Building a Powerful LinkedIn in Ten Steps

Building a Powerful LinkedIn in Ten Steps

In the ninth week of my course in Social Media Marketing & Networking (good read before moving forward) at UC Berkeley, I highlight the importance of building and maintaining an effective LinkedIn for recruiting and personal branding. The deck for this lecture has been uploaded on SlideShare and shared below.

Unlike previous lectures, this particular class had a high demand from students outside of the course. The volume of interest increased the normal classroom size from 40 to 150 students–a huge testament that networking is alive and thriving.

LinkedIn Development Slide Deck

Importance of Personal Branding and LinkedIn

Many confuse LinkedIn as an extension of a resume. Instead, I prefer to leverage LinkedIn as my personal branding online. A resume is very targeted–you know who will be looking at it. Your LinkedIn represents your online presence. Anyone anywhere at any time can view your LinkedIn. Because of this, it is important to strategically curate your online presence by building an effective LinkedIn and managing it regularly.

Beginner Steps

Header Information

1. Profile Photo: Keep it clear and within context. What is 'within context'? Interested in working at a start-up or tech company? A casual photo will suffice. Interested in finance, consulting or banking? A professional photo may be more ideal. Having a profile photo is the first step to a successful LinkedIn profile.

2. Headline: This is your tagline. It should answer the three Ws: Who and Where, and sometimes What. As you gain more work experience, you can be more creative with your headline as long as it best fits your personal branding.

• Who you are: current role, undergraduate, graduate student
• Where you are: current university or company
• What: your interest in a particular industry or field

Samples: "Second Year Undergraduate | UC Berkeley," "UC Berkeley Grad Looking for Opportunities in Sales," "UC Berkeley Student Passionate About Marketing," "Software Engineer at Twitter."

3. Education: College is expensive, so market your university! Your education will help you identify common ground with alumni and fellow students who may someday become potential referrals or business partners.

Students: listing your expected graduation year will help recruiters and hiring managers identify whether you are qualified for internship or full-time opportunities.

4. Branded Link: Secure your branded LinkedIn profile link. For those unfamiliar, a branded link is the unique URL link related to your profile, i.e. https://linkedin.com/in/taictran. This will make it easier to share your LinkedIn with others. Keep the name consistent with your other social networks, i.e. /taictran.

Intermediate Steps

Summary

5. Summary: This is your elevator pitch. This is where you sell yourself to potential recruiters and hiring managers who may wander upon your profile. It should answer three things:

• (1) Background: What school are you attending? Class level? Career Interests? For professionals, where are you currently working at?
• (2) Present and Future Plans: What are you doing this quarter/semester/year? What are your future plans?
• (3) Call to Action: Invite potential recruiters, hiring managers, and those with common interests to reach out to you for potential work and networking opportunities.
• Bonus: Include your contacts for ease of communication. Active on other social networks? Include those too as long as they are professional.

6. Work Experience: Keep your work experience consistent in terms of formatting. A short summary tends to be better than bullet points. Remember that LinkedIn should NOT be your resume #2. Hook your audience in with a concise and captivating summary of your role and impact.

Always leverage visuals! Ensure that your company is on LinkedIn so that your work experience will be populated with an eye-catching logo.

7. Volunteer Activities & Causes: Many hiring mangers value volunteer activities as equally as work experience. Volunteer activities can showcase your character and leadership values. Never be afraid to highlight your volunteer work. Remember that the goal of LinkedIn is bridge common interests into powerful connections, which can also come from volunteer work.

Advanced Steps

Embedded Media

8. Recommendations: Letter of references are a thing of the past. Rarely will employers ask for letter of references from potential intern or recent graduate candidates. Having a list of LinkedIn recommendations ready for review will increase your credibility. LinkedIn recommendations serve as testimonials for your character, work ethics, and impact.

Never by shy to ask for recommendations. Your supervisors and colleagues are your mentors, and they want you to be successful! Finishing up a job or internship? Always ask for a LinkedIn recommendation. They are short, yet very potent. LinkedIn recommendations alone helped me land three of my internship offers last year.

9. Skills & Endorsements: You can list up to 50 skills! Don't ignore this tab as it serves as one of the ways for you to rank higher in LinkedIn searches. Optimize skills that are most relevant to your field and work experience. The earlier you start your LinkedIn, the more endorsements you will get along the way.

Many employers treat endorsements as arbitrary numbers–and yes, this is true. However, if your number of endorsements can be backed up by your work experience, recommendations, and past projects, your LinkedIn will become even more credible.

10. Embedded Media: Again, LinkedIn should not be treated as a resume. Unlike your resume, LinkedIn allows you to add rich media to your diverse experience.

Co-founder of a start-up? Why not upload the PDF or slide deck of your pitch to investors and website to your company? Working as a marketing intern? Perhaps include a link to the social media profiles that you manage and a PDF of past marketing campaigns.

Visuals and rich media rule. Short and sweet: embedded media allows those interested about you to explore more about you.

Parting Thoughts

LinkedIn is about finding a common ground with others and bridging these common interests into meaningful connections. Networking does not happen overnight, thus start cultivating and nourishing your personal branding today.

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Tai is currently a business undergraduate at UC Berkeley. He is ready to disrupt the tech industry with his infectious passion and energy for marketing! Learn more about his marketing and networking course at the Haas School of Business.

Reach out via email: [email protected].
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Image source: https://bit.ly/4BK03Z.