Top 5 LinkedIn tips to make your profile get noticed
Updated: Jan 23
I've been helping Executives, Managers, Engineers & Professionals with their LinkedIn profiles since 2008 and I’m going to share my 5 best LinkedIn profile tips to help you get noticed immediately by recruiters, employers, and anyone else who's searching for talent on LinkedIn...
You want more clicks and views, but you also need to impress people once they click or they’ll just leave. So I'll cover how to get clicks, but also how to look great and ensure that you get connected and engaged.
Top 5 LinkedIn Tips
1. Put Keywords and Search Terms in Your “Skills” Section and also in your summary
Keywords help you get found in search results on LinkedIn. You need to SEO (Search Engine Optimise) your profile. Recruiters run searches every day to find people.
The thing you might not know: Your skills count as keywords. Even if you don’t have a certain word anywhere else in your profile, putting it as a skill will make your profile show up when someone searches for that word or phrase.
LinkedIn lets include up to 50 of them so it's best practice to put as many relevant keywords as possible. I also suggest inserting as many as you can into your summary because this section is also searchable. Furthermore, it's best practice to assign skills to each role and any education and projects. You can also assign the top 5 skills to the top of your profile.
2. Optimise Your Headline & Photo for More Clicks
Anyone else running a LinkedIn search is going to see 10 people per page in the search results. Then they’ll choose who to click based on just a few pieces of info (since they haven’t seen your full profile yet).
Your image and headline (the sentence right below your name on your profile) are the “big 2” they look at first. So you need to make sure your profile is great in these two areas.
First, make sure your image looks professional and friendly. I don’t go around LinkedIn all day judging people on looks, but it’s human nature to react when we see a photo of somebody. Make sure that you look presentable in your photo and I always tell my clients to smile. A smile helps build trust and invites someone to look further.
Then there’s the headline. It appears right beneath your name in search results (and right beneath your name on the “edit profile” page if you want to change it).
It’s usually in this format by default: Job Title at Company (i.e. – Software Engineer at Apple).
If I searched for “Project Manager,” and you had that headline, those words will be bold as I scroll past your profile. It’s a great way to grab attention and it immediately shows me that your profile is relevant to what I searched for.
So here’s what I recommend:
If your title is pretty standard for your industry and has some good keywords, leave it, or just add one or two more keywords. I always advise my clients to include part of their value proposition statement in the title, i.e. What they deliver, for whom (What sector, what kind of clients), and what the benefit is (business value). These are all examples of good titles that don’t need much adjustment:
Head of Sales - Overseeing ____ for ____ to ____
Recruiting Coordinator - Providing ____ for ____ to ____
Senior Project Manager - Delivering ____ for ____ to ____
*Note. These tips can easily help you improve your CV or Resume. Check out our great ATS-friendly CV & Resume Templates here.
3. Make Your Profile Look Great After They Click - (Recommendations)
If you followed the 2 profile tips above, you should start getting clicks to your LinkedIn pretty soon. Now you need to make your profile impressive to the reader after they’ve clicked.
The goal is to get 2 or 3 recommendations. It’s the most attention-grabbing thing you can have on your profile. It’s also the most powerful thing for building credibility and making companies want to interview you once they’ve viewed you on LinkedIn.
4. Put Specific Accomplishments under Past Jobs
Mention specific numbers and accomplishments in your bullet points under each previous job. And maybe in your profile summary too. Don’t just say “responsible for this,” or “responsible for that.”
Your responsibilities don’t say anything about how good you were. What did you do? Be specific, include key achievements and mention how you over-delivered your KPIs, including as many metrics as possble.
Example: “Increased department revenue by 11% by acquiring 16 new clients throughout 2015”.
Another example: “Hired and trained 8 new team members.”
Another example: “Successfully managed and supervised 3 separate project teams, and 10 marketing projects throughout the first quarter of 2024.”
So go take a look at your bullet points or job descriptions and think about whether you’re talking about what you actually did, or only what you were responsible for. By the way, this is a great way to improve your resume too. This isn’t just a LinkedIn tip.
5. Use a Banner
One of the quickest ways to make your profile stand out is to upload a banner. This is the large blue area above your profile picture. From my estimations, over 90% of LinkedIn users don't bother with using this section and lose out on valuable real estate.
You can create a bespoke banner and upload using the following dimensions 1584px by 396px or you could simply upload a photo. I find that relevant photos of the industry you are in work best. "A picture paints a thousand words"
Well, what are you waiting for? Log in to LinkedIn and start optimising your profile! Connect with me here!
