIn groups and comments on discussions or articles you come across. You also have the option to follow industry leaders to see what makes them successful.
Happy networking!
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