September 2018
When was the last time you really looked at your LinkedIn profile? Take a moment to schedule a 30-minute appointment with yourself in the next week, to take a look at your profile and note things that need to be revised. After that, schedule more time as needed, to follow up on your notes. If you are updating your résumé and LinkedIn profile simultaneously, double check the dates of jobs and education to make sure the data on both is correct and matches (you don’t ever want information on your profile and résumé to contradict each other). In terms of updating your profile, I would ask you these questions:
- Have you started a new job and if so, is it included?
- Has your title changed in your current role?
- Did you earn any new credentials recently?
- Did you start a new volunteer position?
- Have you received any awards for your work or volunteerism?
- Have you added any visual media to your profile?
- When did you last update your headline?
Maybe there are some areas of your profile that need to be re-considered?
- Did you ever complete a Summary?
- Are you missing a profile picture?
- Did you fill in the Skills section with appropriate keywords (or did LinkedIn fill it in for you)?
Here are some additional tips to develop your profile, referencing archived MTS issues:
- Have you added any symbols to your LinkedIn profile to jazz it up?
- Do you have a background image behind your profile picture?
- Why not ask someone to recommend you on LinkedIn?
Speaking of résumé development and LinkedIn, you need to know about a change since Microsoft bought LinkedIn. In Microsoft Word, there is now a feature called Résumé Assistant, which allows Word users to fill in a résumé template by “borrowing” actual content from public LinkedIn profiles. Annoyingly, when LinkedIn added this setting to all users, it set the default as “Yes.” I suggest you go into your Settings & Privacy and select “No” for giving Word access to your profile for Résumé Assistant. Donna Svei gives you all the details you need to know (in text and video) to stop this from affecting your profile content.
