Creating a LinkedIn profile that opens doors

Give your elevator pitch

The ‘About’ section is where you give your professional summary, highlight your accomplishments and aspirations, and show what makes you unique. Keep it short and sweet. No need to list all your career accomplishments, that’s what the Experience section is for. Adding a summary of 40 words or more makes your profile more likely to appear in a future employer’s search.

Help others connect with you

Adding your industry is really important as it helps others find you and add you to their professional network. It can also give you up to 9X more profile views. In fact, members with industry information are discovered up to 38X more in recruiter searches. It’s simple, click the pencil at the top of your profile where your name is and scroll down to edit or add your industry.

Put a voice to your name

Did you know that you can record your name and add it to your LinkedIn profile? This tells people how you like to be addressed and the correct pronunciation of your name. Keep it under 10 seconds and try to limit the background noise. We've put together these few simple steps to recording your name.

Lead with featured content

The ‘featured’ section lets you showcase the work you’re most proud of right at the top of your profile. You can link to articles or posts you’ve written, or simply share content that’s meaningful to you. Whatever content you feature, make sure it’s professionally relevant and helps to bring your story to life.

Get recommended by your peers

Recommendations from colleagues, managers, or partners are a great way to build your professional credibility. Here are three tips to requesting a recommendations:

1. Keep it customised and make sure you let the person know what you’d like to be recommended for (a project, an initiative you led, etc).
2. Make it easy for them and write and send a first pass (especially if you’re requesting from a senior leader or executive). This helps save them time and they can edit as they see fit, or approve right away.
3. Choose close contacts as they’ll be more likely to provide specific examples of your strengths, skills, and experience.