Like it or hate it, LinkedIn has a strong impact online, and personal or business profiles often appear high in search engine rankings. This can be a positive or a negative thing, depending on the state your profile is in.
Regardless of whether you see LinkedIn’s importance as a positive or a negative, one thing is certain. You are being judged on your profile – both as a person, and as a part of your business. Many people use LinkedIn to act as a digital voyeur – checking out people’s profiles, researching potential suppliers, looking for candidates for roles, or searching for business partners or keynote speakers.
So, the question is:
Does your LinkedIn profile make you unhireable?
The answer might yes!
A quick search shows me the number of profiles that are incomplete, are lacking in real details, tell me nothing about the person or company in question, aren’t search engine optimised, or do nothing to make me want to interact with you, let alone hire you.
Ask yourself these questions?
- Is my profile picture current (not a flattering photo from when you were younger)?
- Is your profile picture professional (photos of your wedding, you at a party, or playing footy are not suited to LinkedIn. Keep them on Facebook)?
- Do you have a branded header image, and does it tell me about the problems you solve?
- Do you have details about your current role, how you help your current clients, and ways future clients can connect with you?
- Can I see quickly what services you offer and what your area of expertise is?
- Do you have a summary section that shares your years of experience, how you work with others, and the results you’ve achieved?
- Do you have recommendations from people you have worked with?
- Does it look like every other unfinished profile or do you look like a leader in your field?
- Does it tell me how to work with you?
- If you were a potential employer, recruiter, or client, would you hire you?
Your LinkedIn profile is like another website for your business. Whilst you don’t own your LinkedIn profile (LinkedIn does), you are renting this valuable piece of real estate which you should be making the most of. Just like a house, you want to get the best sale price and return on investment for it. This is what your LinkedIn profile can do for you personally and for your business.
Score yourself
Take an objective look at your profile and give yourself a score out of 10 based on the above questions. Anything below an 8 means there is room for improvement and you are missing an opportunity to grow your brand.
It always amazing how many professionals neglect their profile then expect to gain work from it. The first place I go after a website is a person’s LinkedIn profile. It tells me straight away if I want to work with you. It doesn’t matter if you are a lawyer, account, recruiter, IT person, CEO, or tradesperson. If your profile looks neglected, I won’t be lining up to hire or work with you.
Tanya Williams is the pink-loving, sparkly Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations. She wears many hats; entrepreneur, best-selling author, digital trainer, outsourced digital manager with over 20 years’ marketing experience. She works with recruiters to provide simple marketing solutions, uncover the hidden gold in their existing assets and find ways to leverage every moment of your digital marketing without increasing your marketing budget. Her goal is to make you the hero in your industry sector. She has a simple, no-tech-talk approach and thrives working with established recruitment companies to tap into the opportunities they might miss, using practical & relevant tactics to drive business outcomes.