Step by Step guide to Build a perfect LinkedIn profile

With opportunities everywhere-you don’t pick the talent, the talent picks you. When applying for a job the candidate should have some qualities that stand out from every other person. You need a personal brand that helps you to make yourself different from everyone else. With the help of LinkedIn, you can build your brand that shows who you are and what you believe, and what you are doing to achieve our objective
The following steps can help you revamp your LinkedIn profile, so you can thrive in the candidate’s market:

1. Start with the basics: Create a profile and make sure you use the account which u often check, this will help in ensuring that you don’t forget to check the connections request, messages and much more. Fill out the necessary information and make sure to add your phone number as it is easier for the job opportunities to contact you. 
2. Put your best face forward: Your profile picture is the first thing everyone will see. Make sure it is professional, approachable and friendly. Use a picture that is at least 200*200 pixels, anything less or more than this will appear blurry or distorted. Anyone who puts a high-quality profile picture will get more profile views and messages than the others who don’t care about it. Some tips for creating aN impressive profile picture.
    The photo should resemble you 
    Put your face in the center of the frame
    Your facial expressions should make you look friendlier 
    Wear professional clothes 
    Chose a nondistracting and a very simple background
    
3. Write a catchy headline about you: The headline on your profile goes right below your name as well as in some search engines. It is a great opportunity to make an impressive first impression. Make it snappy and interesting so more people want to find out about you. Your headline should sum up what you do in a few words. Think of your headline as your tagline. Make it memorable. Your headline should be unique to your personality and job. 
4. Create a storyline to summarize your profile: Write a summary that can be tricky. Don’t be afraid to show your personality. Make sure you write what is relevant for a profile. It should not be less than 40 words that will affect in your searches. Drop some of your personality traits and what you are specialized in, this will also work as a keyword
   and will show in searches. Talk about your experiences and about your goals and objectives and what you what to become in the next 5 years, this will show how oriented you are towards your goals
5. Add-on some references that help in building your credibility: People want to work with whom they can trust. There is no better way to gain their trust by showing that you are a good person who has worked with people who can prove your depth of experience. Focus on collecting recommendations from whom you have worked with. Ask recommendations and make them remember how you worked with them in the past. Highlight your abilities.
6. Start building networks: Now when you are done with your basic profiling its time to make some connections. This can include professors, recruiters, friends, friends of friends, people who inspire you, big industrialist you can include anyone that can help you build a better profile. 
7. Update your profile regularly: Keep updating your profile regularly. Post content that is a mix up of photos, videos, presentations and uses more hashtags that will help your content appeared to those who are not your connections. Share short bits of information that will keep people engage on your profile. Make your profile a memorable career page. 
8. Optimize your profile so that it is visible in searches: LinkedIn optimization starts with SEO and end at SEO. Search engine optimization can be difficult to understand, what matters is how it helps them to fully optimize your profile for conversion and make sure that you are making most out of the traffic that is coming in. With the help of certain keywords, you can attract most of the people to come to visit your profile keywords will make your profile appear higher in searches. Many job recruiters look for specific keywords when seeking out applicants for jobs. 
9. Final step- Make your profile stand out: By following tips you can already make your profile very unique but now add something little extra that will make your profile stand out from every other person. Add a video to your profile. Ass publications and create portfolios, share relevant information, your thoughts, etc to your profile.

Some mistakes people do
 Treating LinkedIn as every other social media sites
 Skip checking and updating regularly
 Not following up
 Not spending enough time on the site 
 Skip personalizing and optimization

Submitted By: Ishu Sharma |Vasudha Kaushik
(PGDM Batch 2019-21)