In the age of social media, most employers expect potential recruits to have a LinkedIn profile, and will almost always check a prospective applicant’s profile before considering them for an interview. After all, you can learn a lot about a person by taking a quick look at their social media profile. These days, a good resume and cover letter are no longer enough to guarantee an interview.
While some jobseekers may resent having to jump through more hoops to land a job, it may be more beneficial to think of it as an additional chance to help yourself shine – a good LinkedIn profile might just make the difference when you’re neck and neck against someone with very similar qualifications. Join Wordsmith as we explore the essential components of a hard-working LinkedIn page!
Hot headlines
In a news story, a headline makes or breaks the article – either motivating readers to check out the rest of the story or to checkout completely. The same can be said of LinkedIn headlines. By default, the site displays your current career position as the headline (e.g. English Copywriter at Wordsmith). However, if you are a fresh graduate and have not been employed yet, it’d show your headline as “Unemployed at Unemployed”. Great headline, right? If you were a recruiter and saw this, would you be motivated to learn more about this person?
When coming up with your headline, Jobscan recommends against stuffing it with fluff. “‘Experienced media professional seeking new opportunities’ is better than ‘unemployed’, but still reveals next to nothing about your skillset.” Like a news headline, readers need to be able to tell what the story is about from reading the headline alone. Instead of the who, what, when, where, why and how, a LinkedIn headline is all about “listing hard skills and job titles”. According to Jobscan, the job title (e.g. English Copywriter) is the most important search keyword used by recruiters to find your profile, but you need to provide more information than this if you want to stand out – recruiters want to know what sort of skills or experience you have from your headline as well. Here’s how we’d list out a possible headline:
John Smith
English Copywriter at Wordsmith – Experienced with Annual Reports, Finance/Banking & Social
Media Content Creation
If you are a new graduate and have literally nothing under your belt, don’t worry. Resist the urge to fill in the blanks with make-believe, but instead of just saying that you’re unemployed, there’re better ways to do so:
John Smith
Aspiring English Copywriter | Bachelors of English from Some University | Seeking entry-level
opportunities
By being precise, you’ll give recruiters and potential employers a better at-a-glance view of who you are.
Who are you?
With a headline in place, you can back up your claims with an “About me” section. We’ve already gone into detail on this subject in an earlier article, so we won’t spend too much time here. Think of this section as a brief recap of your work experience (or educational experience if you’re a recent graduate). Remember, emphasise what you did for your previous employer(s) and how you contributed to their success. Some profile specialists recommend that your profile should be kept short and snappy, and while this is true for most of LinkedIn, we believe a bit of detail here and there shows a better side of you.
If you don’t have any work experience, then talk about your educational background. Why did you choose that particular field to study in? What do you want to do now that you’ve graduated? If you’ve done any part-time stints in the past, explain how these roles inspired you to embark on a career in the field.
We live in a world that is rather unkind towards aspiring talent. Employers value experienced employees, but few are willing to give experience to the inexperienced (save for a few exploitational and questionably useful “internships”). Hook potential employers by explaining why they want to consider hiring you. Here’s how it may look with one of our example headlines:
John Smith
Aspiring English Copywriter | Bachelor of Arts in Marketing from Some University | Seeking entry-level
opportunities
I am a recent graduate from Some University’s Marketing programme and am currently based in Hong Kong. I love the idea of conceptualising new ideas – learning how to bring together existing ideas and reshape them on a whim – it’s what drove me to pursue a career in advertising.
I was fortunate to land an internship at SuperCreative Advertising Agency, and was assigned to work on a campaign for the local monorail. Having gathered valuable experience under the tutelage of their award-winning team, I can say that I share the same curiosity and perseverance as my professional creative colleagues, and thrived working in the challenging agency environment.
I am seeking creative marketing and advertising opportunities in the Hong Kong/Shenzhen area – if you’re looking for a creative, dependable and resourceful writer who can improve your marketing effectiveness, let’s talk!
Recommendations and connections
Recommendation letters used to be an important tool for applicants and employers alike. They’re especially handy for those without work experience, as applicants can ask for a reference letter from faculty staff to vouch for their skills and character. Nowadays, you rarely see people with hard copies of letters anymore! Why bother with scraps of paper when LinkedIn can accumulate them for you? Better yet, because recommendations automatically display the recommender’s profiles, they’re more credible than traditional letters.
Don’t just ask any person to make a recommendation though, you need to be very selective about who you ask to vouch for you! Your buddies Keith and David may have very nice things to say about you, but unless they’ve worked with you closely on a project before, it’s best to find more objective candidates – your previous supervisors, colleagues or professors are great choices.
As with your “About me” section, recommendations should be specific and provide rationale as to why you are a worthy candidate for consideration. Here are several important things to ask for according to LinkedIn contributor and Director of Talentscope, Ryan Delon:
1. Have a killer opening line describing who you are
2. Articulate your working relationship
3. Describe what made you stand out
4. Highlight one of your personality traits to provide more insight about you
5. The recommendation
Combining everything together, here’s what a potential recommendation may look like from a professor for a new graduate:
John has the perfect balance of curiosity and innovative spirit that the advertising industry needs. I had the pleasure of teaching him in the Advanced Marketing module at Some University, and he consistently demonstrated an instinctive grasp of marketing concepts and how to employ them. John’s greatest strength is his uncanny ability to think on his feet – even in group discussions, his willingness to share his thoughts has earned him the respect and admiration of his fellow classmates. I believe he’ll be an incredible asset to any creative team, and I highly recommend you consider him for this position.
While a good resume and cover letter are still job-hunting essentials, it’s also a good idea to consider adding a sharp LinkedIn page to your arsenal. Putting some extra thought and effort into making your profile stand out will help make you stand out in front of recruiters and potential employers. If you’re having trouble thinking of the right way to present yourself, your friendly local copywriters will be happy to polish your profile until it shines!