I confess I’m not always good about going on LinkedIn, let alone updating my profile. I was fortunate to participate in a webinar with Sarah Santacroce, an internationally recognized LinkedIn specialist and online presence mentor, through the Career Mastery™ Kickstart 2018 event. Her profile notes that she helps clients “breathe life into their LinkedIn profiles.”

Here are a few tips I picked up. If you want more, Sarah provides videos and coaching through her site.

Headline

The section of LinkedIn that she says is the make or break section is the headline, the line underneath your profile picture and name. Most people share their functional job title and company. Others note they are looking for work.

What I learned is that I should be sharing what I’m good at, what I do or which industry I have experience in. And key words are critical because that is what recruiters and hiring managers are searching for.

Profile Photo

Santacroce also encouraged everyone to use a profile photo, something I always emphasize in personal branding courses I teach. Santacroce said, “If you don’t want to put your LinkedIn photo up, you might as well not be on LinkedIn.”

Connections

We all know that on some sites we should only accept invitations from people whom we know. On LinkedIn, it sometimes can be beneficial to connect with people you have not met. Deciding with whom to connect is dependent on your goal, Santacroce said.

If you are a job seeker, she said to keep your network more open. If you aren’t looking for a job on the other side of the world, it’s probably not in your best interest to accept a request from someone halfway around the world. Ultimately, it comes down to whether you can help the person or whether they can help you. If the answer is yes to either question, you should connect, Santacroce said.

Recommendations

Recruiters look for credibility, and recommendations help. When you reach out and ask someone to write a recommendation, Santacroce suggested providing bullet points about items the person might include. She also suggested reaching out to the person by email first so the request doesn’t come out of the blue.

I’ve been spending a lot of time since the webinar improving my profile. When is the last time you worked on your profile?