Hello there! This is a follow-up to my Social Media Deep Clean, after spending time on LinkedIn recently to read some articles in my feed. I ran across about personal branding for EAs by making the most of your LinkedIn profile. I don’t recall the poster because frankly, this topic comes up every few months. In this post, I contribute to this topic and provide my top 5 ideas for managing your LinkedIn profile.
Back in the early days, LinkedIn was the upscale alternative to other resume and job posting sites. It was professional, allowed people to build their network, and provided an outlet to show one’s area of expertise.
Nowadays, it’s just like the other social media sites with sponsored content, messages from marketing/sales people trying to sell you fill-in-the-blank, and another algorithm to game, if you’re into that.
The term personal branding puts me off. It feels like a professional human is reduced to a marketing campaign for a fancy cheese. To make it more palatable to me, I prefer to reframe LinkedIn as a professional tool.
My advice is:
- Look at your LinkedIn profile as if it’s someone else
- Update your profile each time you change jobs
- Update your profile headline and keep is short
- Keep the descriptions of each role short
- Pick 1 or 2 articles and post a thoughtful comment
What makes a “good” LinkedIn profile changes every few years. If nothing else, the RIFs of the past couple of years demonstrates that anyone can be looking for a new job at any time. Best to be prepared.
Finally, I recommend setting a time limit on how much social media you consume. My personal limit is 3 ads, then I walk away to do something productive or creative.