This document provides tips for building a professional profile on LinkedIn. It recommends connecting with others, developing a strong summary statement, posting an appropriate photo, joining relevant groups, claiming a unique LinkedIn URL, collecting recommendations, crafting an informative headline, updating your status weekly, helping other users, and completing your entire profile to increase opportunities through LinkedIn. The key takeaways are that LinkedIn allows professionals to network, develop their personal brand, and find new opportunities.

1. Building a Professional Profile
What You Don’t know!

2. What is LinkedIn?
O The site launched on May 5, 2003
O Professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn at a
rate of more than two new members per second.
O More than 225 million members in over 200
countries and territories.
O LinkedIn is currently available in 19 languages
O More than 2.9 million companies have LinkedIn
Company Pages.
O LinkedIn members conducted over 5.7 billion
professionally-oriented searches on the platform
in 2012.

3. Make Connections!

4. Develop a Professional
Summary Statement
O Your summary statement should resemble
the first few paragraphs of your best-written
cover letter.
O Concise and confident explaining your goals
and expertise.
O Present your summary statement in short
blocks of text for easy reading.
O Add your E-Mail address!
(Phone Number too if looking for a job)

9. Display an Appropriate Photo
O Remember that LinkedIn is not Facebook!
O If you choose to post a photograph —
strongly recommended — select a
professional, high-quality headshot of you
alone.
O Party photos, cartoons, logos, and cute
photos of your puppy don’t fit in the
professional environment of LinkedIn.

10. Join the “IN” crowd
O Join LinkedIn Groups!
O Start with your university group — alums love to
connect with fellow alums and students
O Find volunteer organizations or professional
associations you already belong to
O As a member, you can comment on discussions,
find exclusive job listings, and meet people who
share common interests
O Stay up to date on industry trends
O Can’t find THE group? Create one!

13. Claim Your Unique
LinkedIn URL
O Claim a unique URL for your profile (for
example: www.linkedin.com/in/yourname)
O This also makes it easier to include your
LinkedIn URL in your email signature, which
is a great way to demonstrate your
professionalism.
O Increase the professional results that
appear when people type your name into a
search engine

17. Collect Diverse
Recommendations
O Nothing builds credibility like third-party
endorsements.
O The most impressive LinkedIn profiles have
at least one recommendation associated
with each position.
O Get recommendations from professors,
colleagues, employers, and professional
mentors.

19. Craft an Informative
Profile Headline
O Your profile headline gives people a short,
memorable way to understand who you are
in a professional context
O Think of the headline as the slogan for your
professional brand
O Providing Innovative Social Media & Web 2.0
Marketing solutions in Higher Education
O Modernizing Career Services & Professional
Development with Technology and Social Media in
Higher Education

20. Update your status weekly
O Great way to stay on other people’s radar
and enhance your professional image.
O Tell people about events you’re attending,
major projects you’ve completed,
professional books you’re reading, or any
other news that you would tell someone at a
networking reception

22. Lend a (virtual) hand
O As you build connections and group
memberships, think about what you can do
to support other people
O Comment on a status update, forward a job
listing that fits the criteria of a friend, or
write a recommendation for a colleague
O You’ll find that your generosity is always
rewarded (and, of course, it feels really good
to help someone!)

23. 100% complete = 100% more
likely to get noticed
O You can’t build connections if people don’t
know you exist or see what you have to offer.
O Your LinkedIn profile is your online business
card, your resume, and your letters of rec all
in one.
O Don’t be shy: users with complete profiles
are 40 times more likely to receive
opportunities through LinkedIn.

24. Job & People Search

28. What you did not know…
O You don’t have to pay for LinkedIn!
O Search for alums working for companies you
want to work for and connect!
O Your Google Search & LinkedIn Profile are
intergraded
O More people are actually getting jobs through
LinkedIn more then ever before!
O Connect with The Berkeley College Network with
over 3,140 members!
O Apply for a job with just one (or two) clicks.
O Network, Network, Network

29. Michael Iris, MS
Director of Career Services
MKI@BerkeleyCollege.edu
973-405-2111 Ext. 6406