As an example, if you're an ICAEW qualified Accountant from Big 4 working in Financial Services Retail Banking Audit as a Senior Manager and wish to continue specialising in this area, then instead of what I often see “Senior Manager”, your headline could be “ACA - Big 4 - Financial Services - Retail Banking - Audit Senior Manager” - this instantly identifies you from the crowd and helps you to be found. Your headline is prime real estate and should therefore showcase your skills/value proposition. Images you have can easily be appropriately fitted for these dimensions using Apps like Spark Post or graphic design websites like Canva. LinkedIn only accepts background pictures that are JPG, GIF or PNG,’s no larger than 8MB with pixel dimensions of 1584 (w) x 396 (h). Your background picture can be a great quote or an image that inspires/reflects who you are. Alternatively if your organisation takes professional photos you could use this where the image is recent or representative of how you look today. If you choose a plain background, be mindful that there is no shadow of yourself in the image. Profile photos can be taken by a mobile phone with a good quality camera and a blurry background is a great choice, or a professional background but not one that’s too busy. A head and shoulders picture with a business shirt (and tie for men) with suit jacket is great for those with a profession like the Auditors, Accountants and Consultants that I work with. A warm and friendly smiling image is a good choice. Research suggests that profiles, with a profile picture, are 11 times more likely to be viewed. Starting from the top of your profile, I recommend including a recent photo of you and you only. So, let’s use this time of working from home to really showcase your profile on LinkedIn. Missing information, poorly labelled headers and so on can class you as a walk by profile, resulting in a potential missed opportunity for you. Recruiters look at hundreds of profiles every day so the better your profile is, the more opportunities you’ll be presented with. My advice is to include your keywords in your Headline, About and Experience sections and if possible, your Skills & Endorsements section too. To help you appear in the right Boolean searches, I recommend identifying 5-6 keywords that are important to you and your career, because appropriate use of those keywords, multiple times throughout your profile, will help to get you in the searches that provide opportunities for you. ![]() ![]() Recruitment professionals use Boolean searches to find and headhunt the best candidates for the profile they are recruiting for - this is essentially a keyword search. Being an active LinkedIn user, I’ve seen some great profiles and others that are missing key information for example, a profile picture, informative Header, About section, responsibilities/achievements in the Experience section and professional qualifications or dates in both the Education and the Licenses & Certifications sections. Whether you are actively looking for a new opportunity or are passive in the market, it makes great career and business sense for you to have an up-to-date, professional and factual profile that helps you to connect with other professionals, peers, and influencers and to showcases who you are as well as your talents. ![]() For these applications the completeness of your LinkedIn Profile is even more important. Some organisations are using LinkedIn so extensively that job applications can be completed through Smart Application on LinkedIn, meaning that your LinkedIn profile is used to apply for the role. ![]() LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool and one of the number one recruitment tools internationally used by both internal and external recruiters, to find and headhunt potential candidates.
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