Best Practices For Your LinkedIn Profile

Most entrepreneurs and business professionals already have a LinkedIn profile, but not all of us have succeeded in getting the most out of it. A common tendency is to model one’s LinkedIn profile after one’s resume, but that is not necessarily the most effective approach to attracting visitors and potential contacts. After all, if your profile doesn’t stand out from the pack, why should anyone gravitate to it?

Instead of a rote summary of your qualifications, education, and experience, a compelling LinkedIn profile should demonstrate your unique personality, passions, and brand, and the practical applicability of your skill set.

A professional-looking photo engenders confidence.

This is really a no-brainer. People with LinkedIn profile photos tend to attract more page views than those without, and a professional-looking shot (in focus and with proper posing and lighting) conveys the impression that you’re both competent and attentive to details.

Try to portray yourself in a manner consistent with your professional brand and desired message. Consider whether a smile or a serious expression is more conducive to drawing the right people to your profile, whether you should wear a tie or a jacket, whether your sleeves should be fully extended or rolled up, what colour of outfit would be most appropriate. Even gestures that may seem inconsequential—like the interlocking-fingers pose made famous by German chancellor Angela Merkel—send body-language messages that can help to reinforce your personal brand.

What’s special about you?

Once people have seen your photo, they’ll move on to your profile summary—which should at least match the standard of the photo in terms of professional quality and attention to detail.

Of course, impeccable spelling, grammar, and syntax are indispensable here; if you have difficulty in any of these areas, you may want to enlist the proofreading skills of a trusted friend or associate. But there’s more to a great profile summary than just getting those elementary technical details right. You also need to communicate who you are and where you excel—preferably in a manner that’s engaging and memorable, but also informative. Use simple, comprehensible language, and be true to yourself.

Why are you passionate about the work you do? What professional achievements are you proudest of? And perhaps most importantly: what can you offer that would help others to achieve their goals?

Expand beyond the two-dimensional LinkedIn profile.

One of the great advantages that a website like LinkedIn offers over a traditional CV or job application, is the fact that it’s online. The dynamism of the Internet offers you the opportunity to go beyond a static photo and written summary, to not only describe what you can do, but to literally show people examples.

If you have YouTube videos, presentations, or multimedia files of which you’re especially proud, link to those from your LinkedIn page. You can even record a short introductory video in which you describe your strengths and passions.

Feel free to allude to your life outside the office—within reason.

Social factors often influence both hiring and client-relationship decisions. Most people prefer to work with others to whom they can relate, and with whom they get along. If you give the visitors to your profile an idea of your life circumstances, your personality, and the activities you enjoy away from the office, there’s a good chance that you’ll draw like-minded individuals to your LinkedIn page.

But use your discretion—the information you reveal will be visible to LinkedIn users everywhere for a very long time.

Don’t force people to hunt around for your contact information.

Prominently display your e-mail address, Twitter handle, links, and any other contact information you don’t mind sharing widely.

The High Cost of Free Labor

When I was in college there was a word that floated around the halls in whispers. It drew people in, it had a story attached to it, and it caught the attention of anyone who heard it – it was the word “internship”.

What Belongs to History

Once upon a time, internships were seen as being set aside for, and granted only to, the most exemplary individuals. The way to get an internship took time, effort, and the ability to connect with the people who could get you to where you wanted to go. It carried an uncommon caché that lauded the intern as the bright eyed next generation. It was a springboard for worthy candidates to help them gain real world experience and prepare to enter the workforce while building on the knowledge they were gaining by investing in their education. In sum, not too long ago, internships were both a rare and effective way to kick-start one’s career.

In principle, an internship is a great idea: A company hires an enthusiastic individual looking to build a career in that field and nurtures them, at little or no cost, into eventually becoming a fully functioning member of their workforce. Internships were once a sort of farm team where a company might have been looking to create a position and would tell the candidate, “Tough it out over the summer and when you graduate you’ll be on the team – we have high hopes for you”.

Times Change

It didn’t take too long for people to learn that the path to a better job and a better life went through the area designated for the intern and the volunteer. So when the cat got out of the bag, everybody was out looking for a chance to get some experience that would often serve as nothing more than a way to fill out one’s resume. In no short amount of time, people who had worked as interns were becoming less and less likely to be taken on by the company they worked for, or would parlay their internship experience to go and work for another, sometimes rival, company. Suddenly companies started experimenting with what kind of tasks they could get away with delegating to their interns, and just as suddenly some companies began to realize that branding a job as an internship could be a quick and easy way to get cheap, even free, labor.

The Rise and Fall of the Volunteer

Not all that long ago, seemingly well-intentioned projects would hire volunteers who would trade their labor in exchange for a meaningful experience, usually overseas, that could change lives. It was a direct exchange of labor for experience, straight up. Because of the rising number of volunteers looking for experience to once again, fill out one’s resume, the opportunities became more numerous and the exchange is no longer so direct. Nowadays, aside from the smallest community volunteer group, all volunteers are pay volunteers as in they pay to volunteer. The volunteer experience of working for free has become an actual commodity that people pay for, and is now a business in its own right.

Where We Are

The net effect of intern-volunteer inflation has been to render their titles virtually meaningless. Tales of internship woe among the young are ubiquitous as they are being charged with doing real work, involving long hours for no pay, and coming away from their experience disillusioned and with little to show for it. Within many companies the intern has become a position like any other usually connoting that they are responsible for all tasks deemed beneath that of the full-time staff. Once reserved for individuals who were otherwise green in the workforce, it is now not uncommon to find college graduates, and individuals with several years of relevant work experience, settling for the role of intern by virtue of the fact that internship positions continually replace what were once legitimate full-time jobs.

What Can We Do?

I wish there were clear answers. The truth is, the following are just suggestions: 

• Always try to create full-time employment.
• Make it a policy to pay every employee better than the minimum wage.
• Let your full-time staff share the load of the less desirable, no less important, duties of the company – don’t create a position specifically for them.
• Recognize that interns are there to learn, so you are the teacher and your company is the classroom – so offer them an educational experience.
• If you are someone looking for experience, instead of dropping the big bucks to essentially just travel, find the most local grassroots organization that you can and just say, “I want to help”. The rewards from that kind of community involvement are far more gratifying in the long run.

It’s Good to Be the Boss

We all come to a crossroads at some point in our life - a defining moment to choose one path over another and accept where it leads us. After college I bumped around from job to job trying to build up my experience, and my resume, looking for the right opportunity to grow and be a part of something big. I hated it. I mean I really couldn’t stand it. Everything about holding a job made me feel rotten inside. It’s not that I’m averse to working hard, or that I think that having a job is wrong for everybody, it was just that after a decade in the rat race I discovered a few important things about myself.

Balance

The first thing that I learned was that working for someone else made me really tired. The simple expectation of adjusting my schedule to suit someone else left me lethargic and with a distinct palpable malaise that made me angry at life, and it seeped into my free time. Since starting my own business I actually work more than I ever have, but because it’s on my own terms I seem to have a lighter step and am able to walk between the raindrops which has helped me to enjoy my free time even more. The positive impact this has had on my health and wellbeing has also been noticeable as, because I no longer suffer from the same lethargy, I find myself using my free time to be more active as well as making time to cook a proper meal instead of settling for something quick and devoid of nutrition.

I Have Really Good Ideas

Within every company I ever worked for there was a hierarchy. It seemed odd to me that all the people higher up the chain of command were celebrated for having all of the best ideas. All of my contributions were immediately scoffed at and dismissed – until they were implemented and passed off as the boss’ big new idea. Now sure, there’s an argument for stick-to-itiveness, and that if I bided my time I could work myself up the ranks and start making the decisions. Maybe so, but I felt more burdened by the idea of seeing myself forced to pawn off the brilliant insight of an office lackey as my own because by the time it was my turn to get all the credit I was out of ideas.

I Don’t Value Security

I’m a risk taker and I always have been. I have gumption and believe that every time I get knocked down that I reemerge stronger than before. I know that there’s something comforting about having a job and knowing exactly where your next paycheck is coming from but it’s overshadowed by my own sense of excitement at starting something new and helping it grow. Having a steady job allows you to plan everything in advance and keeps you looking forward to your two-week vacation that was organized more than a year in advance, but being your own boss forces you take each day one day at time and keep your mind on what’s important right now.

Helping Others Grow

Within the hierarchy of all the companies I worked for I felt alone. I know I was supposed to emulate the work habits of those above me, but I felt like they kept their secrets of how they got to where they were under lock and key. Since striking off on my own, one of the most enjoyable aspects of my job has been mentoring and learning from those that work for me. Sure, I sign the paychecks, but in my efforts to build a successful small business it feels like it’s something we all share. It’s also very rewarding to share my expertise with my colleagues who might not have as much experience as myself.

I Did It My Way

Everyone is different, and owning your own business is incredibly challenging. It’s certainly not for the feint of heart, and before entering into something so profoundly life altering one has to really have a clear picture of who they are. I was ready to sink or swim, and learn the hard way, because I knew that if I was going to feel fulfilled I had to put myself in a work environment where I felt that I could operate under my own terms. The decision to choose the path that I did has made all the difference in my life and I never thought twice about retracing my steps.

A Tale of Two Independents – What’s in a Name?

Jerry and Steve each operate their own web services company. Strictly speaking they are each a company of just one and the bulk of their work involves coding, formatting, updating and maintaining the functionality of various websites. They are about the same age, have a similar education and work experience, and provide essentially the same services regarding each of their clients as completely separate contracts. The only real difference is that Jerry calls himself a freelance web developer whereas Steve has given himself the title of “Consultant” for his firm Omni-Global Web.

Candice, Rachel, and Tamara are the support staff for a new surgical clinic operating in a ritzy part of town and, with a particular budget, they’ve been asked to set up the website that will represent the clinic on the web. Since none of them have the requisite skillset to do the job themselves, they sit down and hash out what they are looking for and promptly place an ad seeking a Webmaster which outlines what the job entails and what demonstrable skills the applicants should have. Both Jerry and Steve apply with a concise and well thought out email along with links to various samples of their work. Jerry applies as himself, but Steve applies as Omni-Global Web and offers his own personal information merely as a point of contact. Both quote the same price.

When reviewing the various applicants, Candice, Rachel and Tamara describe their feelings about Jerry and Steve:

Candice (about Jerry): “I like his work, I’m just concerned that as a freelancer he may not be able to give our project the time and care that it requires. These Guys that work as agents for hire, I just find they’re grabbing at every job out there and don’t put their full effort into their contracts the way real professionals do.”

Rachel and Tamara feel that Candice makes a very compelling argument.

Tamara (about Steve and Omni-Global Web): “I’m really impressed. There’s something neat and tidy about this company’s work. I think they should be our first call and hopefully they’ll be willing to take us on.”

Rachel nods her head in agreement, and Candice assumes control grabbing the phone.

“Omni-Global Web! Steve speaking.”

“Hello Steve, my name is Candice and your company got in touch with us recently about providing us with services for our website and we were wondering if Omni-Global Web might still be able to help us out?”

“I imagine that will be possible, how about we set up a time to talk about what you need?”

Steve eventually got the job without any referral or previous business with anyone involved with the clinic, and Jerry never received so much as a phone call back. Even Steve will tell you that it wasn’t his finest work, but the clients were happy and they paid well and on time.

The Moral of the Story

The reason why Steve got the job (and subsequently paid) and Jerry didn’t is pretty simple, but says a lot about the people that hire contract workers and how they think.

First, Candice had a negative impression about what it means to be a freelancer, and her bias, no matter how unfounded, still earned merit with her peers as being valid. Second, the fact that it was a company, and not just an individual, planted the expectation in Tamara’s mind that there was a larger degree of legitimacy to the work coming from Steve. It didn’t matter who’s work was actually better, as both were capable of doing the job that was asked, but Steve and his title of consultant created a more acceptable framework in the minds of Candice, Rachel and Tamara. Lastly, the way Candice, Rachel and Tamara viewed how both Jerry and Steve might accept being offered the work was completely different. Candice had an image of Jerry attempting to gather up any work he could get as though, working for himself, he was just happy to have something to work on to pay the next few bills. When she finally called and spoke to Steve it was almost as though she hoped Steve would accept them as clients. To Candice, Rachel, and Tamara it would have been a privilege for Jerry to work for them, but with the way they viewed Steve it was a privilege for them to have him work on their website.

If you are a small business owner and you work for yourself it’s important to make these nuanced considerations to have any chance of competing in a market place where contractors are consistently bringing more and more diversified skills to the table. Never forget that how to market and promote one’s self is itself a skill, and the difference between freelancer and consultant, however slight in practice, can be profound in light of the expectation it creates in the minds of potential clients.