The Best Hacks for Making a Memorable Impression with Your LinkedIn Profile

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Jeff Rothman, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

The two aspects of the LinkedIn profile that most people mess up are the Headline and the About section. By dedicating time and effort to these two elements, you will attract contacts and make connections with professionals who are more relevant and appropriate for what you do, and for what you are trying to achieve in your career, now and in the future.

Make Your Profile About Your “Who” Not Your “What.”
This is the crucial idea that differentiates this approach from most other prescriptions you’ll see for your LinkedIn profile.

Increasingly, recruiters and employers are looking for ways they can differentiate between the numbing sameness of candidates whose resumes cross their screens. The more they get to know who you are, not just what you’ve done, the more likely they will be to consider you more seriously for an open position.

Flatter team-based hierarchies in today’s economy thrive on a mix of complementary hard and soft skill sets. So it is vital for recruiters and employers to find the right balance when hiring into those multi-dimensional working environments.

Authenticity and Transparency Are What Differentiate You
To stand out and get taken more seriously, think of yourself as a “generalized specialist,” or “specialized generalist.” You want to represent yourself as knowing the primary domain or skill set that defines the work that you do and the job you can do. But you must also know the skills and mindsets of the people, teams, and departments up and down the hierarchy and ecology of your industry.

Show that you are aware of the challenges facing your business and that you have a point of view about how to address those challenges. Describe how your unique blend of training, skills, abilities, talents, interests, values, and connections has made a positive and productive difference in your career.

The Headline: Your Value, Not Your Job Title
It all starts right here. If your headline is too generic, you risk losing your reader right here. They’ll be on to the next profile.

You have 120 characters to use in your headline and I recommend using as many as possible. Convey your specific role, as well as the subsets or additional skills or expertise you offer. Also, try to add some personal touches that can add dimension and inspire more curiosity and interest for the reader.

Don’t use your current job title. For search results, this will mean that you wind up appearing in results that will tend to peg you or type you at your current level. Instead, describe the role or specialty that you perform. For example, instead of listing yourself as “VP, Digital Marketing,” list yourself as a “Digital Marketing Specialist.” Better yet, expand on that core identity to cover more ground.

Your headline is not an elevator pitch. Avoid hyperbole like: “Get Big Marketing Returns from Small Budgets,” “I Can Help You Deliver x Result When Nothing Else Has Worked,” or “Deliver x% ROI With My Proven Track Record.” Remember that your headline is the way you will be searched and discovered. No one will be searching for the language in your elevator pitch, especially if it’s so salesy.

You can use the pipe key (|) as a separator to turn the headline into sections. Many people build their headlines out of two or three little sections like this, with each one describing a different role or ability.

The About Section: Break from Convention
Many people make the mistake of treating their About section as a rehash of their resume. They copy and paste the formal, third-person biographical summary or purpose statement from the top, and then bullet-point their positions.

Avoid the typical buzzword-filled corporate-speak writing style, e.g. “Strategic, experienced, marketing (substitute “sales,” “operations,” “finance” etc.) executive with x years of proven experience managing large teams in top-tier, competitive corporate environments.”

This kind of language pushes recruiters, employers, potential allies away. You’re coming across as just another faceless corporate drone.

Most importantly, it wastes the opportunity that this section affords. All of your positions, experiences, and achievements belong in the Experience section. That’s where you can go into detail about what you did in each position, including your responsibilities and the ROI you achieved.

The Three Story Elements of an Effective About Section
Compose your About section as a brief, three-paragraph story that encapsulates your career as a personal journey. Again, the purpose is to capture who you are, not just what you’ve done.

The beginning paragraph should convey the underlying reason you do what you do. It could be some form of “origin story” that relates an inciting incident from your youth that set you on this path. It could be a lesson you learned from a mistake or adverse conditions. It could be a realization or epiphany that you gleaned from a pivotal encounter with a customer.

Sharing this small but significant piece of your background instantly engages and sparks curiosity and interest. Personal revelation is always disarming and intriguing.

Next, share a couple of examples of how that initial inspiration or motivation has played out throughout your career. Illustrate the qualities of fulfillment, impact, or transformation that your work has produced. What did these examples (no more than two or three) mean to you and the others involved? Talk about success in terms of goals met or mission accomplished, and most importantly the effect that your work has had on others. Don’t think of it exclusively in terms of revenue.

For the final “act” of your About section story, you want to talk aspirationally. Write about where you’re going and what you want to do going forward. This expression of hope and positive intention will connect with your reader on a deeper level and hopefully inspire them to reach out to you.

How You’ll Benefit
Once you’ve made these changes, your LinkedIn profile will now more likely attract the kind of people you’re looking for.

Recruiters and hiring managers will instantly understand who you are. Like-minded professionals will more easily accept your connection requests. Building a network should be like discovering your tribe. With these revisions, you will have a much easier time finding those people and easily connecting to them.

Your Headline and About sections are the heart of your LinkedIn profile. You should feel proud of what they say about you and how they define you. They are now the core of your overall marketing message. You’ll use them across all of your correspondence as a consistent and dynamic representation of your professional brand.

(Adapted from a blog post by John Tarnoff, a career transition coach based in California)