This week’s Thursday morning session will focus on developing a well-thought out, and effectively ‘branded’ LinkedIn profile.  If you are planning to attend, consider this post your homework assignment.

Your Careerpilot’s high TECH-HIGH TOUCH philosophy comes into play with the explosive growth of business professionals using social networks to build relationships, meet new contacts, and market themselves.  While the Internet provides many choices, diving into the virtual meet-and-greet can represent a real challenge.  Which one is worthy of your start-up investment: learning curve time and actual ROI of your efforts…  Where to begin? The Careerpilot encourages a choice that reasonably assures one’s confidentiality, has a multitude of useful applications, and can serve as your focal point of networking decisions. 

That choice is to create your own personal LinkedIn account.  Before you can begin this digital networking adventure, you must develop your personal profile.  While your page will detail your work history and other facts about you, don’t assume that you can simply cut and paste your resume content and be done with it.  Unlike your resume, your LinkedIn profile page should reflect all your professional interests, passions, and ambitions at this stage of your career.  It becomes the core of your digitalm written collateral

As you proceed, keep your goal in mind…

• Do you want to have that fully optimized, SEO-centric magnet that attracts interested parties TO you?  -OR- 
• Do you want that terrific, user-friendly home page and profile that is easy for a reader to navigate?  -OR- 
• Do you want your profile and homepage to be appealing to both?

A checklist of things to include:

1. A picture. It’s been said that, “People do business with people.”

2. A specific and high impact “headline” with keywords relevant to your industry… your headline follows you around through several of the interactive applications.

3. Preferred contact method and data… At the bottom of your profile, you can let people know how you want to be contacted — through LinkedIn, by e-mail, or over the phone.

4. Desired information, networking “targets…  What you want to be contacted about… At the bottom of your profile, you can select interests like reference requests, consulting offers, or career opportunities.  Be sure to update your profile to stay in synch with your career.

…and don’t overlook the “power” of recommendations… start thinking of who you might want to encourage to endorse you and your services.  Job seekers: your references are a great start!

The LinkedIn site will walk you through filling in the blanks, but you’ll want to think ahead about two areas:

Positioning Yourself

Just like on a GREAT RESUME, directly underneath your name will be a short headline area. More than anything else in your profile, these words are how people find and define you.

Be Clear on What You’ve Done, and What You Want to Do…

>> For more info see the full article in the RESOURCES Page!

Your homework assignment?  Bring your profile up to 100% complete before Thursday morning’s workshop.