How did I get a half a million dollar a year
opportunity when I didn't know anyone at the
company never even met them in passing, I wasn't
referred by a friend of a friend and I wasn't even
looking for a job, the answer is super easy. And
you can do it too. All you need to do is establish
your personal brand on LinkedIn. So in this video,
I'm giving you my best LinkedIn profile tips to
have recruiters sliding into your DMs and big
dollar opportunities coming your way. Now if that
sounds good, tap that like button. And if you want
to know what I did, with that half a million
dollar a year opportunity, you're gonna have to
stay till the end. Now let's jump straight into it.
The first thing that you need to do in order to
have a really great LinkedIn profile is to figure
out what your goal is. What are you doing there?
If you're like most, you probably are using
LinkedIn so that more opportunities come your way,
and maybe even to boost your visibility. But what
specifically do you want to get out of it? Do you
want to get a new job? Do you want to help set
yourself up for a promotion at work? Do you want
to start a business or establish a side hustle? Or
do you want to establish an audience and become an
industry influencer? There are no right or wrong
answers. The main thing is having clarity on your
goal so that you can keep it in mind as you follow
the steps along with me. Now, just real quick
here, we need to know the basics. How does
LinkedIn work? How do people find you, there are
two ways that you are going to be discovered on
LinkedIn, either in search. So that's when a
recruiter is looking for someone with your skills
and ability is or you're going to show up in the
newsfeed. Most of what I'm going to detail in this
video is really going to help you with the search
part. But we will talk about the newsfeed a little
bit at the end. Now with the goal in mind, it's
time for us to get into the actual optimization.
So the first phase of LinkedIn profile
optimization to make your profile great is to
personalize it because you got to admit that there
is a big difference between this profile and this
one, whether it is in the newsfeed or it is in the
search results. One of the first things that
people are going to notice about your profile is
your profile picture. So having the right profile
picture is really important. I'm going to post a
reel over on Instagram that shows you how to take
your own profile photo, I don't tick tock I'm
going to share with you the do's and don'ts. So if
you want to check those out, I will leave links in
the description bar down below. But just a couple
of guidelines that I encourage you to think about
when you are choosing your LinkedIn profile. First
of all, you want something that is going to pop
out. And so having a bold color in the background,
which you could actually swap in using a tool like
Canva, which we're going to talk a little bit more
about in just a moment. Also remember that
LinkedIn is a professional network. And if you
forget people over there are going to remind you
of it constantly. So you want to avoid any images
that maybe aren't reflecting your best
professional self, which isn't to say you need to
be boring, but maybe the picture of you
intoxicated at the bar at 1am on a Saturday night
isn't putting your best foot forward on your
LinkedIn profile. And just a quick tip I want to
add here if you want to make sure that you're
choosing the best possible LinkedIn profile
picture, take a few pictures and you can use this
website called Photo feeler where people actually
vote on your photo so that you can find the photo
that makes you look the most likeable, competent
and influential. The next element of your LinkedIn
profile that you're going to see all over the
platform once again, whether it's in the newsfeed
or in search results is your headline. This is how
you catch someone's attention for real, which is
why it is such a shame that so many people stick
with a default job title and company name as the
headline for their LinkedIn profile. Because what
response does that usually get?
While your job title or your target Job Titles
should be in there for optimization purposes, this
is really a great place to be showcasing your UAQ
to grab attention and interest in your LinkedIn
profile. If you don't know your UAQ you're going
to need so go into the description bar and
download my UAQ starter kit. It's free and it's
going to help you jazz things up. There are
several ways that you can assemble your LinkedIn
profile. I did do a post with some different
headline formulas incorporating your UAQ. I'll
also pop that link in the description bar down
below so that you can check it out and craft your
perfect LinkedIn headline. Now if your profile
photo and your LinkedIn headline have done their
job, someone has clicked and are about to land on
your LinkedIn profile. What's the next thing that
they're going to see? They're going to see your
cover photo though unfortunately, too many people
are using the standard default version that you
see right here. It doesn't say anything about you
and it doesn't really capture interest. And the
job of your LinkedIn cover photo is really to
entice whoever is checking out your profile to
take a scroll down. What's really important for
you right now especially if you don't have a
LinkedIn cover photo on your profile right now is
to use a tool called Canva. And what you can do
here is you can choose to create a LinkedIn
banner. I know this is not sponsored though. Canva
if you want to hook a girl up, feel her for you to
get into my inbox Canva does give you a number of
templates that you can work with. Or you can
create something completely on your own, just like
I did on my LinkedIn profile. Now ideally, your
cover photo is going to be something that
showcases your UI cue, and really entices someone
to scroll. However, the most important thing for
the purpose of this video is to just have
something it can be a picture of a cityscape, it
can be one of the Canva template, just make sure
that you have something there and that it is
personal to you. Now the next area of your
LinkedIn profile, it might not be one that you're
using quite yet, depending on if you're actively
posting are promoting something on LinkedIn. And
that is your featured section. This is a great
place. If you have a personal website that you use
to showcase, say, your professional portfolio,
maybe you maintain a blog over a medium or if you
actively post on LinkedIn, if you have a post that
you really like that really speaks to your UAQ,
you can feature it right here on your profile.
Now, this leads us into the second phase to make a
great LinkedIn profile. And that my friend is to
optimize. And the first thing that we need to talk
about when we talk about LinkedIn profile
optimization is to talk about skills. One thing
that's really important that I want you to make
sure that you know is that skills equals keywords
on LinkedIn. So when a recruiter types in
Salesforce administrator, if your skill is
Salesforce administration, and it's a skill in
your profile, and maybe sprinkled around, which
we're going to talk about, you are going to be
more likely to appear in search results so that
they can find you and give you that job offer,
there are so many skills that you can add into
your LinkedIn profile. In fact, you could add up
to 50 skills in your LinkedIn profile. If you want
to know what skills make the most sense based on
your job title, so that it makes it easy for you
to show up in those search results.
I do have a video that gives a hack and in my
opinion, using this super simple hack that is
going to take you just a few seconds is much more
meaningful that adding a whole bunch of skills
that you have that you think might be relevant,
but aren't necessarily the skills that people are
going to use to find you on LinkedIn. Now that we
have your skills squared away, it's time for us to
talk about your adult section. And I know so many
people get so overwhelmed by this. Or even worse,
they end up writing this super awkward, super
boring third party biography about who they are as
a professional. And please, please, please unless
someone is actually writing it for you do not
write about yourself in the third person is so
awkward. What's much, much more interesting is to
tell the story about who you are. Because anyone
who gets to hear on your profile clicks read more
and actually takes the time to read your balance
section is someone who was intrigued enough with a
personalized information that we covered in phase
one that they really want to get to know you more
because there is maybe some synergy there. This
story that you tell it exactly how you use your
about section is again going to be localized to
your goals on LinkedIn. For most of you, you're
going to be telling your professional story and
really showcasing your UX and the value and impact
that you bring to the organization and make sure
that you're sprinkling in those skills, what I
would typically do is take the skills that you add
into this skill section. And as you're writing
your about section, have them handy and copy and
paste them and as they organically come up, no
matter what your goal for your LinkedIn profile,
you are going to end your LinkedIn about section
with a call to action that might be connected with
you it might be email you it might be go comment
on a post, whatever you would like your profile
visitor to do, tell them exactly what they should
do as their next step to get in touch with you.
Because ultimately, that's what we want our
profile lurkers to do. Now, if you are someone who
is using LinkedIn in order to build your
professional brand, because you want a new job
offer, you're trying to advance your career and
you have really interested someone, especially
your recruiter, then they are going to scroll down
to your experience section. I know some people
copy and paste their resume here. And I don't
totally recommend doing that even though you might
be showcasing some of the same points. Again, we
want this to be very attention grabbing and very
interesting to compel someone to either connect
with us or reach out to us in whatever way we want
them to. And we also want to incorporate those
skills once again. So what I recommend especially
for job seekers is that under each experience that
you have, add three to five bullet points that
show your UI cue the strategic high impact that
you've made, and where it's appropriate, include
those skills once again, because you know,
searchability purposes now there's a lot more that
you could do with your LinkedIn profile that we
can really dive into, but this video would be
super long. And really these LinkedIn profile tips
are the essentials that the vast majority of
people need in order to help the people that are
looking for them. Find them online. denne however,
just simply having a LinkedIn profile and not
doing anything with it is not going to yield you
the results that you really want and help you
achieve your goals for your LinkedIn profile. So
we are going to move into Phase Three. Now
remember, LinkedIn is a professional social
network connected with your friends, your old
classmates, former colleagues, current colleagues,
if you know them, add them to your LinkedIn
profile is my philosophy. LinkedIn is also a
fantastic place to expand your professional
network. And really, if you want to start
magically appearing in the newsfeed of other
people, and having them be like, Oh, OMG, where
are you all my life, then it's time for you to
really see LinkedIn for what it is. It's a party,
I know that when you first start using LinkedIn,
it kind of feels like a library and you need to be
quiet and, and very serious. However, there are so
many highly active professional communities on
LinkedIn, join the conversations, start following
hashtags and participating. And even more
importantly, I encourage you to make posts to
share your knowledge and expertise. And once
again, flex that you AQ, but because that is a
more advanced strategy. And really what I wanted
for this video for you was the profile tips to
help you just make a great LinkedIn profile. I
won't dive too far into that today. However, if
you do want more videos about how to build a
presence on LinkedIn, show up in the newsfeed and
build your influence on the platform. Even if it's
just within your network. Let me know that you're
interested in that video by leaving a comment down
below seven screen changed because after three
hours of editing, I realized, I forgot to tell you
guys about the half a million dollar offer and
exactly what happened, why it happened and what I
did with it. So if you didn't know this about me,
I was very senior in the tech industry before I
left the tech industry to start my own business.
However, the optimization strategies that I just
gave you were so powerful that even months after I
left to start my own business, I was still getting
reached out from recruiters with some pretty good
offers, one of which the compensation package in
total, when you looked at everything that they had
to offer, which was quite a lot. Good job on them
was about a half a million dollars a year. What
did I do with the offer, I replied to the
recruiter, and I said thank you, but it's not the
right step for me. So I actually had to completely
tear down all of my old profile configurations,
because I didn't want to get things like that
because that's a lot of money to say no to for
anyone who also happens to hang out with me on
LinkedIn, you know that it is a favorite place for
me. I have a ton of videos already here on YouTube
that really dive into making the most out of
LinkedIn. And I want to do more in the new year.
So if you want to up your LinkedIn game along with
me, then tap the subscription button so that you
don't miss any videos. But right now what I would
like you to do is tap into this playlist and pick
the LinkedIn video that is going to help you
upgrade your profile. But before you go if this
helped you ace your LinkedIn profile, give it a
thumbs up it
really helps my channel makes you my favorite
career bestie win win situation going on. As
always my friend thank you so much for watching. I
will see you in the next video. Bye for now.