Are you eager to switch careers? Do you want to enter a new field that excites you and makes you look forward to work each day? Are you interested in turning your personal passions into professional opportunities or targeting a new audience, product, or service?
LinkedIn is a well-known tool for job searching and networking. But how can we leverage it to support a career change and ensure we attract the right recruiters, hiring managers, and colleagues who align with our future career goals, rather than our past?
Creating an overly broad LinkedIn profile that tries to show you as suitable for many different roles and industries might seem appealing. However, this can confuse your audience and drive them to explore other profiles.
Instead, concentrate on aligning your profile with your desired career path, similar to how you customize your resume for specific positions. Emphasize your most pertinent experiences and downplay or exclude the less relevant ones. Here’s how you can achieve that on LinkedIn:
Crafting an Effective Headline:
Begin by focusing on your headline. While LinkedIn automatically fills this with your current job title, it’s best not to rely on that. Instead, utilize the 120 characters to create a captivating and personalized headline.
Why is this crucial? When someone searches for a professional like you on LinkedIn, only your name and headline are visible in the search results. A generic headline may cause you to be overlooked. However, an engaging and unique headline will encourage viewers to click on your profile and learn more about you.
Summary:
Once your headline has caught the attention of your audience, the next step is to keep them engaged. Share an engaging story in the first person, making full use of the generous 2000-character limit that LinkedIn provides. This space allows you to showcase your past achievements and seamlessly tie them to your future goals.
This approach is particularly crucial if you have transitioned between different careers. Construct a unified narrative that connects the various elements of your professional history. This strategy ensures that your profile is coherent and prevents readers from feeling confused about your current objectives or perceiving your career path as disjointed.
Highlight Your Experience: After perfecting your headline and summary, customize each role in your experience section. Here’s the approach:
Maintain a first-person narrative to ensure consistency with your summary.
Emphasize achievements rather than duties, similar to what you would do in any resume or profile. Highlight only those accomplishments that are most relevant to the new career direction you are pursuing. Make these achievements specific by detailing the problem you addressed, the methods you used, and the tangible results you achieved.
Recommendations:
When updating your LinkedIn profile, add recommendations selectively to the positions most relevant to the new career path you’re pursuing. Ask one or two colleagues to endorse you, and guide them on what to say. This approach will not only speed up the process for them but also ensure the recommendations are impactful for you. Clearly explain the roles you are aiming for and the skills you want them to emphasize.
Images and Media Samples:
To make your LinkedIn profile stand out, include images and media samples that showcase your key achievements. Only attach these to the roles you want potential employers or clients to notice. This strategy will help highlight your most impressive work.
When transitioning into a new field, it’s essential to demonstrate your skills in this new area, especially if your career has previously been centered on a different sector. Crafting a focused and compelling profile can help you attract attention and position yourself effectively for this career shift.
This article has been referenced for HBR. To read the complete article click here
About High Potential Career Planning:
An initiative of ACH, High Potential Career Planning (HPCP) is established with a mission to mentor professionals in their search for a career development and growth. We provide personalized mentorship programs, which can help individuals have a fulfilling career.
