Making Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out to Employers

you could choose to type in your company name, Alba says you might want to use a phrase that's descriptive and that will draw readers in. In Alba's case, for instance, he would describe his blog as "career management blog" instead of the generic "My blog."

Go get your LinkedIn URL

Like any social network or web service of its kind, LinkedIn will create an address for your profile page. Ideally, you want to have your name at the end of the URL. Such as, for example, http://www.linkedin.com/in/cglynch.

You can edit your LinkedIn URL. And do it quickly, especially if you suspect many users share the same name as you. It's much like free e-mail services: it's better to be John Smith@[email service] than JohnSmith1431@[e-mail service].

"This is a URL you might leave in your blog or homepage, or maybe in your professional e-mail signature," Alba says. "If it's cleaner and recognizable, that will be helpful."

Summary

The "summary" section is the meat of your LinkedIn profile, and matters a great deal both in terms of human interaction (do people find it interesting?), and also in terms of LinkedIn's powerful search engine, which will find certain keywords in it relevant, and return you higher in search results when people query terms in your field of work.

"The more keywords you have the more relevant you are in search," Alba says. "So if you're in project management, for example, you might want to have PMP (Project Management Professional) in there."

But Alba says you must remember that humans will be reading your summary, so don't get so hung up on keywords that the summary becomes unreadable.

"Some people will do SEO (search engine optimization) and make it just a list of keywords," Alba says. "That's not very compelling for a human reading your summary."

One thing you might do, Dixson says, is focus on writing a good concise summary of yourself in the summary field and save the keywords for "specialties," which appears as a subsection within the summary and can be modified when you click to edit your summary.

Recommendations

Recommendations allow people viewing your profile to get a third-party perspective on you and your work. If you ask someone to write you a recommendation, you will be able to approve it before it gets posted to your profile.

While Alba says it's nice to have that recommendation where your boss gushes over all the great work you do, don't stop there. Go for what career coaches call the 360-degree view.

"If you can have subordinates say you're the greatest boss in the world, or customers who say you're great to do business with, that provides [readers of your LinkedIn profile] with a much fuller view of you," Alba says.

What to do with Apps

In October, LinkedIn launched its applications platform, making it possible for users to add up to 10 different apps to their LinkedIn profile.

"Whatever you do within the apps, keep it on brand," Alba says.

As an example, then, don't use the slideshow application to post pictures of your vacation to Florida or anything personal. Instead, the app to create a PowerPoint-like presentation showcasing your work, Dixson says, or display your career goals in another engaging format.