Stop! You’re Using LinkedIn Wrong Without This Step
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Do you think you have mastered the use of LinkedIn for career advancement and job hunting? Have you been applying for jobs but have not had good results as there have been no interviews coming from it? What could be wrong and how can you fix it?
The Problem
You can’t fix it if you do not know what is wrong. As a hiring manager, I like the LinkedIn profiles and career resumes and I check them for every job. However if there are major spelling or grammatical mistakes, then I am not interested.
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This is the issue that can get in your way when you are using LinkedIn. It does not have a spell check. As a hiring manager I am looking for these types of errors in order to eliminate your resume from the pile of hundreds that I already have. My first step is not weeding you but weeding you out and obvious spelling errors will do that.
Insuring Your Resume is Error Free
There are a few things you can do to insure that your LinkedIn resume and profile is completely error free.
- After writing your LinkedIn profile and resume open up your MS Office
- Now open up MS Word
- Copy a couple sections at a time of your LinkedIn profile and resume
- Paste these sections to an empty Word document
- Run the Word Spelling and Grammar check on those sections.
- Now copy a couple more sections from your LinkedIn profile and resume
- Paste these sections to an empty Word document
- Run the Word Spelling and Grammar check on these sections
- Repeat until you have covered the entire LinkedIn Profile or Resume
This way you will know that the document has been spelling and grammar checked before you turn it in to a hiring manager. This is a step you do not want to skip. Now you have a clean document ready for submission that won’t be thrown away upon arrival. Now you have at least given yourself a chance to have the hiring manager consider your LinkedIn profile-resume.
What Goes In LinkedIn Profile
While we are discussing it let’s look at what does belong in your LinkedIn profile:
- Headline
- Summary of Qualifications/Skills/Certifications/Languages (including computer)
- Experience including work history and education. Include the industries you have worked in as this is a keyword for most recruiters.
- Volunteer Experience is invaluable and hiring managers will consider it. So list any appropriate material. You will have to add the category “Volunteer Experience and Causes” from the “Add Sections” tab.
- Additional Information should include links to your personal web page, if permissible link to your current company, your Twitter and/or Facebook accounts if appropriate.
- Next you should collect LinkedIn recommendations from people who have been your customers, worked with you or for you. Give recommendations to others and they will reciprocate. However only get recommendations from people you actually know.
- Turn off your activity broadcasts so recruiters and hiring managers can’t see that you are updating your profile or any other activity such as requesting a recommendation.
- Use the ‘Apply with Linked In’ button if the companies used it as well.
You can see there are many different things you can do to bolster your LinkedIn profile and make this into a terrific tool for the job hunt. Many candidates prefer to use their LinkedIn profile over their resume because it is usually shorter and well presented.
However, if you are going to use your LinkedIn profile instead of your resume, then you need to make sure you are meeting the criteria of this article and moving your profile information over to a Word document so you can run your spell and grammar check.