Make Your LinkedIn Experience Section More Engaging

I challenge you to make your LinkedIn experience section more engaging. Too often, this section is simply a rehash of your professional resume. Make it more like a resume on steroids!

Remember that you have up to 100 characters for each position title and nearly 2,000 characters for each position description.

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Here Are Six Ways to Make Your LinkedIn Experience Section More Engaging

• Expand on your current position titles. Typically, people use the exact language from their resume when creating a position title. Instead, you should add words or phrases that more descriptively depict what you do (or did) in that position.
• Associate relevant skills with at least your current and recent positions. The easiest way to do this is to scroll down to the Skills section. Click on the pencil to the right of the word Skills. Then click on the pencil to the right of the skills you want to associate with one or more positions in the experience section. Check the box to the left of the positions with which you want to associate that skill.
• Add one or two testimonials to current and recent position descriptions. Add excerpts of your best recommendations to the end of a position description. Doing so is a great way to show how much your clients and others appreciate you. Additionally, you are giving them some great PR by including them in this part of your profile. You can also include a testimonial from someone in this section, even if the two of you aren’t connected on LinkedIn. Consider adding one or two of your Google Reviews to your position description with snippets from your recommendations.
• Include media at the end of the position listing. When you click on “add media” toward the bottom of your position, you can select “add a link” or “add media.” Click on “add a link” to add a link. Ideally, there would be a visual that is associated with this link. Click on “add media” to add a photo, document (e.g., a PDF), or a PowerPoint. Having media in your positions makes your experience section more visually engaging.?
• List your leadership roles in volunteer organizations as positions in the experience section. Doing so has many benefits. You give more visibility to the organization than if you only listed it in the volunteering section. You can showcase skills and accomplishments you may not have done in a paid capacity. People familiar with your work in these roles can write you a LinkedIn recommendation for what you did.
• Business owners, create separate positions for each of your business offerings. Having more than one position allows you to elaborate a bit more on each of them. In addition, for each position you list, you can add more testimonials and more media.

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How Far Back Should You Go in Your Experience Section?

Since most of my clients are 50 and older, I often get this question. Job seekers, in particular, are concerned about age discrimination. Also, the general rule of thumb for a job seeker’s resume is only to go back about 10-15 years. This same rule applies to their experience section of LinkedIn.

My answer to the question “How far back should you go in your experience section?” is, “It depends.” You may choose to have your experience section mirror your resume and limit yourself to that time frame.

However, if you held a position (paid or volunteer) more than 15 years ago that relates directly to the job you are seeking, consider adding it to your experience section. Doing that provides more key words and context for why you are pursuing that type of job.

In my opinion, business owners have more latitude regarding how far back to list positions in this section.

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I help people, especially those age 55 and up, to become more effective using social media, especially LinkedIn and Facebook. I work with business owners, business development professionals, business consultants, job seekers, and more. Learn more at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.

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