If you’re like most people, you haven’t given much thought to your LinkedIn profile. Here’s the highest bang for your buck improvement you can make in 2 minutes or less…
I’ve written a fair amount about how to improve your LinkedIn profile (Your LinkedIn Profile: What your employer doesn’t want you to know ; Keys to a Great LinkedIn Profile (Part 1)). Today I’m going to focus on the one thing you can do to have the greatest impact in the least amount of time.
Here it is…
Modify your title line. By title line, I’m referring to the line of text that goes below your name.
The natural tendency most people have is to put their current job title here. To give you a sense of why you shouldn’t do this, here are some actual titles from LinkedIn:
- Vice president
- Senior Project Executive
- STG Cross Brand Specialist
- Senior Portfolio Manager
- Director of Sales Eminence
- Ecosystem Development Lead
The problem with these titles is that unless you happen to work in the same company as these folks, all you can do is guess at what these people do.
Imagine for a second that you are looking to hire someone for a role. You run a search using LinkedIn and the titles above come up in the results. How do you know what these people can do for your business?
What you want to do is give people a sense of what you can do for them. Said differently, if there are 3-4 keywords that people should know you for, what are they? This is what should be in the title line.
There are 4 reasons you should create a keyword title rather than use your current job title:
- You are more likely to show up in search results within LinkedIn (i.e. more likely to be found by recruiters)
- You are more likely to show up in LinkedIn’s “Top 25” listings for your area
- You are more likely to get clicked on by someone who sees your profile in their search results
- You can provide a better sense of your overall capabilities
So, how do you change your title?
Click on the profile tab on the top left and select edit profile:
Then click on the edit button on the right of the title.
Then simply provide 3-4 keywords that people should find you for, separating them with a | symbol (usually above the return key on your computer).
If you have a website, including it in the title can be helpful as well. Note how I have done this in the examples above.
This whole process should take you only a minute or two, and the result is a LinkedIn profile that is far more likely to be found.
If you have questions about your LinkedIn profile, please email me at [email protected].
