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Эта же статья на русском: LinkedIn: советы по ведению профессионального профиля

I frequently hire employees, so I decided to share my experience on what I pay attention to. LinkedIn is the de facto leading global resource where people publish their CVs. Therefore, I will review resume formatting based on this resource.

There are countless guides and courses on how to properly format your LinkedIn page to get noticed and hired. I can’t say that there is only one right way. Instead, I’ll describe how I look at the profiles of people who catch my interest or potential candidates.

Let me emphasize that this is my personal opinion, based on three pillars:

• Personal experience in hiring
• Common sense
• Advice from fellow recruiters, especially Tatsiana Malinouskaya, arguably the best recruiter I’ve ever worked with

So, let’s go step by step. Any profile consists of several sections, so let’s briefly discuss each.

But the main principle to always follow is: «Make it as convenient as possible for anyone who will view your profile.» Because people have limited time to view profiles, and in the end, they will choose the profile from which they can clearly and quickly get all the information. By showcasing your profile, you are selling yourself.

Basic Information

Photo

The first thing we always see in a profile is the photo. Some people believe that it’s better not to show a photo, as it might work against them. I’m quite old-fashioned, and therefore, I want to see the person I might be working with right away. So, I recommend always adding your photo.

However, it’s important to choose the right one. Remember that LinkedIn is a professional network, so the photo should be appropriate. Avoid photos from the beach, the sauna, parties with friends, or with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Absolutely no cute animals or pop culture characters. Just a good portrait where your face is clearly visible.

Profile Background

The second image in your profile is its background. Many people use the standard company banner of the organization they work for. But ask yourself — what does this offer a potential employer? If it’s meant to show off the cool company you worked or work for, it might be an option. However, even in that case, you’re primarily advertising the company, not yourself.

Therefore, I would recommend setting a background that speaks specifically about you. For an artist, this could be a collage of their best illustrations or models, for a game developer — the games in which they played a significant role. Try to stand out and use this opportunity to tell your story. For example, my background is currently a collage of book covers because I read a lot, write a lot about what I’ve read in my personal blog, so I featured the covers of what I recommend. I can’t say it’s the perfect option, but it’s a part of me.

Name and Brief Description

There’s not much to say about the name:

• If you’re considering an international audience, write your name in Latin script, not in your native language which foreigners may not recognize. Alternatively, if you really want to, you can duplicate the name in your native language in parentheses.
• Using a nickname is acceptable, especially if you’re in an industry like GameDev, where this is common and people sometimes know each other better by nicknames than by real names. But more often people still use their real name. The exception is a creative pseudonym. If you create under a pseudonym and are not known by any other name, then of course, use it.

Next is a brief description of yourself. Very often, people simply duplicate their current position here. But LinkedIn doesn’t prohibit editing this short field. Some people list their significant past positions (e.g., «ex-CEO of Horns Ltd.»), or simply what they see as their main strength and career goal (e.g., «a professional in game monetization»). If you want to briefly highlight something, remember that this line can be used. But don’t overdo it, it’s still a brief description, not a mini-biography.

For a short biography, there is the next field — «About.» Here, you can allow yourself a few paragraphs of text. There is no magic formula, but consider that these paragraphs can attract attention. If they are read and the reader becomes interested, they will go on to look at your experience below. Or they might stop here and close the resume. Therefore, make it as important and concise as possible. Focus on your strongest points and preferences.

And the last in this section is the location. It is usually expected that you indicate your place of residence here. I highly recommend using this field to state your location and not where the company you work for is based. Why? Because when searching for an employee, it’s often very important for us to understand where they are located, whether it will be convenient to employ them, pay their salary, and simply interact with them (it’s difficult to work with someone with an 8-hour time difference). Provide this information upfront.

Languages

A relatively small section, but an important one. Here, you indicate which languages you are proficient in.

Some believe that it’s enough to list only the most important and in-demand languages. There’s logic to this — if a language is rarely needed, then who cares if you know it? However, I tend to list all the languages I truly know. For example, my profile includes Belarusian. Yes, it’s rarely needed and almost never helps, but… there are nuances that I pay attention to myself. Here are my reasons:

• If I see several languages in a person’s resume, I understand that the person is likely more open to cultural differences and learning new ways of communication. This might not always be significant, but for multicultural teams, it can be a plus.
• Nowadays, unfortunately, having only Russian in the profile (besides English) might deter some people. We didn’t choose the times we live in, but these are the realities. Having another native language might prevent your resume from being dismissed.
• You never know which language an employer might need. Perhaps a specific employer is looking for someone like you who speaks that «rare» language.

Only list the languages you can actually communicate in. If you know three curse words in Russian, it’s not worth stating that you have basic Russian skills. Also, don’t exaggerate your proficiency level. If you haven’t been certified but can comfortably communicate with colleagues, it’s better to state «professional proficiency» rather than aiming for «fluent.» After all, your level will become apparent in the first interview. It’s better to pleasantly surprise than to disappoint by not understanding your «native-fluent» language.

Experience

LinkedIn provides fairly standard templates for listing your work experience, so I won’t dwell on the basics like specifying the company, your position, and so on. Instead, let’s focus on what can be important and useful.

1. If you held different positions at different times in the same company, it’s better to honestly list each one. Especially if you worked at the same company for a long time: it’s more helpful to see your career path than just knowing you worked there for, let’s say, 8 years. LinkedIn automatically groups all positions within one company as «one place of work,» so there’s no need to worry about that.
2. For each position, take the time to write a few lines or paragraphs about what exactly you did in that role. I recommend focusing not on responsibilities but on tasks and achievements. Believe me, the words «my responsibilities included…» mean nothing if you can’t specify what exactly you accomplished. Some also believe that the more you write here, the better. This is also incorrect. Huge texts are hard to read, and remember that a recruiter has a maximum of 2 minutes to review a candidate. Therefore, highlight the most important aspects. Otherwise, the important information will just get lost in the verbal clutter.
3. You can currently assign skills to positions. In general, you can indicate them, but I think this doesn’t matter much because it’s just your opinion of your abilities, not confirmation that you actually possess them.
4. However, any materials you can «attach» to a position will be useful. These could be projects you participated in, articles, and other media. For certain positions, having such «achievements» will be a clear plus.

I would also like to separately address the issue of non-professional work. This usually includes everything that goes alongside your main career — volunteer projects, hobbies, etc. Different people have different opinions on whether to include such projects in your career profile. I believe it at least doesn’t hurt. Having hobby projects can show that you can work independently and provide additional information about your interests. So if you wrote TV scripts or translated books in your free time, include them. The only limitation is to ensure the usefulness of such information and its volume. After all, various volunteer initiatives should not overshadow your professional interests.

Education, Licenses, and Certifications

Education is very important if you don’t have any experience yet. The more actual experience you have, the less important your studies and where you studied usually become. This applies to IT. In other professions, having a professional diploma might be more crucial (you probably wouldn’t want to be treated by a self-taught individual instead of a certified doctor).

Nevertheless, I recommend always listing your higher education, even if you are just starting your first year. Yes, without experience, you fall into a very narrow group, but at the very least, having a profile shows potential recruiters that you are already thinking about your future. I advised my children to create profiles in their first year of university.

And even if your education is unrelated to your experience or the position you want to work in, include it. The mere fact of having higher education is a good sign and a plus. It also provides an opportunity to discuss why there is a mismatch (attracting attention is always good).

The benefit of additional education is less obvious, but I would still list it. Continuing education courses may not interest many people, but if you decided to get an MBA or completed training in managing large teams, especially in prestigious schools, this will definitely be a plus. For example, after MBA training, people have at least a large network of useful contacts, which might be exactly what an employer needs.

Licenses and certifications are more complicated. They don’t necessarily hurt, but I wouldn’t specifically chase them. Nowadays, you can obtain a huge number of certificates through online courses, with some people piling up dozens of passed exams. As before, quality matters more than quantity. Sometimes it’s worth considering and deciding whether a particular certificate is relevant to the field you are in or want to be in. If it’s no longer relevant, it’s better to remove it. For example, if you once obtained a tattoo artist certificate but are now working in project management, knowing your tattoo skills is unlikely to help you in your job search. So — use wisdom and understanding.

Projects, Publications, Skills

I briefly mentioned projects and media when talking about work experience. Additionally, LinkedIn allows you to list them separately from specific positions or companies.

These «independent» projects are somewhat strange on LinkedIn. They have existed for many years, but it seems that few people understand their purpose. So, in my opinion, their presence or absence doesn’t make much difference. People have played around with this functionality but have largely abandoned it.

Separate publications can be useful if you are an analyst or a researcher. They are simply part of your professional activity. And for personal ego, it doesn’t hurt to mention that your article or research was published in a well-known magazine.

However, if you are just an IT employee, this section is more of a nice bonus than a real benefit.

I would categorize global skills in the same way. Of course, if someone is specifically looking for specialists, they will search by specified skills. However, in practice, this tool is unlikely to prove effective, and recruiters usually don’t rely heavily on it. The reason is simple — you list the skills yourself and can add as many as you like. Their relevance will be assessed by people in your first-degree network (let’s remember that LinkedIn is still a social network). Moreover, some skills can be added by others. From my many years of observation, people «endorse» skills you possess that they might not even know about or attribute things to you that you never had.

That’s why I never look at the skills list in a profile. However, for relevant searches, you can list the most important ones. But how this helps is also not clear.

Recommendations

Recommendations are one of the most beloved sections for many. I have plenty myself, although at some point, I realized that they are unlikely to be very useful.

The reason lies in how the recommendation mechanism is built on LinkedIn. It is designed so that a recommendation cannot appear on a person’s profile without their approval. If you don’t like what is written about you, you simply don’t publish it. As a result, there are numerous laudatory reviews, most of which seem to be written in the same formulaic way.

Personally, I stopped reading recommendations a long time ago and instead look for mutual acquaintances to ask them personally about their opinion of the person. This feedback is more comprehensive and candid than a generic laudatory text.

Nevertheless, at certain stages of your career (early stages or during significant changes), recommendations can be useful. Yes, you are unlikely to publish anything negative about yourself, but at least ask people to write about your strengths and achievements, rather than just «John is a great guy, and I would gladly work with him again.»

Activity

Formally, the «Activity» section is not something you fill out about yourself. It’s simply your feed on the social network LinkedIn. Here, it’s important to understand what image you want to convey to users of this network.

You can limit yourself to just your profile and not engage in any active social networking. That’s fine too.

But if you decide to post, clearly define your goals and approaches. Some people post on their feed in the same manner as they do on their personal blog or Facebook page. Others separate personal and professional content. I chose the latter path for myself. On my personal blog, I am Alexey, a family man, a bit of a scatterbrain. But LinkedIn is my professional alter ego, so here I mainly share articles from my own blog related to my professional activities. I post brief thoughts on work-related topics or comment on others’ posts on professional matters.

There is no right way — it’s up to you to decide how you want to present yourself here. However, on LinkedIn, I’m more inclined to look at a person’s activity on professional topics. If I want to see what they are like in life, I can check out their Facebook page if I want.

It’s important to note that you can mark certain posts (yours or others’) as Featured, and they will appear at the top of your page. Good candidates for this, in my opinion, are articles about you or interviews with you, as they allow others to see you through the eyes of other people, right there without having to dig deeper.

Afterword

Well, I hope these tips will be useful to someone. But let me say right away that I sometimes break some of these rules myself. Rarely out of laziness, more often intentionally. So, you don’t need to follow everything to the letter; you can break the rules, but you should understand why you are doing so and what benefit it will bring to you and the person who decides to study your profile.

There is no silver bullet, everyone chooses their own path. And the most important thing is not to do things haphazardly.