LinkedIn Profile Differentiation
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I discuss making your profile stand out from others.
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Hi, I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. And I’m here today with a daily video that’s about making your LinkedIn profile work for you better than that of your competition.
Now, a mistake people make with their LinkedIn profile is it becomes a ‘me too’ profile. And by that, I mean, it’s really a little different than their resume. And it’s not like you have to make it radically different than your resume. But there are opportunities to use a LinkedIn profile to really enhance how you demonstrate your experience and expertise that a resume doesn’t really offer. Well, let me give you a couple of suggestions.
So in the case of a resume and LinkedIn profile, firms are using keywords in order to locate you. Now, you can think in terms of repeating the same keywords over and over again, or you can make sure that you have lots of keywords in the longtail.
So for example, if you’re a developer, you will talk in terms of the applications you’ve worked on, in detail, so that this way you’re drawing in more information. But, long tail is a concept that came from a book that was written by Chris Anderson, about why Amazon will always have better and more sales than Barnes and Noble. And the concept was, that all bookstores sell the same enormous number of best sellers, and there’s no money in that. It’s a commodity business.
So where bookstores make their money is on the ones and twos of these odd titles. Because Amazon is a virtual store, basically a warehouse, they make a lot of money on selling one copy of an obscure book, at list price or above. And Barnes and Noble, by contrast, their superstores can only carry 100,000 titles, 150,000 titles, and each one has to generate revenue, versus Amazon, which is able to make money on an infinite number of titles. So you want to ensure that you have lots of those keywords to draw people to use your page.
The next thing is once they’re there, what are they going to see beyond your resume that’s going to catch their eye and make you stand out. Now, one thing is recommendations. I want to be clear, I’m not talking about endorsements. Endorsements are clearly the second fiddle to recommendations. Recommendations are those lengthy testimonials that people will write to support you demonstrating that you’re an expert at what you do.
So a great recommendation isn’t one of those ‘He’s a really good guy. I really like working with him,’ but really talks in detail about what you did, and how you did it. You’re a hero to that group or organization. So call it ‘the hero story.’ Call it whatever you like. The fact of the matter is, you want people to give you great recommendations, and really speak to what you can do for the next firm. You also want to have a summary that speaks in glowing detail and is fresh with those keywords and includes contact information for you. You don’t want to necessarily force people to connect with you. You want to make it easy for them to contact you. And that will go a long way toward helping you.
You also want to post articles and those will get linked to your profile. So think of LinkedIn as having a blogging area that allows you to demonstrate great expertise in a variety of fields.
Now, if you’re out of work, do not change your date of employment, to nothing, Don’t put a completion date unless you’re going to include the phrase that your job hunting from such and such date to such and such date. I don’t really like that to be honest with you, because I don’t believe you can delete companies from your profile, and thus this becomes a record of being unemployed. That really isn’t to help them to. So, don’t make that change unless you’re really compelled to do so.
Another thing. There’s a lot of space for linking to photos, videos, presentations, a whole host of things. So you can post your resume onto your LinkedIn profile and link it to your summary, or an employer. You can link to a SlideShare presentation, a YouTube video, a and whole host of things that might reside on the web. You can take a picture now, with LinkedIn, and thus, all of these things, make your profile unique and cause people to spend time reviewing it and make you more attractive. And once they understand what you want to do, I can assure you that they’re going to pick up the phone and contact you because you’ve given them your phone number, right? You put it in the summary, like I recommend and thus, it will go a long way toward getting you the results that you want. No deception, no lie, complete honesty.
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2400 episodes.
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? People hire me to provide No BS career advice whether that is about a job search, hiring better, leadership, management or support with a workplace issue. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
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