A lot has been written about the importance of creating a LinkedIn profile that will help you stand out from the crowd. But who is in the crowd you are being compared with? And how do you compare to them?

Here are 2 things you can do to pay attention to this:

#1: Look for the profiles of some of your professional peers

People who work with you at your current job or who were colleagues with a prior employer.

  • How are they positioning themselves?
  • What are their headlines?
  • Does the way they describe themselves in their “About” section matches the way you know them professionally or personally?
  • How much detail do they include about their work experience? Does it remind you of anything, perhaps a project you worked on together?
  • Do you think this a good representation of who they are?

#2: Look specifically at the keywords your colleagues have included on their profiles

They can be anywhere in the LinkedIn profile, but be sure to look at their “Skills” section, where you can add as many as 50.

Keywords are the primary way that recruiters and hiring managers will search to find someone like you. If your peers have included keywords for skills that are in high demand, but you have not, you will definitely get lost in the crowd.

As a professional resume writer, if I forgot to include “cover letters,” in my profile, I would be overlooked! All of my fellow writers also do cover letters, so it needs to be clear that I offer the same service.

Do not ever, ever copy the content of someone else’s profile and add to your own. That is plagiarism, and it’s a big problem. But that doesn’t mean you can’t look at your colleagues’ LinkedIn profiles and consider how you can make yourself visible for a recruiter looking for someone like you.

I have many years of experience working with LinkedIn. You can reach me here by sending a message through LinkedIn. Or click this link to schedule a call. There is NO charge.