How To Create A LinkedIn Profile That Can Get You A Job In Tech

A few weeks ago, we welcomed Jake Hirsch-Allen to host a LinkedIn workshop for our Career Accelerator community. Jake is a co-founder and partner at Lighthouse Labs, as well as the North America Workforce Development and Higher Ed System Lead at LinkedIn.

Below are eight steps Jake outlined in the webinar to create a great LinkedIn profile that stands out from the crowd.

1. “The photo is by far the most important part”

Your photo is usually the first thing that someone sees when they visit your profile. Make sure your face is visible, the background is not too busy and your photo is clear and professional.

2. Categorize Your Industry

This is a small change that makes a BIG difference, and often goes unnoticed. Jake revealed that this category affects all other search terms in your profile. Members with industry information receive up to 9x more profile views and more than 300,000 people search industry on LinkedIn every week.

3. Draft a Complete Summary

Let’s face it, writing a summary about yourself is hard. It takes self-reflection, time, and creativity. Too often, summaries are left incomplete.

However, if you are looking for your next role– Jake stressed the importance of having a complete LinkedIn summary, explaining that Linkedin uses natural language processing to pull words out of your summary. Therefore, it's important to write a relatively long summary, including all of the keywords that you want other individuals to search in order to find you.

To take your summary to the next level – make it crisp, concise and use language that suits your industry.

4. Detail Your Work Experience

If you have a LinkedIn profile, you’ve likely added a few of your work experiences. But, it shouldn't stop there.

Take it a step further to describe what you actually did in each of your roles. Why is this important? The numbers speak for themselves–members with up to date profiles receive up to 5x more connection requests, 8x more profile views and 10x more messages (aka music to a job-seekers' ears).

5. Add Examples of Your Work

Did you know that you can upload photos, presentations and videos to your work experience section?

Take advantage of this feature to show off your work and encourage people to spend more time on your profile. With this added dimension, you can turn your LinkedIn into an e-portfolio.

7. Add Volunteer Experience

Your LinkedIn profile is how you tell your story. If you have gaps in your employment history, use volunteer experience to fill those gaps. Jake said “if you were running a family of five, for example, you probably mastered project management better than most people. Put that on your profile and you’ll also generate empathy from those who have been in similar circumstances.”

Jake reminded us that just because you were focusing your time and energy on an experience that was not traditional work experience, does not mean you were not learning a ton of skills. Plus, members who add volunteer experience get up to 6x more profile views than those without.

8. Add Skills and Get Endorsed

Did you know that members who add five or more skills receive up to 17x more profile views? Use the skills section to reflect on what skills you have developed in your career so far.

If you are considering pivoring into a different industry, focus on transferable skills.

9. Request Recommendations

One of the best ways to gain credibility is through recommendations. Reach out to past employers or past colleagues to write you a recommendation. Others will evaluate your credibility based on the recommendations you receive.

That's it! Follow these eight steps to begin building a great LinkedIn profile.

If you want to take your profile to the next level, and hear about tools you didn’t even know existed, find the instant replay of our webinar with Jake by filling out the form below.