Hello all, This is my first post here, so I’m glad I finally have something worthwhile to post about (at least hopefully).
I was wondering how do you guys set up your LinkedIn profile whether you’re looking to be recruited full time or looking for freelance projects? Are there best practices that you follow to dress up your profile?
I am a long time tech enthusiast and started my career in programming before I took a few detours along the way and ended up in real estate. Now I’m getting back to it and so would appreciate any feedback you may have about how I am presenting myself on LinkedIn Linked-In Profile for Kayvon Shahir.
I don’t think of a LinkedIn profile as something that needs to be “dressed up”. To me it’s more about content. Just go through and make sure as much content is in there as possible. Other than that, there is just expanding your network and (if you want) posting content that will attract readers and discussion.
There is debate over the importance of LinkedIn. In some areas it is vital, in others it is all but unused. But it certainly can’t hurt.
I can’t see your profile, as you have to log in to LinkedIn to see it, and I won’t. (I’m not at all happy with their level of surveillance . I’ve left my profile there for employers who insist that their applicants have one, but I stopped updating it years ago.)
Make sure that your experience section contains keywords/buzzwords of your top skills so recruiters can find you when they search for people with those skills.
You can ask people to write you a recommendation, and then recruiters will see that people have recommended you.
People in your network will be asked to rate you on certain skills, and you will be asked to rate others. If you give ratings, people will give back. (I personally find this obnoxious. Some people have rated me as expert for skills I don’t even have, and then I had to delete them so recruiters wouldn’t contact me for them.)
You might join some groups related to your career interests, whether they’re for coding or a certain industry you’d like to work in or something else. You can be active or not, but they can help you keep up with trends, job openings and can be good for networking.
Honestly, I’ve never been very active on LinkedIn, but I have gotten a job or two through it from recruiters finding me there.
Thanks so much for your feedback. I know there’s a debate about how useful a LinkedIn profile is to the job process. What I hear from some recruiters in the industry is that it is a source that they use to search for potential candidates, so it is essential to have it up to date and have a presence. So I guess we’ll see…
The latest CodeNewbie podcast features an in-house recruiter addressing what he looks for in a LinkedIn profile. The whole thing is worthwhile, but the relevant part begins at 00:14:16.
@k-von If you wanna go freelance, than no need to have a LI account, but if you wanna enter a tech company or any major business company, I strongly advice you to pimp nicely your Linked In profile (I’m talking about content suitable for potential recruiters). I’m from the French West Indies, so I’m living on a small island and I can tell you I got 5 interviews and two job offers finally only with Linked In.
The magic thing is that when you enter your coordinates and where you wanna work, you see all those companies and especially how many fellow Campers were hired in each of them. This is awesome !
Head hunters swim everyday in LI waters, they’ve got some tools allowing them to identify profiles just with some keywords. So next advice : chose your better skills and declare them in your profiles clearly (with the keywords autocompletion suggestion) so that it fits with LI keywords database.
In experience section, do the difference with accurate details about what you do/did. For example, don’t just write : “Did Dynamic Websites” but prefer “worked on single page applications with custom modules, made with JQuery and NodeJs on Wordpress 4”.
Post from time to time small thoughts about dev or web design, or other topic concerning your work. Only relevant information of course, never go out of the professional sphere ! Try to be regular, if you post once a week, or once a day, keep the ryhm, not to pass for an opportunist. 10-15 min / day is enough and it does worth it.
Extend your network. Send invitations to the fellow campers, this could allow you to take information on a company by talking with employees before even applying (salaries, facilities, ambiance…) and opportunities may come this way too.
Amazing pointers! Thank you. I’m happy to learn that your LI profile got you jobs. Just one thought in regards to being a freelancer vs an employment seeker. I was under the impression that your LinkedIn profile plays an integral part in establishing credibility for your business. I’m thinking that once potential clients are getting ready to hire you for their project, they will first check you out on LinkedIn to get a more in-depth look at your experience. This is where your beefed up LinkedIn profile would play a role in your client conversions. Does that make sense, or is that a bit of a trivial way of looking at how it would work for freelancers?
Sncerelly, based upon my own experience : a LI account is optional if you’re in freelance.
Middle and Big companies never work with freelancers. It may happen that an intermediary agency hire you for a job for his big customer, but that’s all you can pretend to generally. It’s not a matter of skills, but of organisation, structured companies prefer to work with agencies.
On the other side, there are a lot of small companies that won’t be able to afford the services of an agency. They will definitely chose a “freelancer” by “mouth to ear” or go to platforms like upwork instead of losing time watching profiles on LI. Watchng & seeking candidates is a recruiter job.
That makes sense. I appreciate your perspective. I’m fairly new into this world of freelancing so I’m not sure if that’s initially the first step to take or just look for a regular corporate job. So your insight does shed a little light on what I should prioritize first. Thanks again.
-k-
Don’t think as an employee if you choose to go freelance, but think as a leader of your own company. When you set up your pricing, don’t forget to include taxes and the time you spend not being coding or designing. I mean prospection, promotion, customer care, all these things must be included in your price. Don’t tell you “I work for my salary” but rather “I work for my company to grow bigger”. Globally, the administrative tasks will be like 40% of your work. That’s why you must establish a price / day (in french we call it jour/homme).
Beware of freelance platforms. They tend to pull prices down for everybody, by the wild concurrence on certain projects. It’s normal to pretend to a moderate price when you’re a new freelancer on a platform, but please don’t work for $7/hour !
You can prospect among commercial targets like bakeries, bookstores, restaurants etc. Don’t hesitate to go physically propose your services (with your killer portfolio of course). You may even prepare a landing page demo to bring the sauce to your customer’s mouth. If 5% order you a website, it definitely worths it. One estimate that 1000 flyers bring 1 sure customer, so…
