1. Consistency between your LI Profile and Resume
You should give your Linkedin profile as much attention as you do your resume. But they are not written in exactly the same way. Resumes are essentially a paper document and a Linkedin profile is an online document. The LI profile should be crisp and use bullet points. It does not need to be complete with details on every job you ever had but it does need to be consistent with your resume. For instance, if a hiring manager looks at both and they have different dates with listed companies that would be a problem. This could easily happen if you have written your LI profile at a different time than you did your resume and didn’t check the details as you did later when you were completing a resume for a job search. Make sure they both are consistent.
2. Thoroughness
Your Linkedin profile should be as long and as complete as possible. Linkedin puts the most important sections first and someone can just stop scrolling whenever they want. However, Linkedin provides the opportunity to include things that may be helpful that would not be appropriate to include with a resume. Make sure you take advantage of all this extra information. Here are some possibilities that you should not overlook.
3. Volunteer Experience and Causes
Are you a regular volunteer or have you served on a Board. Make sure you include it in this section. There may be an ED opening in a field not related to your current job but related to a field you have volunteer and/or board experience with. This section of your LI profile can be the most important one you will ever fill out and it is often overlooked. It is especially important for people who are seeking a career change into the nonprofit sector to complete this section of the profile
4. Slideshare
Are you asked to give talks to groups? Is it something okay to share publicly? Consider posting your presentations on slideshare and linking them to Linkedin. EDs and CEOs has expected to be good speakers and are the voice and face of the nonprofit organization in many venues. It does not hurt for your LI profile to show that you are experienced at public speaking.
5. Skills and Endorsements
This is a very important section to complete BEFORE you send out invitations to join your network. List the skills you have – especially ones you think will be important in the type of job you are seeking. Look at the Linkedin Profile of people you know that have the kind of position you seek and see the skills listed high on their profile. When you complete this section of the profile make sure you check all of the boxes about endorsements.
6. Connections
The more legitimate connections you have on LinkedIn the better. Stay away from people you don’t know who look like they will just be bothersome to you. Linkedin makes it easy to grow your network. First they will connect with your email address book and invite all or selected people to join your network. When people accept your invitation they will also have the opportunity to endorse you for skills listed. You profile is improved by people endorsing you for skills you have. When people accept your invitation in most cases you will be able to see their connections. Scan through them and if there are people THAT YOU KNOW and would like to connect with invite them to join your network. They don’t have to be your BFF but they should be someone you know. How well do you have to know them? When I get someone’s business card at a conference, client meeting, etc I feel comfortable asking them to join my network. The sooner, the better – while they still recognize my name. You will want to grow your network of nonprofit connections as much as possible because you never know who will be an important connection later. I have seen this happen at the most unexpected times.
7. Recommendations
People can endorse you simply by checking a box next to your name and this will be shown in tabular form on your profile. More important are actual written recommendations. People ask for recommendations through LI. Sometimes someone will write one for you and you should consider writing one on their profile if appropriate. Don’t feel shy about asking people to write recommendations for you. If you see a profile with many recommendations I can guarantee that an email was sent to connections asking for recommendations.
8. Projects
The LI Profile has a special section for “Projects.” If you have been part of or led a major project or inter-agency project, this is a good place to highlight it.
9. Other
There are a bunch of other sections and they are not all appropriate for everyone. But some of them are right for you and add value to your profile.
10. Be vigilant, Appreciative and Current
Update your Linkedin profile in real time. Received an honor last night? This morning is a good time to add it to your profile. Be sure to check off skills you know about for people in your network and thank people when they write a recommendation for you. If appropriate always write a recommendation for people who have recommended you. Like your connections updates. In brief, use LI as the networking tool it is meant to be. Of course all of this should be done in moderation. You don’t want to spend an excessive amount of time on LI, but you do want to make good use of it – especially if you are interested in advancement.
You can check out my profile on LinkedIn here. And please feel free to ask to connect with me.
Marion
