Writing a Powerful LinkedIn Summary


A LinkedIn membership, free or premium, is a must have for today's job seeker because head hunters are flocking to LinkedIn to recruit candidates for open positions. A significant part of the LinkedIn profile is the summary section. To get the most out of your summary don't reiterate information that is on your resume, but look for a different angle to flesh out the same background in two paragraphs. This part will take time if you aren't a wordsmith so don't be surprised or get discouraged if it takes you a couple of days to come up with compelling verbiage.
 
Once you have written the introductory paragraphs, choose three successes from the last ten to fifteen years of your career to showcase. Finally to round out the summary, include a closing paragraph. Let's take a look at a sample summary Linkedin you can use as a model.

An Introduction to Using LinkedIn


LinkedIn is the must join social network for professionals, with more than 400 million users across the world. As most of the users are clustered in the United States, it is an especially important resource for American professionals. Most users are above 30, set in their careers, and most top executives are on LinkedIn.
The basic use of LinkedIn is to create a profile and invite people to join your network. Professionals use it to showcase their professional talents and experience and keep up with colleagues in a business capacity.
Top users of LinkedIn may have tens of thousands of contacts in their network. However, they advise that any given user will only talk regularly to a few connections, and the purpose of having a large network is simply to find those people with whom you really work well with professionally.
Basic Tips to Start Using LinkedIn:
Make sure to have a professional looking headshot - it does not need to be overly formal, but definitely professional.
The education section should be kept rather brief. Do list your university / college school name or MBA course. Leave your grades out of it unless you achieved incredibly high marks or a universally acclaimed scholarship.
• Make your 'past' occupation your most impressive previous employment.
• Your summary should be at most 200 words. Do not fill space with aspirations or feelings.
• List only accomplishments and special achievements.
• Keep things factual, no matter what, throughout.
• List realistic expectations about the hopes for what your business will become, even if you secretly wish for more. However, it is always best to simply list what your business currently is, as people usually want to connect with those currently at a high level of achievement and reputation.
• Limit your 'Interested in' section to at most, five points.
LinkedIn Functions to Keep in Mind:
LinkedIn Groups
Professional groups serve the same purpose as social groups do on social networking sites. Be sure to thoroughly check to see if a group relevant to you has already been formed before creating one of your own. It is much easier and more time effective to join an already existing group than to build your own from scratch.
Questions
These are especially useful when you do not have a business update to present to the community, but still want to keep up with other professionals.
Applications
There are many tools here relevant to business web design for free use, such as Huddle Workspaces file storage and SlideShare. Use them to create a business web design for yourself or to bolster your LinkedIn presence.
Jobs
For those in the know, LinkedIn is the place to professionally see and be seen.

About the Author

Bird and Co Creative provides innovative graphic design and web design in Birmingham. To find out how we can get your business noticed, visit our website at http://www.birdandcocreative.co.uk/.

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