How to Use LinkedIn Effectively

LinkedIn has become one of the biggest social media sites when looking for careers and quality candidates. This could be a great vehicle to help you land your dream job or it could also be what causes you to lose it. Here are some tips to help your LinkedIn profile characterize you as the professional you would like to be considered.

• Don’t Use an Avatar – Your profile picture should represent your professionalism. Using an avatar or pictures including your husband, children or friends is conveying the message you don’t distinguish your personal life from your professional life. Your profile picture should be clear, professional, and relatively recent.
  
  
• Be Active but not Overactive – You should keep your profile updated and join groups that will help you in your career search. However, don’t comment on every post you come across or update your status every hour. This could give the impression you have too much time on your hands and don’t know how to use it effectively. 
  
  
• Cross Promote – LinkedIn is just one web page of your online presence. Link your profile to your blog’s “About Me” page or any other web presence you have. It would also be smart to direct people to your LinkedIn profile from other venues.
  
  
• Show Work Samples – In the “Summary, Education, and Experience” section of your profile you can add videos, images, documents, links, and presentations. This enables you to showcase work samples and projects you’ve accomplished. Companies can get a look at your work before they even get a look at you!
  
  
• Colloquial Writing – Even though it’s a social media site, grammatical errors, acronyms, and colloquial styled writing can cast a bad light on you. Remember, LinkedIn is a snapshot of the professional you. Be sure your content is polished and perfect.

When searching for that perfect job, using social media is a must. Unfortunately, when used inappropriately, it will do more harm than good. Differentiate your professional social media from your personal accounts to be sure companies see the side of you they would expect to see at work……the professional side.