Headhunters look for people with your skills on LinkedIn every day. Are you showing in their searches? Is your LinkedIn profile optimised for your to get noticed for the right opportunity?
Answer these questions to find out.
1. Are you connected to at least 500 people?
Yes
No
Answer: Aim for 500+ high quality connections to build an effective network. LinkedIn’s algorithm favours users with a larger network, increasing your visibility to employers and recruiters.
2. Are you connected to at least 20 relevant recruiters?
Yes
No
Answer: When a recruiter runs a search on LinkedIn, their direct 1st connections with the right keywords in their profiles will show at the top of the search. You may be the best fir for the role, but if you are not connected to that recruiter, your spot at the top is taken by someone else who is more proactive about their career management.
3. Is your LinkedIn profile photo recent and professional?
Taken in the last two years vs 2010
Is a professional headshot of you vs ‘me and my mate’
Don’t have one
Answer: An experiment tracking recruiters’ eye movements showed that they spend a disproportionate amount of time looking at candidates’ photos. LinkedIn reports that profiles with photos receive 21 times more views and 36 times more messages. A professional headshot is paramount. Use a high-quality, high-resolution photo with a plain background. Just ask a friend or your partner to take 20-30 well-lit shots with a smartphone and select the best one. Your face should occupy ca. 80% of the frame: not too distant and not too close.
4. Is your LinkedIn profile optimised for keywords?
Yes
No
What do you mean?
Answer: Keywords are simply words that headhunters are most likely to use to find someone with your profile. From the recruiting point of view, LinkedIn is just catalogue / database and operates very much like Amazon or eBay where you start with typing in the name of the product you are interested in. If you profile is organically populated with the right keywords, you will be appearing at the top of recruiters searches.
5. Have you worked on your headline?
Yes
No
What do you mean?
Answer: Your headline is what goes under your picture. Your current job title is what appears against the logo of your current employer. Both are important as they are searchable by headhunters. But your headline is what visitors to your profile see first and it’s what people see when you comment, post or report content on LinkedIn. Your headline gets way more exposure.
Customise your headline with relevant keywords, job titles, special credentials and your industry.
6. Have you optimised the first 2 lines of your “About” section?
Yes
No
Answer: LinkedIn only shows the first 2 lines of your About section. The reader then has the choice to click on ‘Read more…” — or not. Make sure that the first 2 lines position you for the jobs you are after, then it’s more likely that the recruiter will read the rest.
7. Do you list job titles and cy recommendations have you received?
10+
7-9
5-6
1-3
None
Answer: Aim for 6+ recommendations, with at least one written in the last year. Recommendations is the best way for an employer to ‘meet’ you as a person and not just another suited LinkedIn photo. They provide social proof to potential employers and indicate ongoing professional success and relevance.
8. Does every job record list the employer’s logo?
Yes
No
Answer: This is important for two reasons. Firstly, it shows that you are tech savvy enough to link a job with a LinkedIn company page. Secondly, headhunters actually run LinkedIn searches by current and past companies, especially for for C-level roles. If you don’t have your employers’ logos on your profile, it means that your profile is not ‘linked’ to those companies and you will not show in the headhunters’ search.
9. Does your Skills section include the skills for your target role?
Yes
No
Answer: Keep updating your skills. If you are a CEO, it’s time to remove Word and Excel from your skills list. Do include any foreign languages as a skill. In their special LinkedIn search interface, recruiters are able to search by specific skills. If you have the right skills on your profile, you will show in their search as someone suitable for the role they are working on.
10. How many recommendations have you received?
10+
7-9
5-6
1-3
None
Answer: Aim for 6+ recommendations, with at least one written in the last year. Recommendations is the best way for an employer to ‘meet’ you as a person and not just another suited LinkedIn photo. They provide social proof to potential employers and indicate ongoing professional success and relevance.
11. Do you post on LinkedIn?
Yes
No
Answer: Posting 1-2 times per week significantly improves your visibility on LinkedIn and keeps front of mind for your network. When headhunters search for candidates on LinkedIn, active profiles come up at the top of the search results.
12. Do you comment on other people’s posts on LinkedIn?
Yes
No
Answer: Commenting on other people’s posts (not just ‘liking’ them) is a highly valuable activity: your profile gets seen by the network of the author, you add another piece to the mosaic of your online brand, and you can turn your most popular comments into independent posts.
13. Have you set LinkedIn job alerts filters correctly?
Yes
No
Answer: Very few people take the time to tweak job search alerts to the point where they deliver truly relevant opportunities. The good news is, you only need to set them up once, and they will serve you for a good couples of years.
14. Have you customised your LinkedIn feed for the people you want to network with?
Yes
No
What do you mean?
Answer: If you are not careful, LinkedIn’s generic feed becomes a spam folder. You can set up activity notifications to create your own feed of content from people you’d like to interact with. Why is it important? So you can easily scan your feed for the posts that give you a chance to add a meaningful comment.
Sounds like a lot of work? It does not need to be. Just use this test as a checklist to make the most of LinkedIn, keep chipping away for a few minutes every day and you’ll be in top 1% of LinkedIn users most visible to headhunters.