Laid Off? Start optimizing your LinkedIn profile with these 5 steps

So many of us are being laid off these days. When I was laid off from Microsoft in October 2022 I went through the stages of grief, eventually coming out the other side with some renewed energy. So what was I to do?

I had coffee with J.D. Meier and he pointed out that he appears in thousands of searches a week on LinkedIn. My searches were in the tens every week. Why was I not being found by people? J.D. Meier introduced me to the world of Search Engine Optimization. But LinkedIn isn’t a search engine! Actually…

LinkedIn IS a search engine & you want to rise in the search results to be noticed.

Understanding LinkedIn SEO is an important aspect of optimizing your LinkedIn profile

So what did I do? I went to YouTube! So what YouTube videos were the best to explain LinkedIn SEO?

This one was awesome…

https://youtu.be/5XHfduW4ZWU

This covers the basics and a great place to start…

So what is the first thing you should do?

1. Identify what you want to be famous for. Find your niche…
2. Look are how you are currently being found. Are the keywords relevant to your niche? If not, your profile definitely needs to be optimized
3. Build a list of keywords you want to be found by
4. Update your profile with these keywords

What I want to be famous for vs. what I am famous for

My initial “niche” is Digital Transformation & I wanted to check if I was appearing in searches for my niche. Searching for Digital Transformation & restricting the results to Seattle or the Greater Seattle Area gives thousands of results, so this isn't really a niche, more mainstream. I have deep expertise also in Employee Experience, so using LinkedIn boolean search I used the query:

"Digital Transformation" AND "Employee Experience"

After limiting the location to Seattle AND Greater Seattle Area, I still couldn't find myself in the returned list of people. This was my baseline - I wasn't being found for what I want to be famous for... the next section shows how I was being found. Teaser - after I optimized my profile I was # 32 on the list of people! Still some way to go, but at least I was showing up. My target is to get into the top 10 results (the first page).

So this gives us Step 1: Define the search criteria you want to be found by

How are people finding you?

LinkedIn gives you quite detailed data about how people are finding you & what they’re looking for. When I started investigating LinkedIn from a search perspective this was how I was being found:

So this shows I’m clearly not being picked up by LinkedIn search for my niche and I needed to do something about it.

Which gives us - Step 2: Discover how people are currently searching for your profile

I brainstormed a list of keywords; you could also use free keyword generators which will give a view of how frequently people are searching for those keywords, but I just created my own list.

You can use LinkedIn to search the hashtag and see how many people are following it. It's not an accurate science, but it shows you which keywords you should prioritize

Which gives us - Step 3 - Brainstorm your keyword list

So I reviewed my LinkedIn profile and looked at how frequently Digital Transformation and Employee Experience were appearing & where they appeared. I realized I didn't have these keywords in highly visible places. I added the keywords into the profile & made sure I had them has high profile skills.

Which gives us - Step 4: Raise the visibility of your keywords in your profile

A week later, here’s the result:

So we can see searches for my profile are starting to reflect my skills, but not my niche.

This optimization has resulted in four hiring managers reaching out to me with great roles, so it’s working!

Which gives us - Step 5: Assess the impact

I’m working on more optimization of my profile, and I’ll update you on the impact it has had. My objective is to be found by the keywords I'm targeting & to move onto the top ten people in my geography.

In summary - take these steps:

1. Define the search criteria you want to be found by
2. Discover how people are currently searching for your profile
3. Brainstorm your keyword list
4. Raise the visibility of your keywords in your profile
5. Assess the impact

Read the follow-up article on boosting your profile.

February 2023