Have you wondered why you are not getting as many enquiries/invites via LinkedIn recently? Did you know that LinkedIn tweaked their internal search algorithm a little while ago, to make certain LinkedIn profiles appear higher in searches than others? 
Some of you will have benefited from these changes, whereas many will have slipped down the search results pages.

The reason is all down to the words 100% Profile. 

When LinkedIn displays search results for searches on LinkedIn they do so based on the following criteria:

1. 1st degree contacts that are 100% complete or nearest to it, have the most in-common connections and shared groups, and ranked in descending order
2. 1st degree contacts, that are 100% complete or nearest to it, and ranked in descending order
3. 2nd degree contacts, that are 100% complete or nearest to it, and ranked in descending order
4. 3rd degree contacts, that are 100% complete or nearest to it, and ranked in descending order
5. Shared group contacts that are otherwise unconnected to you, from 100% complete or nearest to it, and ranked in descending order
6. Everyone else with high profile completeness
7. Everyone else who have low profile completeness.

Have you noticed the key words - 100% profile - in there? 

So is your profile 100%? [According to LinkedIn, only 50.5% of people have a 100% completed LinkedIn profile] Have you added the following to your profile? The underlined ones are required by LinkedIn to give you a complete profile.

• Have you added a photo - people want to see the people they are connecting with. Don't be a dufus and leave it blank, a photo massively improves your chances of connecting
• A descriptive Headline that includes your chosen keywords
• Completed information on the last two jobs
• Summary with good keyword content
• Specialities - just keyword 1; keyword 2; keyword 3; etc.
• Skills - up to 50
• Schools / College information
• Connections - as many as you can, aim for a minimum of 100 (LinkedIn say you should have a minimum of 50)
• Recommendations (not mandatory but useful anyway)
• Slideshare application - add your latest presentation or marketing slidedeck to your LinkedIn profile
• Blog application - all your latest posts will appear on your profile 

And remember LinkedIn are more than generous with their text fields! They give you loads of space for you to 'sell' yourself to others on their platform. Here are the field limits available:

• Headline – 120 Characters
• Status Field – 140 Characters
• Summary – 2,000 Characters
• Specialties – 500 Characters
• Company Name – 100 Characters
• Position (Job) Title – 100 Characters
• Position Description – 2,000 Characters
• Interests – 1,000 Characters

How many of these have you maxed out on? Take for example the Summary field: I bet you have just scraped 200 characters…….. you are missing a real opportunity here to showcase yourself and add all the relevant keywords and (searchable) descriptive text about, you, your industry and your company. Better get writing - you have another 1800 characters left!

LinkedIn is hugely important for our industry, yet many people still just play it lip service. Just because you have a basic profile, does not mean you are using LinkedIn. You need to invest time and effort into making your profile 100% complete (you are stupid if you don't), and ensure that you have all the relevant keywords in there to be found by your target audience - either clients or candidates (or both).

For those of you that think it doesn't matter - after a recent training workshop I did with a client on LinkedIn, two of the recruiters noticed a 5X increase in LinkedIn invitations and a 7X increase in the number of people viewing their profile respectively. They are still a work in progress, but they have seen immediate results already.

Don't delay, check out your own LinkedIn profile and start making those improvements today! If you find this useful, you should connect with me on LinkedIn/in/andyheadworth.

Here are a couple of recent posts that might also help you to improve your LinkedIn experience:

How to easily find your LinkedIn connections on Twitter

Three brilliant under used LinkedIn social recruiting tools

We work with recruitment agencies and corporates to help them with recruitment strategy, recruitment process and social recruiting. If you require guidance, advice or social recruiting training, get in touch today.

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