Why You should use LinkedIn? And How to make a good profile?

With the emerging use of technology and Social media, all activities and markets are trying to shift themselves to a digital platform. The world is doing everything digitally from payments to shopping and booking tickets, meetings, business. Then one big factor rises why we are still waiting for jobs and businesses to get started offline and for offline job interviews and placements. Gone are the days when people used to go to a placement services company for a job. Nowadays people and companies both are more present digitally and rather than wasting lots of time, money, energy, and other resources it's quite easy for everyone to share resumes online and to get hired in the desired job. One such platform for digital presence is Linkedin, where you can build your networks and get desired jobs in respective domains. So let's start discussing about LinkedIn deeply.

What is LinkedIn actually build for?

The main purpose to build LinkedIn is to connect the community of professionals. We can say that LinkedIn is a Facebook of professionals and active industry learners. Your LinkedIn profile can play a good role to build your strong network with the professionals' community and your profile is a digital resume that can be seen by any recruiter of the world at any place and at any time. So by this, you are having a very big opportunity to get hired all over the world.

For what all LinkedIn can be used?

LinkedIn is a popular platform for corporates and job seekers. Most of the top recruiters from MNCs and corporates consider Linkedin as the best platform to search for a suitable candidate. for a job position. As per the records, 87% of the world's recruiter use LinkedIn to check candidates' profiles and resume(Jobvite Recruiter Nation Report 2016). This means one should not consider LinkedIn as only a social media if you are really serious about your goal.

LinkedIn is also used to build networks and connections with people from the top positions in MNCs and Industries. And if you are aiming for a startup and wanted to become an entrepreneur, solopreneur, wantrepreneur or a business trader, marketer, or anything related to something self-employed or own work. Then LinkedIn is also a platform dedicated to entrepreneurship and business, here you can build a good connection and network with people who are aiming to work in the domain of your interest or you can get already connected to such entrepreneurs who are working on Ideas and business like you wanna innovate.

How to build a good LinkedIn profile?

A good profile is a profile that shows about you, not overrated you. One should remember that a recruiter only spends 1-2 minutes on the average profile if you fail to impress the recruiter then you will lose the chance. that means you should include everything about your profile, about your interest, education, work experience, skills, projects, and social activities. Let's discuss each thing one by one.

Profile Picture- Your profile picture should be very clear and showing your face clearly, Don't upload profile pictures as uploaded on Instagram. This means you should have a well and neat dress-up and a pose in which your face is clearly visible to everyone. Also, try to not upload group photographs, this will create confusion to identify the real you. The photograph should not be very light or dark in the filter, or if you can so avoid filter photographs. Also, don't let profile picture empty, this creates a doubt on the person's indentity. Let's take the examples of Good Linkedin profile pictures.

A good profile picture is like this above. and a bad profile picture is below which you should try to avoid.

About you/ summary- You should always write a brief description of yourself and your interest so that recruiters can find it easy to know a brief introduction about you. let's take a look at summaries of few people.

Experience- If you are already experienced working in a company or any startup, then you should always mention your experience or role with that company. Many times recruiters consider experienced candidates over freshers. So showing your experience can be better for you, can also get an increase in salary while switching your job because of your experience level. And if you are any student from college then you can mention your internship experience on the LinkedIn profile page so that you can get easily shortlisted for good company placements.

Education - The education section tells about your education and the degrees you have completed. Always mention your college education and master's education and the college/university name. There are some technical and non-technical jobs which need your education from a particular background like engineering, Medical, Commerce, Arts, etc. And if you're post graduate in your field then it will be very beneficial for your resume too.

Certificates\Awards\Honours - This is the thing that is mostly overrated on LinkedIn. This section is fully overhyped and people believe that showing and adding their certificates to LinkedIn can fetch them to top position and they will be shortlisted easily. But it's false, certificates can't show your knowledge and experience. Even the recruiters of LinkedIn don't consider the certification much valuable for recruitment until the certificate is issued to you for professional skills. Many people on LinkedIn add their certificates of Udemy, Coursera, EdX, and others in the section of certificates but note that these are not certifications, these certificates are offered for completion of the course and should be mentioned in the section of courses.

Projects- This is also an important and must-section to be added. Please note that projects are more important than certificates. There are such examples of profiles in which people have fewer certificates but their projects are good and those people are working in good positions. If you are a student then always try to make such good and innovative projects. This section will increase the power of your resume and recruiters also consider projects as a much important factor of knowledge and experience.

Things to keep in mind- Always be aware on LinkedIn as many professionals and corporates from all domains are searching for good partners and employees. But it depends on you how much aware you are. Remember on a thing that Market is aware of and keeping a close eye on everyone. But it's important that we have the full skill set which the market needs. If we are walking ahead of time and market then nobody has dared to stop us from success. LinkedIn is just a platform where opportunities float and we should be ready with our talent and skills to catch those floating opportunities.

Building Connections and Network- One of thing which is also wrong with LinkedIn is that people always tend to make more and more connections and don't try to identify their connections and their jobs. LinkedIn is not Facebook or Instagram where making friends and followers will give you big fame, at the end of the day recruiters will not consider about your connections are 200, 500, 1K. The algorithm of LinkedIn is different from social media. And try to build your first 500 connections more carefully, Identify each and every people you are connecting with, analyze their profiles. Because your connection is more important to fetch your resumes and to forward and recommend them to companies. And if you are not serious with your network and connections you will regret your decision to join LinkedIn.

Business Community on LinkedIn- If you're joining LinkedIn for the search of jobs and connections. Then you are not alone LinkedIn is far Ahead of it. LinkedIn has a big network of corporates, MNCs, and brands, NGOs, Industries, and small business unions. here you will get a well-established network and set of the business community for which one could wish before starting a business. But still here also thing depends on profiling and branding and networking. If you're good at these all points you may get a good group of people for your start and advice.

In the end, it's important to understand the terms personal branding and imaging. Skills are also important but in the end, knowledge matters more than certificates and other paper pieces. Try to work hard as much as possible and try to make your profile and resume always strong and above others.