Should I add my resume to my LinkedIn profile?

Quick Answer

Yes, it is recommended to add your resume to your LinkedIn profile. Doing so allows you to showcase your full work history, skills, and accomplishments to recruiters and hiring managers who view your profile. Your resume provides more depth and detail than your LinkedIn profile alone. Including your resume helps position you as a qualified candidate for job opportunities through LinkedIn.

Should You Include Your Resume on LinkedIn?

Here are some of the key benefits of adding your resume to your LinkedIn profile:

• Increases visibility – Adding your resume makes it viewable to recruiters and hiring managers who look at your profile. This gives them immediate access to all your relevant experience and qualifications.
• Saves recruiters time – Recruiters can quickly scan your full resume rather than having to dig through your profile for your skills and work history. This makes their job easier.
• Presents a complete picture – Your resume provides more comprehensive details about your background than your profile summary and work history sections. This gives viewers a fuller understanding of your fit for a role.
• Reinforces your professional brand – Including your resume enables you to reinforce the key messages about your background that you want to convey to potential employers.
• Populates your profile – Uploading your resume will automatically populate parts of your LinkedIn profile, like your skills section. This helps complete your profile.

How Do You Add a Resume to LinkedIn?

Adding your resume to your LinkedIn profile only takes a few simple steps:

1. Click on the ‘View profile’ button at the top of your homepage. This will take you to your public profile page.
2. Find the ‘Featured’ section on your profile page and click on the pencil ‘Edit featured’ icon.
3. Click on the + icon to add a new featured item.
4. Select ‘Media’ from the dropdown menu.
5. Give your resume a title like “Resume” or “John Smith Resume”.
6. Upload your resume as a PDF, Word doc, or text file from your computer.
7. The resume will now be listed under ‘Featured’ on your profile page for visitors to download.

It only takes about a minute to go through these steps and add your resume. LinkedIn currently allows you to feature up to 15 pieces of media.

Tips for Your LinkedIn Resume

Here are some tips to optimize your resume for LinkedIn:

• Keep it concise – Your full-length 2-3 page resume is great, but also consider a 1 page version that highlights your best qualifications.
• Include relevant keywords – Incorporate keywords from the job postings you are targeting to help your resume come up in searches.
• Tailor it if needed – Tweak your resume to fit the specific roles you are applying to on LinkedIn.
• Update it regularly – Keep your resume updated on LinkedIn so it accurately reflects your experience.
• Use LinkedIn profile data – Leverage all sections of your profile like skills, volunteering, courses and certifications.

Should Your Resume Match Your LinkedIn Profile?

Yes, it’s important that the experience, skills, and education on your resume match up with what you have on your LinkedIn profile. Recruiters will likely compare the two documents when evaluating you as a candidate.

Any major inconsistencies between your resume and LinkedIn profile could raise concerns for employers. For example, listing different job titles or conflicting dates of employment could come across as inaccurate or dishonest.

To keep your documents in sync:

• Use the same job titles and companies on both.
• Keep employment dates consistent across both.
• Ensure listed qualifications and certifications match.
• Use identical contact information on both your resume and LinkedIn.
• Ask someone to proofread both to catch any discrepancies.

Keeping your resume and LinkedIn aligned reinforces your personal brand and credibility as a candidate.

Should I Customize My Resume for Each LinkedIn Job Posting?

Yes, it’s a good idea to tailor your resume to fit each job you apply to through LinkedIn. Customizing your resume helps you match your skills and qualifications more closely to each role.

Here are some tips to tweak your resume for each opportunity:

• Read the job description carefully and highlight key requirements.
• Include keywords and phrases from the posting in your resume.
• Prioritize or expand on experience that fits with the role.
• Move less relevant experience lower on the resume or remove it.
• List skills and certifications that align with the position.
• Quantify accomplishments that match the company’s needs.

Taking a few minutes to tailor your resume to each job demonstrates your qualifications and fit for the specific position. This customization can give you a competitive edge over other generic applicants.

What Sections Should You Include on Your LinkedIn Resume?

Your LinkedIn resume should aim to concisely showcase your qualifications aligned to the position you are seeking. Recommended sections to include are:

• Professional Summary – A short overview highlighting your background that fits the job description.
• Skills – Key technical skills and soft skills relevant to the role.
• Work Experience – Relevant work history with achievements and responsibilities highlighted.
• Education – Degrees, certifications and training.
• Honors & Awards – Special recognitions that add credibility.
• Volunteer Work – Unpaid work that showcases additional skills.

For a one page resume, focus on your most recent and applicable roles. Avoid going over one page if possible.

Should I Include My Entire Work History on My LinkedIn Resume?

Not necessarily – the resume you feature on LinkedIn should be tailored specifically for each role you’re applying for. This means you likely don’t need your full work history from the past 10-15 years.

Here are some tips on work history for your LinkedIn resume:

• Lead with your most relevant, recent experience first.
• Include at least 10-15 years of work history if you have it.
• Prioritize roles that demonstrate skills for the job posting.
• Briefly summarize additional older positions in one line.
• Consider leaving off roles that are not relevant to the position.
• Don’t go over two pages in length.

The hiring manager looking at your LinkedIn resume wants to quickly see your qualifications for that specific job. Keeping your work history concise and tailored will make their job easier.

How to Handle Job Gaps on Your LinkedIn Resume

If you have gaps between jobs on your resume, you have a few options to handle them positively:

• Keep it brief – List just the years for jobs without details on gaps.
• Include consulting or freelance work to cover gaps.
• List relevant volunteer work or courses during gaps.
• Use a functional or hybrid resume to de-emphasize gaps.
• Briefly explain gaps if relevant, like medical leave or family reasons.
• Focus on your qualifications first before listing your full work history with gaps.

The key is not to hide significant gaps, but rather to emphasize your value proposition up front on your resume before listing your career progression and any gaps. With the right strategy, you can minimize concerns about gaps.

What About My Resume’s Format and Design?

Stick to a standard resume format that LinkedIn ATS systems can easily scan and digest. Avoid creative layouts or designs. Recommended formats include:

• Reverse chronological – Most common. Lists experience from present to past.
• Functional or Skills-based – Focuses on applicable skills and downplays work history.
• Combination or Hybrid – Mix of both chronological and functional elements.

Other resume design tips:

• Use clean, standard fonts like Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman.
• Avoid bright colors. Use black or dark blue font.
• Use plenty of white space for easy scanning.
• Be consistent with your use of italics, bold, caps, and indentations.
• Include (but don’t overuse) resume headers and bullet points.

A clean, scannable resume format ensures recruiters can easily grasp your background on LinkedIn.

How Long Should My LinkedIn Resume Be?

As a best practice, your LinkedIn resume should be:

• One page if you have less than 10 years of experience
• Two pages once you have over 10 years of experience

Any longer than two pages and a recruiter’s eyes are likely to glaze over.

To keep your resume concise:

• Lead with your most relevant qualifications and experience first
• Use brief one line descriptions for lesser roles
• Exclude sections like ‘Hobbies’ that aren’t directly applicable
• Use bullets rather than paragraphs
• Narrow down your skills and certifications to the most relevant
• Adjust margins, font size, and white space

A tighter one page resume is easier for recruiters to digest quickly. But don’t sacrifice important details – let your resume length reflect your level of experience.

Should I List My Education or Certificates on My LinkedIn Resume?

Yes, including your education and certifications can strengthen your LinkedIn resume, especially earlier in your career.

For education, list degrees earned, institutions, and graduation year. Add academic honors, scholarships, or study abroad programs if relevant.

For professional certificates, list the certificate name, granting organization, and year completed. Include only certificates applicable to the target role.

Some tips for listing education and certifications:

• Lead with degrees and certs related to the position.
• Once you have extensive experience, move these sections lower on the resume.
• Only list completed certifications – don’t include ones in progress.
• Choose certifications recognizable to hiring managers in your industry.

Education and certifications serve as proof points of your knowledge. Just be judicious in selecting the most high-impact credentials to keep your resume concise.

How to Optimize Keywords in Your LinkedIn Resume

Optimizing your resume with relevant keywords helps ensure your resume surfaces in LinkedIn searches. Follow these tips:

• Research keywords – Review job postings for common skills, software, certifications etc. Pinpoint terms that regularly pop up.
• Organically incorporate keywords – Don’t just copy/paste terms. Naturally work them into your resume points.
• Include keywords in special sections – Highlight keywords in your Professional Summary, Skills and Certifications sections.
• Don’t overdo it – Avoid awkwardly repeating the same keywords as this can get flagged as spam.
• Run your resume through LinkedIn’s Resume Assistant tool for keyword optimization tips.

Strategic use of keywords helps your resume score high on relevancy for recruiters and hiring managers searching on LinkedIn.

How to Track Your LinkedIn Resume Performance

LinkedIn provides analytics so you can see how well your resume is performing:

• Visit your LinkedIn profile and find the Resume section under ‘Featured’.
• Click on the gear icon to access resume analytics.
• This will show total views and downloads of your resume to date.
• You can refresh to track how those numbers increase over time.

Strong resume numbers indicate your profile is getting viewed by potential employers. Weak numbers may mean you need to spice up your profile or resume to generate more interest.

Should I List My LinkedIn Profile Link on My Resume?

Yes, including your LinkedIn profile link on your resume is recommended. This gives hiring managers an easy way to view and vet your background.

Tips for adding LinkedIn to your resume:

• List it near the top under your contact info so it’s readily visible.
• Use this format: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yourlinkedinhandle
• Only include your customized professional URL, not the generic LinkedIn homepage.
• Double check your profile is up-to-date before sharing the link.

Your LinkedIn presence boosts your professional image. Make it easy for recruiters to find and review your full profile.

Conclusion

Adding your resume to LinkedIn is a simple yet powerful way to enhance your candidacy and open up more job opportunities. By featuring your full resume, you present a comprehensive picture of your qualifications and experience to recruiters and hiring managers.

Be sure to tailor your resume to each position and incorporate optimization strategies like targeted keywords. Keep your resume and LinkedIn work history consistent and let your profile link drive traffic. Integrating your resume gives your LinkedIn profile a performance boost to help advance your career.