If you’ve never used an online networking site, LinkedIn can appear to be a little intimidating at first. Even if you are familiar with other social media sites, you’ll still want to take the time to learn how to navigate your way around LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform and one of the most influential social media networks.
With over 830 million members in more than 200 countries and territories, you’ll want to utilize this tool to market yourself as a business-of-one.
Members use the site to network or keep in touch with colleagues, co-workers, clients, friends, and family. But it can do so much more—build awareness of your brand, boost your profile, connect with professionals, find job opportunities, etc.
This training will help you:
Better understand how to navigate the LinkedIn platform
Learn how to search for specific topics on LinkedIn
Manage your personal profile and account settings
Identify ways to market yourself to your network
Join our CEO, J.T. O'Donnell, and Director of Training Development & Coaching, Christina Burgio, for this live event on Wednesday, August 31st at 12 pm ET.
CAN'T ATTEND LIVE? That's okay. You'll have access to the recording and the workbook after the session!
These days it’s not just your resume that’s reviewed for your credentials and experience. LinkedIn is now a critical part of your job search as the majority of employers will look for you there.
Your LinkedIn profile is also an important tool and an important part of your job search strategy. Your LinkedIn profile may be promoted on the signature of your email address, your website, your blog, and business cards. It should also be added to your resume as an additional resource employers can go to in order to scope out your experience, knowledge, skills, and connections.
6 Steps To Personalizing Your LinkedIn URL
One of the most important things you can do for job search success is personalize your LinkedIn URL. By default, when you set up your profile on LinkedIn, you are given a URL for your public profile that may look like this:
This URL above is a temporary LinkedIn ID. A temporary LinkedIn ID typically has /pub/ and numbers that follow it. Personalize your LinkedIn URL to something that is more memorable.
Changing your default public profile URL to a personalized one is simple and takes only a few clicks of a button.
Here are the easy steps you can take to personalize your LinkedIn URL:
Sign in to LinkedIn and click "View Profile."
Click the edit icon to edit your intro.
Scroll down to the contact info section. Click on "Edit contact info" and then click on your profile URL. You'll be redirected to the settings page where you can change your public profile.
Click the edit icon next to your public profile URL (under "Edit your custom URL").
In the text box, edit the last part of your public URL.
Click "Save."
You now have a personalized LinkedIn URL that can be used to further promote your experience, knowledge, and skills for job opportunities!
Your new personalized LinkedIn URL should be your name or some variant related to your profession or field of work. If you have a common name, then try to add something that defines you. In my case, there are a number of Don Goodmans so I use "don-goodman-job-expert."
Keep in mind when creating your personalized LinkedIn URL to make it something timeless. You know using your name is a safe bet and you likely won’t have to make changes to it in the future. While you are allowed to change your URL at any time, LinkedIn will not redirect anyone clicking on an old URL you have created previously.
Creating a personalized LinkedIn URL allows you to enhance your personal brand. It is particularly helpful to use on your resume. Resumes have limitations on the type and depth of information you can offer, so when you can include your LinkedIn URL, employers have the opportunity to learn much more about you through recommendations received, skills and expertise, endorsements, and other information that’s available on your LinkedIn profile!
Need more help optimizing your LinkedIn profile?
We'd love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you optimize your LinkedIn profile—the right way.
LinkedIn has made it very easy to upload your resume as a PDF to make it part of your LinkedIn profile. While it's tempting to do this rather than build a full profile from scratch, you should avoid it.
Your resume and LinkedIn profile should be treated as two separate resources for your job search. Sure they are very similar, and you should use your resume as a guide for your LinkedIn profile, but a slight separation of the two is important!
Here's why...
There Are Major Privacy Concerns
Your LinkedIn profile is fully (or at least semi-) public. Your contact information (address, phone number, email, etc.) are not necessarily public on your LinkedIn profile, but will become public if you upload your resume.
Even if you remove this private information from your resume before you upload it, by uploading your resume, you have made the resume itself public. You no longer have control. That means that anyone is free to view, copy, download, use, pirate, and distribute your resume—all without your knowledge or consent.
Whatever information you're given by LinkedIn about views of your profile and downloads of your resume is after the fact—after your resume has been downloaded and is in the possession of someone else.
It Makes Your Job Search Public
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Posting your resume on LinkedIn changes your job search from a private one to a public one. It practically screams, "I'm looking for a job!" While it helps your job search for the trusted people of your professional network to be quietly notified that you're looking for new opportunities, it does not help to announce it to the world.
Why? Because recruiters, employers, potential clients, and quality networkers are looking for top candidates. Top candidates are, by definition, people who are in demand. A top candidate, therefore, rarely "needs" a job, although he or she is open to opportunities. By publicly screaming, "I'm looking for a job!" you are simultaneously announcing that you are not a top candidate.
Your LinkedIn profile needs to showcase your value and appeal, not your (real or perceived) desperation.
It's Not The Best Way To Display Your Professional Skills
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Resumes work best when they are tailored to specific job openings or employers. Posting your resume online means you have given up the chance to best present your resume to any legitimate recruiters or employers who view it. And the substance of the resume should be worked into your LinkedIn profile anyway.
Remember: if your LinkedIn profile is compelling, then a legitimate recruiter or employer surfing through LinkedIn will contact you. And then you can decide whether to provide your (targeted) resume.
So, in conclusion, posting your resume online gives you additional risk, but no reward.
Struggling to write your resume or optimize your LinkedIn profile?
We'd love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you write your resume and optimize your LinkedIn profile—the right way.
It's time to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!
This article was originally published at an earlier date.
