Your LinkedIn Profile: Resume with a Twist

Why should you be on LinkedIn.com? This site is the destination for you

• to ensure you have a professional online presence; 85% of employers say that a positive online presence influences their hiring decisions.
• to network with alumni and colleagues in careers of interest; 70% of jobs are found through networking. LinkedIn is the largest professional network with over 175 million members. And,
• to use as a tool in your job search. A 2012 Jobvite survey found that 93% of recruiters used LinkedIn as a tool for locating potential hires.

Like Facebook, to get started, you need to populate your Profile. Unlike Facebook, your LinkedIn Profile resembles your resume, with a twist. First, let’s talk about some of the typical parts of your resume to share in Linkedin, then we’ll talk about some twists in LinkedIn.

Your Resume and LinkedIn

For entry level positions, we recommend using an objective on your resume. In LinkedIn, this takes the form of a headline where you mention an area of study, and/or career ambitions. Who are you and what are you looking for? Your headline is the tagline for your personal brand. I really like this headline that was shared in a Forbes article on LinkedIn headlines: “Copywriter who knows how to craft web content that goes viral. Oh, and you’ll never beat me at Scrabble.” After reading the article, I revised my own headline!

In your Profile, also include typical categories of information you find on a resume: Education, Experience, Skills and Expertise, Honors and Awards. If you are just getting started with these, visit this site for more tips on what to include. If you already have a resume, you can upload your resume to start building your Profile.

The Twists

There are several items to add to your LinkedIn Profile that are not typical entry-level resume material:

Photo. No, you don’t want to use that picture of you cheering on the Hokies at the VT-Rutgers Bowl game that you used as your Facebook profile photo. A professional headshot is preferred for your LinkedIn Profile photo.

Summary. Write a summary that describes your skills and experiences.  Talk about skills you’ve gained in the classroom or from internships or soft skills gained from part-time jobs, like communication or time management. If you’ve written a cover letter, pull some of your text from that email for your summary. You can also use your elevator pitch as your summary. Don’t have one? Craft one here.

Recommendations. Although references are part of the job search, they are usually not listed in the resume, but in a separate document. However, in your LinkedIn Profile, you want to ask several people whom you would use as a reference to provide recommendations for you in LinkedIn. These could come from supervisors, professors, or advisors – people who can attest to your performance.

LinkedIn URL: As you are completing your Profile, make sure that you set up your LinkedIn URL as one recognizable with your name. After you create your URL, add this link to your email signature and to the contact information in your resume.

For more tips about getting started with LinkedIn, watch these videos. What questions do you have about your LinkedIn Profile? In our next post, we’ll share advice about networking using LinkedIn.