LinkedIn is the largest business-oriented networking website geared specifically toward professionals. It has over 500 million members, in over 200 countries. While Facebook is leading the way in social media, LinkedIn has been working away slowly to carve its position as a leading professional networking platform. The trend is similar in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi individuals and businesses, young and old, have been using LinkedIn for jobs, recruitment, and building networks. There were 2,990,000 LinkedIn users in Bangladesh in October 2019, which accounted for 1.8% of its entire population. People aged 25 to 34 were the largest user group (1 600 000).
Why it’s important to have a LinkedIn profile? Let’s have a look at some of the advantages of having a LinkedIn profile that will make you stand out among all other job aspirants in the competitive job market of our country.
Firstly, Job Recruiters and Managers are on LinkedIn; LinkedIn will help you find a job faster because most hiring managers and recruiters are already using it.
Secondly, your LinkedIn Profile Builds Trust and Credibility; A well written LinkedIn profile will give you credibility and will establish you as a trustworthy potential employee.
Thirdly, great Networking Opportunities; LinkedIn also offers you an excellent opportunity to network with other professionals in your field.
Fourthly, you will keep yourself Up-to-Date on Job Openings; With a LinkedIn account, you will be able to continually keep an eye out for various job opportunities that will interest you.
In short, having a LinkedIn profile will help you a great deal in landing your dream job. And the sooner you have it, the better it will be for your career. However, besides having a LinkedIn profile, a few important things are needed to be taken into consideration while developing or updating a LinkedIn profile. That is;
Choose the right profile picture for LinkedIn; your profile picture is your calling card on LinkedIn. Make sure the picture is recent and looks like you, make up your face takes up around 60% of it (long-distance shots don’t stand out), wear what you would like to wear to work, and smile with your eyes!
Add a background photo; your background photo is the second visual element at the top of your profile page. It grabs people’s attention, sets the context, and shows a little more about what matters to you. More than anything, the right background photo helps your page stand out, engage attention, and stay memorable.
Make your headline more than just a job title; no rule says the description at the top of your profile page has to be just a job title. Use the headline field to say a bit more about how you see your role, why you do what you do, and what makes you tick.
Turn your summary into your story; your summary is your chance to tell your own story – so don’t just use it to list your skills or the job titles you’ve had. Try to bring to life why those skills matter – and the difference they can make to the people you work with.
Get a custom URL; It’s much easier to publicize your profile with a customized URL (ideally linkedin.com/your name), rather than the clunky combination of numbers that LinkedIn automatically assigns when you sign up.
Treat your profile like your resume; your resume isn’t just a list of job duties (or, at least, it shouldn’t be)—it’s a place to highlight your best accomplishments. The same goes for your LinkedIn profile, make sure your experience section is fleshed out with bullet points that describe what you did, how well you did it, and who is impacted.
Show your achievements; recruiters spend countless hours scouring LinkedIn in search of the high performers. And when they find them, they contact said high performers. Knowing this, you’ll serve yourself well to market yourself as a high performer in your summary and experience section.
Include a current job entry, even when unemployed; if you’ve only listed the past positions you’ve held in the experience section but show nothing current, you’ll probably get missed in most searches. Why? Because most recruiting professionals exclusively use the current title box to search for candidates; otherwise they’d have to sort through thousands of candidates who held a certain role (for example, graphic designer).
Update your status; Just like on Facebook, you can update your LinkedIn status as often as you wish. So, do! Update it professionally and strategically (share the article you just wrote, not what you ate for lunch today), ideally once a week. Your entire network will see your updates, both in their news feeds and in the weekly LinkedIn network updates emails, they receive.
Grow your network; One of the easiest and yet most relevant ways to grow your LinkedIn network is to synch your profile with your email address book. This enables LinkedIn to suggest people you could connect with.
Become an author or add your Blog; all users can write and publish their work on the platform. Share your perspective about what’s going on in your field, weigh in on recent industry development, or show off your skills as a writer. It’s a great way to get noticed. If you have a WordPress blog, consider using a plugin such as Social Media Auto Publish or WP LinkedIn Auto Publish to automatically publish your new posts to LinkedIn.
Showcase your passion for learning; when you complete a course on LinkedIn Learning, you’ll have the opportunity to add a course certificate to your LinkedIn profile. You do this from within the Learning History section of your LinkedIn Learning account – where you can also send updates about your learning to your network if choose.
Make sure people can find you; don’t forget to add your email address (or blog, or Twitter handle, or anywhere else you’d like to be found) to the contact information section of your resume.
Many people still underestimate the importance of LinkedIn in their job search and are sometimes reluctant to embrace social media. It’s the time to focus more on LinkedIn profile than ever to survive in the highly competitive job market of Bangladesh. In short, if you have a well-developed LinkedIn profile, recruiters will consider you smarter than 10 other job aspirants. So, update your LinkedIn profile now & get employed! Good luck!