How to create a new Linkedin Profile

First impressions count, so don’t scrimp on the information you add to your LinkedIn

profile. LinkedIn offers a variety of features on your profile to showcase your expertise and experience and allows you to interact with others. As you fill out your profile, LinkedIn prompts you to continue optimizing your profile until it’s 100 percent complete.

Your public LinkedIn profile is visible to anyone, even if they aren’t logged in to LinkedIn. You can control what parts of your profile are included in the public view in your settings.

Your LinkedIn profile consists of

✓ A snapshot: This text appears at the top of every profile and includes your name, location, current title, links to your websites, and a cursory view of past positions, education, and recommendations. Think of the snapshot as the elevator pitch of your elevator pitch — the ten-second glimpse of who you are and what you do.

✓ Your photo: Although optional, we highly recommend that you include a clear, professional-looking photograph of yourself on your LinkedIn profile to appear more accessible. A close-up headshot to your shoulders with a friendly and relaxed smile is ideal and inviting to encourage
others to interact with you.

✓ Activity: Publish status updates in the field at the top of the LinkedIn home page when you’re logged in to your LinkedIn account. Your updates appear in your activity feed and are one of LinkedIn’s main engagement and community-building features. Although visible to you at all times, the activity feed is only viewable on your profile by others when they are logged into LinkedIn.

✓ Background: You can rearrange any of the Background sections to highlight one over the other. Background sections include

• Summary: Craft a professional 30-second elevator pitch for this section.

• Skills and Expertise: The key skills you add for yourself are displayed here along with endorsements from others. Once you approve endorsements, endorsers show up on your profile with tiny thumbnails of their LinkedIn profile photos next to each skill they’ve endorsed. Note that you can move the Skills and Expertise section higher or lower in your profile. We suggest keeping it higher on your profile to encourage additional endorsements.

• Experience: Like in a traditional résumé, detail your work experience in reverse chronological order, with the most recent appearing at the top.

• Education: List your educational background in reverse chronological order.

• Additional Information: This section consists of your Websites, Interests, Groups and Associations, and Honors and Awards. The more you add to this section, the more reasons people find to be in touch with you.

✓ Recommendations: You can display both recommendations from others about your work and your recommendations of others.

✓ Connections: If you opt to make your LinkedIn Connections viewable by others, photos of some of your Connections appear on your profile with a link to all of them. Because of the emphasis on professional networking, showing your Connections helps facilitate contacts and introductions.

✓ Groups: Logos for some of the groups you’ve joined on LinkedIn signify your affiliations and link directly to the groups where you’re a member.

Being a member of a specific group can encourage connections and interactions based on similar interests.