Jobs & employment blogs

In this blog, you can find top tips to help you stand out on LinkedIn, as well as information on the free resources and tools available to help you with your job search.

Refresh your LinkedIn profile

Whether you’re creating a LinkedIn profile from scratch or refreshing an existing one, it’s important to consider that it is a digital representation of your professional self. It’s the first thing recruiters or talent professionals see, so make sure that your profile is complete, your employment and skills information are up-to-date, and your profile summary reflects who you are and your experience.

• Upload a profile picture: First impressions count. Upload a profile photo that represents who you are as a professional. LinkedIn members with a profile photo have 21x more views and up to 9x more connection requests than members that don’t. Wear what you would typically wear to work, ensure your picture is recent and your face fills around 60 per cent of the frame so you stand out. You can see more profile picture tips here.
• Spotlight your expertise and experience: Think of the summary section on your LinkedIn profile as your personal elevator pitch. This is a great place for you to summarise your professional story and also share what motivates you about your role or what you’re looking for in a new one. You can keep it to about four to five sentences or bullets. In the experience section, highlight your roles and what you were responsible for. Remember to include your key strengths and accomplishments, and add any relevant education, side projects and volunteering experience to help round out your capabilities to recruiters visiting your profile. Also make use of the Featured section where you can showcase work that you’re most proud of. For example, you can feature posts that you’ve authored or re-shared, articles you’ve published on LinkedIn, and external media like images, documents and links.
• Highlight your skills: Highlighting your skills is a great way to help you stand out to prospective employers and recruiters who can quickly get a feel for the type of roles that would be suited for you. LinkedIn members who have five+ skills listed are contacted 27x more by employers and other LinkedIn members. Your connections can also endorse your skills. Once they have, their name and picture will appear next to the skills listed on your profile. Also check out the Skill Assessments feature which allows you to demonstrate your knowledge and proficiency of the skills you’ve added to your profile by completing assessments specific to those skills. An online learning course can help bridge any skills gaps that you may have. Microsoft and LinkedIn have recently partnered to help people learn new skills for free by offering access to nearly 1,000 hours of learning courses which you can access at opportunity.linkedin.com.
• Let people know that you’re Open to Work: When you’re looking for a job, you can let recruiters and your network on LinkedIn know that you’re open to new job opportunities. You can download a simple green photo frame feature which sits on your profile picture and tells people that you’re ‘Open to Work’. If you specify the type of roles that you’re interested in and your preferred location, we’ll help your profile show up in search results when recruiters look for suitable candidates. Nearly 2.5 million LinkedIn members have adopted the frame to date, with those that have receiving 40 per cent more messages from recruiters and 20 per cent more messages from the LinkedIn community.
• Help people pronounce your name correctly: Pronouncing someone’s name correctly isn’t just a common courtesy, it’s an important part of making a good first impression – particularly in an interview – and being inclusive. If you’ve got a name that people may struggle to pronounce, we’ve created a feature that can help. You can create an audio recording of your name which sits on your LinkedIn profile. Once you add a recording, other members visiting your profile can quickly listen to the recording to better understand your pronunciation preference and subsequently ensure they say your name correctly. You can also listen to other members’ pronunciations by visiting their profiles when they have added a recording.

Find your next role

Once your profile is up-to-date and you’ve highlighted your skills and experience, these next steps can help you find the right role for you:

• Use your network: Your network is a good starting point to helping you find a new job, and can be a great resource for advice and support. We find that having just 50 connections makes a big difference. Start by adding people who are around you in your everyday life, like family, friends and colleagues. You never know if a friend is connected to someone who works for a company that is hiring.
• Ask for a referral: LinkedIn applicants are nearly 4x more likely to get a job at a company where they have connections. When you reach out to your network, remind them how you know them and why you’re a good fit for the role.
• Set up job alerts: If you’re looking for inspiration for the type of companies hiring currently, LinkedIn’s News team is keeping track of UK companies hiring 50+ roles here. Explore the Jobs page and search by criteria, such as job title, location, remote work, industry or company. You can also set up job alerts to get notified about new openings when a new role matches your search criteria, so you can be first to apply.

In the current jobs market, with stiff competition for roles, it’s important to be proactive with your job search. I hope these tips help you build a standout LinkedIn profile and you find a new opportunity quickly. For more help and advice, you can find free resources at opportunity.linkedin.com.

AUTHOR

Adam Hawkins is Head of Search & Staffing at LinkedIn in EMEA. With two decades of recruitment industry experience, he is a trusted advisor to leading recruitment and executive search firms across the globe. His team partners with recruiters to arm them with unique data, insights and talent trends from LinkedIn’s 700+ million members globally to help them find the best talent for their clients quickly. With recruiters playing an integral role in powering businesses and the economy, his team is proud to partner with them to help connect people to opportunity and build career confidence.

Prior to LinkedIn, Adam spent over 18 years at The Adecco Group in numerous senior leadership and executive board member roles. He worked and lived abroad for 10 of those years where he gained unique exposure to many of the global staffing markets and associated business models.

Outside of work, Adam supports as an advisor to a number of industry-related ventures and is an active mentor to entrepreneurs from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. In his spare time he is passionate about all things sports, coaching and adventures, especially if he gets to do this with his son Henry

Alex has been with Hays for 9 years and is reporting to Managing Director of Northern Central and Eastern Europe.