Creating your LinkedIn profile

Project the image you would like to present to employers.

You don’t have to have a professional photo taken but you should look smart, friendly and approachable. LinkedIn profiles with photos receive 21 times more profile views and 9 times more connection requests.

Your headline is the text displayed below your name. Headlines act like a brief personal statement highlighting your skills and career interests. You have 120 characters to market yourself. Emphasise what you are doing now and what you want to do in the future. You can be creative but think about who your audience is.

• summarise the type of role you're seeking
• include your area of study and career ambitions
• include keywords or skills - but only those you actually possess

LinkedIn will ask you to select an industry for your headline. If you're not sure what industry you're interested in, you can select 'Higher Education' as an option. 

It is important to be easy to find when people search for you online. Set your LinkedIn profile to 'public' and create a unique URL, eg www.linkedin.com/in/JohnSmith.

The About section is the summary that sits beneath your name and profile picture. It is a very important part of your profile, but it should be concise. Don’t repeat the whole of your LinkedIn profile. Think of it as a ‘pitch’ and highlight what you have to offer potential employers.

• Don’t only cover what you are currently doing. Include your career goals.
• Use the first person. You can show some personality on LinkedIn, so talk about yourself, rather than writing as if you are describing someone else. Write what you’d say if you were one to one with an employer, in a few key sentences.
• Include specific examples of relevant skills, achievements and experience. Focus on those that show progress towards your career goals or demonstrate your values and interests. You can use the STAR technique to do this.
• Include keywords and skills relating to the sector you are interested in. As with your headline, think about the terms or phrases someone might use that would help them find you on LinkedIn.
• Conclude your summary with a ‘call to action’. Include one or two sentences to show what you’d like to achieve with your LinkedIn profile. For example, you could state that you’re searching for work experience or a graduate position. Or, you could focus on wanting to connect with people in a particular field. Tell potential employers if you are happy for them to contact you about opportunities.
• Add media, such as videos, photos and documents, websites, and presentations. This makes your profile more interesting and visually appealing. Media can also help evidence your skills.

Add any relevant work experience. List jobs (paid or voluntary, part-time or full-time) you’ve had with a brief description of what you were responsible for and what you achieved.

If you haven’t got any related experience, list any work experience you’ve had but make sure you highlight the relevant skills you developed. targetJobs: Skills and Competencies explains common skills graduate employers look for and how to demonstrate them.

LinkedIn puts all included experience in reverse chronological order. Only current positions can be reordered. So, you might want to think carefully about what you include here. What will the employer see first? Is that the experience your potential employer would be most interested in?

LinkedIn lists your experience ahead of your education in your profile.

LinkedIn will prompt you to fill in the following fields in your education section:

• School
• Degree
• Field of study
• Grade
• Activities and societies
• Time period
• Description

This relates largely to the US education system and ‘School’ here can mean your university.

We recommend focusing on the ‘Description’ section, to highlight your relevant course content and transferable skills. This is more important that filling in your ‘Activities and societies’ (unless these are particularly relevant). You can always add your activities and societies at the end of the description manually.

Your module catalogue can help you identify some of the skills you should gain from your course.

If you aren’t sure how to market your degree and related skills, you can book a careers appointment.

Keep these sections of your profile regularly updated. You can also add media to the experience & education sections if you have anything relevant you’d like to show a potential employer.