Having an impactful LinkedIn profile is crucial for job seekers and professionals looking to advance their careers. With over 722 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform and an important tool for establishing your personal brand. Personalizing your LinkedIn profile to showcase your skills, experience, and personality can help you stand out from the crowd and connect with potential employers and business partners.
Summary
Your LinkedIn summary section, located just below your name on your profile, is valuable real estate for customization. Use this space to briefly summarize who you are professionally, your current role and industry, top skills and areas of expertise, professional background, future goals, and what makes you unique. Share details that capture the essence of your personal brand and make you memorable. Limit your summary to 2-3 paragraphs for optimal readability.
Experience
In your experience section, elaborately describe your employment history, key accomplishments, and responsibilities at each company you worked for. Go beyond just listing job titles and duties. Use metrics, data, and examples to demonstrate the impact you made. For instance, rather than simply writing “Managed a sales team” you could say “Managed a 10-person sales team and exceeded annual quotas by 20% in 2020.” Pepper in keywords that apply to roles you want to be considered for next. This helps you get found in recruiter searches.
Skills
The skills section lets you showcase expertise in up to 50 areas. Carefully choose which skills to include based on ones that align with your target roles and are backed up by your experience. Mix hard skills like programming languages and equipment you can operate with soft skills like communication, teamwork, and time management. Your skills will populate LinkedIn’s Skills Assessment feature, which lets connections endorse you and shows percentages to visually communicate your proficiency level in each skill.
Education
Just listing the schools you attended doesn’t properly highlight your educational background’s significance. Expand on your major field(s) of study, thesis topics, key projects completed, academic accomplishments like scholarships and honors, study abroad experiences, and involvement in student organizations and athletics. Sharing these details spotlights meaningful moments that shaped your early development and makes your academic journey come to life.
Custom URL
Claim a unique LinkedIn URL using your name to make your profile more memorable and discoverable. For example, transform your default URL from something random like linkedin.com/in/james-smith-28850072 to something cleaner like linkedin.com/in/jamessmith. Do this by going to your profile, clicking “Edit public profile & URL” on desktop or “Edit profile” on mobile, and entering a new custom URL.
Profile Photo
Pick a professional headshot where you’re well-dressed, smiling, and facing the camera directly for your profile photo. Steer clear of casual snapshots, group photos, or pictures cropped too far away. Your photo will be one of the first things people notice on your profile, so putting thought into how you present yourself visually makes an impact. Have a few options photographed and choose the one that best represents you.
Background Photo
Your background photo appears at the top of your profile page and is a nice visual touch you can customize to reinforce your personal brand. Consider using a photo that captures your personality, connects to your industry, depicts an interest or hobby, or ties to your location. Just ensure the image looks professional and refined. You can also opt for LinkedIn’s preset background options if you prefer.
Awards
Spotlight professional awards, honors, scholarships, fellowships, and grants you’ve received throughout your career. List the name of the award, organization that granted it, and date received. If applicable, briefly explain the meaning, significance, or reason for the recognition. Adding awards demonstrates third-party endorsement of your work and achievements.
Certifications
Certifications like project management (PMP), IT (CompTIA), and human resources (PHR) professional credentials carry weight and signify your specialized expertise. List any relevant certifications and when they were obtained or need to be renewed. You can even upload digital copies of your actual certificates as supporting documentation.
Courses
Online courses you’ve taken to build skills, even informally via platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, edX, and Coursera, deserve a spot on your profile. This illustrates your commitment to continuous learning and expanding your knowledge base. Include the course name, online host site, skills covered, and completion date.
Volunteer Experience
Like professional experience, provide details on your volunteer leadership roles, causes supported, skills applied, accomplishments, and measurable impact. Discussing this community involvement fleshes out who you are as a person. Stick to affiliations and unpaid work relevent to your target career path and employer values.
Organizations
Active participation in professional associations, honor societies, young professional groups, alumni networks, and other organizations shows engagement in your field. Mention any leadership roles, committee assignments, or speaking engagements you’ve taken on. This highlights that you’re professionally-minded and a contributor.
Languages
List foreign languages you’re fluent or proficient in, along with your skill level like native, bilingual, fluent, proficient, intermediate, or beginner. Language skills, especially less common ones, can make you an asset to global companies and multinational teams. Don’t exaggerate your abilities though, as you may be asked to demonstrate them.
Recommendations
Ask managers, colleagues, professors, or collaborators who can speak positively of your work to write you a recommendation. 3-5 recommendations look solid and carry more credibility than having just 1 or 2. Customized recommendations that give specific examples of your contributions strengthen your profile much more than generic, boilerplate praise.
Projects
Showcase important projects and presentations you led or participated in, especially if published, research-based, award-winning, or highly visible in your industry. Provide an overview of the project’s purpose, your role and responsibilities, skills leveraged, and impact of the end results. These details make projects more compelling than just listing the name.
Publications
Highlight publications you authored or co-authored, which could include books, research papers, articles, white papers, or blogs. Include the title, publisher, publication date, and a brief summary. Publications demonstrate your subject matter expertise and ability to reach audiences through your writing.
Patents
If you hold any patents, list the patent name, number, date awarded, and your role in the invention process, whether creator or contributor. Patents tangibly underscore your creativity and innovation within your field.
Causes
The causes feature lets you share social causes and nonprofit organizations important to you. This gives additional insight into your values and passions beyond work. Stick to mainstream issues like education, environment, human rights, economic empowerment, and health to avoid controversy.
Interests
Pepper in some hobbies or interests outside of work to add a well-rounded element to your profile. Outdoor activities, sports, travel destinations, and cultural interests are safe bets. Just keep your interests professional rather than too personal.
Media
Upload examples of your work like design portfolio samples, presentations, videos of you speaking, or publications you authored. This provides tangible evidence of your skills and abilities beyond just listing them. It also adds visual diversity to your profile.
| Section | Customization Tips |
|---|---|
| Summary | Concisely summarize your professional background, skills, accomplishments, and goals |
| Experience | Elaborately describe your roles, responsibilities, and achievements |
| Skills | List hard and soft skills relevant to target roles |
| Education | Spotlight academic projects, accomplishments, and extracurriculars |
| Custom URL | Change your profile link to a clean, professional URL |
| Profile Photo | Use a high-quality professional headshot of yourself |
| Background Photo | Pick an image that aligns with your brand and industry |
| Awards | Showcase professional awards and honors received |
| Certifications | List any professional credentials obtained |
| Courses | Include formal and informal online courses completed |
| Volunteer Experience | Share volunteer leadership roles and community impact |
| Organizations | Highlight memberships and leadership in professional associations |
| Languages | List foreign languages you speak, along with proficiency level |
| Recommendations | Get positive endorsements from managers, colleagues, professors etc. |
| Projects | Provide overview, responsibilities, and results for major projects |
| Publications | List books, articles, papers, blogs you authored or co-authored |
| Patents | Showcase patents you secured |
| Causes | Share social causes and nonprofits you care about |
| Interests | Mention professional hobbies and interests |
| Media | Upload work samples like presentations, publications, videos |
About Section
The about section comes below your professional experience and is another prime area to get personal. Share details on your personal story and background that shaped who you are. You can cover topics like where you grew up, your family, your educational journey, what motivates you, fun facts and hobbies, life philosophy and values, charitable involvement, and bucket list ambitions. This gives the reader a more well-rounded understanding of you as an individual beyond just your career.
Featured Section
The featured section lets you highlight achievements, projects, publications, content, and media you’re most proud of at the very top of your profile. Curate 6-9 eye-catching featured items that quickly capture a viewer’s attention and make them want to keep scrolling to learn more about you. Rotate your featured section periodically to keep your content fresh and engaging.
Contact Info
Ensure your contact information is listed and up-to-date so opportunities can reach you. At minimum, include your current position title and company, location city and region, phone number, and professional email address. You can also share your website URL, Twitter handle, or other social media profiles to enable contact across multiple platforms.
Headline
Your profile headline appears right below your name and photo and should quickly communicate who you are and what you do. Use keywords relevant to your target industry and roles. For example: “Product Marketing Manager | User Research | Agile Methodologies.” Keep it concise within 120 characters. Update your headline periodically to reflect career changes.
Location
Your location includes your city and geographic region. Be sure it’s current if you’ve recently moved. Recruiters often search for local candidates, so an accurate location connects you to nearby opportunities. You can also list multiple locations like a city and state or city and country if you live in one place but commute or travel regularly to another.
Conclusion
Customizing your LinkedIn profile provides numerous opportunities to showcase your authentic self while still remaining professional. Take advantage of the profile sections discussed to highlight your background, skills, accomplishments, interests, and personality traits through your personalized content. Invest time curating a standout profile tailored to you and it can pay dividends for your career advancement down the road.