Creating and improving upon your LinkedIn profile can seem like a daunting task. You obviously want to represent the best version of yourself to potential employers, but still be authentic and use your own voice. There are several things you can do to make your LinkedIn summary stand out. A LinkedIn summary is an open-ended opportunity to sell yourself and explain your professional history to potential future employers. Despite any hesitations you may have, creating a LinkedIn summary is an important step to improving your LinkedIn account. Whether you are utilizing LinkedIn for marketing or personal purposes, a well-written summary is a must. This article will teach you how to write a good LinkedIn summary.
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Make Your First Couple Sentences Count
Obviously your entire LinkedIn summary should be something that you believe is high quality. However, your first couple sentences are the most important. A good LinkedIn summary tip is to make sure your first couple sentences (around 300 words) feature positive traits about yourself and your accomplishments. This is important to do when learning how to write a LinkedIn summary because after 300 words employers have to press the “see more” button to read the rest of your LinkedIn summary.
You have to use those first 300 words to give recruiters a reason to read the rest of your LinkedIn summary. If you were to put a really important piece of information towards the end of your LinkedIn summary, a recruiter might not even see it. Knowing that recruiters do not always read your entire LinkedIn summary should not discourage you. Since you now know a recruiter might not read the entire summary, you can better prepare yourself, compared to people who leave important information towards the end of their summary. This will give you an advantage other over applicants.
Start Your LinkedIn Summary by Explaining Your Current Job
Explain your current occupation. Focus on not just where you are employed, but what your responsibilities for your current job are. Highlight the parts of your job that you enjoy and go into detail about why you enjoy them. Make sure to also highlight aspects of your job that you would use in the jobs you are applying to. What if your current job is not in the field you are applying for? If this is the case, then explain what skills you learned from your current job that could be used in other fields. Some skills like communication and leadership skills are valuable in almost all jobs.
Additionally, you can explain why you want to work in the field you are applying to. This is a good opportunity to highlight your professional passions. What if you are a recent graduate and do not have any relevant work experience? Instead of focusing on your work experience, describe what you did during your time in school. Internships, school extracurricular activities, and volunteering experience can be a great replacement for your work history. When learning how to write a LinkedIn summary, focus on how these experiences either fueled your passion for the industry or what these experiences taught you.
Use Keywords in Your LinkedIn Summary
When learning how to write a LinkedIn summary, it is important to remember to use keywords in your summary. In this circumstance keywords are words that employers can easily search to find your LinkedIn profile. This is why it is important to make sure that your current job title is featured prominently in your LinkedIn summary. Recruiters may search for new employees by searching specific job titles in LinkedIn.
In addition to your job title, your location, or more importantly the location which you wish to work in, can help employers find your profile. It is better to say a larger area so employers are more likely to search for that keyword. A good LinkedIn summary example for using your location would be to say you’re looking for employment in the Chicago area, instead of a specific area.
Using skills and certifications as keywords in your LinkedIn summary are also good keywords. If you are using a certification as one of your keywords to make a good LinkedIn summary, make sure that it is the full name of the certification. Employers may struggle to find your LinkedIn profile if you abbreviate the name of the certification.
If you are still confused how to write a LinkedIn summary with keywords, then look at the words job posting you wish to apply for use. Often an employer will search for keywords they already used in the job postings they are attempting to hire for. If you are trying to find even more keywords, look at the job description of either your current or previous jobs.
Make Sure to Convey Your Personality
Learning how to write a good LinkedIn summary involves conveying your personality. Conveying your personality in your LinkedIn summary is important because it gives employers insight into your personality before you ever meet them. This will let the employer see if your personality is one that fits in well with their company culture. Additionally, this can make your summary more interesting and more enjoyable for a recruiter to read. If the recruiter is enjoying reading your profile, then they will be more likely to reach out to you for an interview. Adding personality to your LinkedIn summary will also help your LinkedIn summary stick out in the recruiter’s mind from other summaries. Incorporating your personality is a crucial part of learning how to write a LinkedIn summary. This is also a good tip for cold messaging on LinkedIn.
Follow a LinkedIn Summary Template
If you are still struggling to find a good place to start your LinkedIn summary, looking at LinkedIn summary examples could help. There are several LinkedIn summary templates that you could use based on the structure you want your LinkedIn summary to be. Although in every LinkedIn summary you should feature both your personality and your work experience, you can focus on one if necessary. A LinkedIn summary example of this would be if you are a recent college graduate and do not have much professional work experience, you could highlight your personality. Explain things you’ve done outside of your professional life that highlight the type of person you are.
A good example of this would be unrelated volunteer work. This is a good LinkedIn summary example of showing your personality because it shows employers that you spend your free time helping your community. It also shows employers that you are selfless and care about the well-being of others around you. These are good traits to have in an employee or co-worker. Regardless of whatever LinkedIn summary template you choose, we recommend that you keep it around 2,000 words. This is not a strict requirement by any means. Obviously, you can add more or less depending on how much you have to say.
Another good LinkedIn summary tip is to not write long paragraphs. Each paragraph should only have about two to four sentences. Your LinkedIn summary should not sound like an essay. Instead, it should be more like an informal overview of your history.
Use Bullet Points
A really effective LinkedIn summary tip is to add bullet points. Adding bullet points can be a great way to break up paragraphs. Breaking up your paragraphs is good because it sticks out. It makes it much more likely that an employer will be drawn to your profile. If you are wondering how to write a LinkedIn summary with bullet points in it, making a list of your accomplishments could be a good start.
If you do decide to make a list of your accomplishments, consider putting them in chronological order. This will give any recruiters a good idea of what you have done recently in your professional careers. You can even list the dates of when you accomplished each achievement. This could give recruiters even more insight into what you have achieved professionally and when.
Another way to incorporate bullet points into your LinkedIn summary is to list what you are looking for in a future job. This gives the employer further insight if their job opening is a fit for what you are looking for.
End Your Summary with a Call to Action
It’s always a good idea to end your LinkedIn summary with a call to action. A call to action is when you encourage your reader to complete a certain task. It’s important to write a great call to action for your LinkedIn page. For a LinkedIn summary, your call to action could be encouraging employers to reach out to you about job openings. Additionally this could be a great opportunity to explain exactly what type of position you are looking for. What area do you wish to be employed in? Are you looking for a job or an internship? Full-time or part-time position? You can answer all these questions in your call to action.
So what are you waiting for? Start writing that LinkedIn summary. Hopefully some of these tips helped you get started, so you can get the job of your dreams. With a good LinkedIn summary, you are one step closer.
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