Topic: Update Your LinkedIn Profile

Update your LinkedIn profile. Now in the extras for this episode on Umbrex.com, we have a guide that you could download with a detailed recommendation for each section of your LinkedIn profile. I’ll give just a few of the top tips here and you may want to download that guide and go through it.

So for your headline section on LinkedIn, avoid just saying the title. If you’re Will Bachman and you’ve set up the Bachman group, don’t say, “Managing Partner of the Bachman group,” because that doesn’t tell people anything.

It’d be much better to use a version of your fishing line in there to capture people’s attention. What type of clients do you serve? And, what sort of problems do you work on? Capture that in your headline… your profession, your photograph. 

Get a professional photograph, not a picture of you in a tuxedo at your wedding, not a picture of you and your kid, not a picture of you out hiking. Get a professional photograph with a clear background that shows your face. People want to see that. It’s like a suit these days. It’s the first thing that people see and it’s what creates their impression of you. So invest in your photograph. 

Next is your, “About” section. Avoid the one or two-line, about a, section. That is a real waste of valuable real estate. It’s the first thing that someone sees when they’re looking at your profile. So make it a narrative, make it something that’s actually interesting, worth reading, that tells a story about you and draws people in.

And remember, someone’s only gonna see the first three lines of that About section, unless they click, see more. So make those first three lines something that is going to draw the reader in. In that About section, avoid having a laundry list of 20 different functional areas where you’ve expertise in. Because when I see a big, long list like that, it makes me think the person isn’t expert at any of them. Make sure that you’ve updated all of your experience sections and that the top experience section is what you’re doing now.

So if you’ve given a name to your firm, make sure that you’ve added experience, that you’re currently managing partner or the president at the name of your firm and then describe in that description section of the firm … what services you provide, what sort of projects you do. 

Make sure you’ve closed out old jobs. If you’ve left the job as director of strategy or VP of strategy, make sure you put an end date on there. Some people are lazy and fail to close those out.

Take advantage of the opportunity to add multimedia and add attachments to both the About section, as well as the Experience sections. 

If you’ve been on a podcast as a guest, or if you have a PowerPoint or a PDF that you’ve done, a white paper,  you can attach those and it adds extra credibility to those sections. 

Make sure that your experience sections are updated and if you got aPhD or a Master’s in engineering, don’t just say PhD in engineering. Tell what your thesis was about. Give some description.

For your bachelor’s degree, talk about what you studied and what sort of extracurriculars, your activities, what sort of leadership roles that you held. 

Then another tip is start posting periodically on LinkedIn to show your credibility on topics. If someone sees your profile and there’s no activity at all, then they think maybe you’re not that active professionally. But if you post periodically, it’ll show people what you’re interested in.

For more details on your LinkedIn profile, download the guide. It has more information on each section of what we think best practice is.