You are sitting in the waiting room and getting ready to go into an interview. You have your resume in hand and glancing over it, you see zero errors and mistakes. Happily, you sit there holding it, knowing your hours and hours of hard work is about to payoff shortly.
BUT, in all that time you put into your resume, did you look at your ONLINE LinkedIn profile?
Recruiters and hiring managers are paying attention to online LinkedIn profiles as another way to review a candidate before the interview.
Your LinkedIn profile is a way to showcase a bit about yourself, but if done incorrectly, can actually speak more than the words you say during an interview.
Here are 5 updates that hiring managers and recruiters are suggesting you make to your LinkedIn profile BEFORE submitting your resume:
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Use this area to put your job title and a top level overview of your experience. This is not the area to use for quotes or witty statements as this is not a social media platform for your friends and family. If you do not currently have a title, put the title you are searching for here instead, as a placeholder.
SUMMARY
Remember all those college classes that required you to be concise and to the point? This is exactly what the “summary” section is for. Use keywords for your industry, but try to avoid meaningless jargon. The point is to inform your potential new manager about what you are capable of achieving without sounding like you are bragging. This is one of the most difficult summaries to write; we suggest saving this area for last, once you have a greater understanding of your entire profile.
EXPERIENCE
Include the jobs you have worked for along with a couple of sentences on what you accomplished in each of these positions. Refrain from a bulleted list as this is more of a summary section, however make sure in the sentences you do write, they include data-driven results to support your accomplishments. This shows how you added value to your job.
EDUCATION AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Make sure to list the schools and certificated classes you have taken and whether or not you got a degree or certificate from these institutions. This is also the section where you display any awards or performance recognitions you received, as well.
INTERESTS, ORGANIZATIONS, AND VOLUNTEER WORK
LinkedIn automatically fills in your Interests section based on the organizations or influencers you follow. We recommend checking this area every four to six months to make sure you clean it up and keep it tidy. Try to feature volunteer work you are doing and organizations you are affiliated with that help you remain in the professional light you are wanting.
Remember that any form of social media you use is fair game to hiring managers and recruiters. This is all “public information” and they have every right to consider using it in their interview. If you are not sure you want your employer seeing the information, refrain from posting it, or make sure it is not viewable by the public.