By all accounts, LinkedIn had a blockbuster 2020. With more people looking for work and more recruiters looking to hire virtually, LinkedIn usage and revenue increased 31% and 16%, respectively, in the final quarter of the year.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for LinkedIn users. That’s because after reviewing dozens of LinkedIn profiles via our free Profile Grader tool, we’ve discovered that the average LinkedIn user has a profile that’s 50%+ unoptimized. Which means they’re consistently missing out on opportunities to be discovered - at the exact moment they could use those opportunities most.
Profile Grader results, April 2021
To rectify this situation, we’ll cover the most common mistakes LinkedIn users are making in 2021 - and how they can fix them ASAP.
The Most Common LinkedIn Profile Mistakes
An example of the InMails recruiters send to LinkedIn users with optimized profiles!
Our Profile Grader examines the 10 most important sections based on how LinkedIn’s search algorithm and recruiters do their work. Since these are the primary audiences for your profile (and getting discovered by them can lead to huge opportunities - see image), we focus on the profile components they care about vs. the ones they don’t (e.g., Endorsements aren’t searchable in LinkedIn Recruiter).
Of these Top 10 sections, a whopping six were unoptimized on the majority of LinkedIn profiles:
About - 92% of profiles were not fully optimized
Recommendations - 90%
Work Experience - 80%
Profile Photo - 66%
Network - 57%
Headline - 56%
How to Optimize the LinkedIn Profile About Section
LinkedIn’s About section - formerly known as the Summary - had two big issues in our sample:
First, a significant number of LinkedIn users (14%) don’t even have it on their profile. While this makes sense as a non-mandatory section of the profile (versus, say, the Headline), it’s a huge missed opportunity. That’s because the About section ranks only second to the Headline in terms of serving as a repository for keywords scannable by LinkedIn’s algorithm. And because it provides a quick short-hand for recruiters looking to understand what a candidate is all about.
Second, the vast majority of users (84%) failed to include their contact information. While this may seem like a small point, consider the recruiter for a moment. Limited to a paltry number of InMails per month, they need to be incredibly picky with whom they contact. But now imagine that a strong candidate has included their email address in their About section. Instead of having to debate whether the candidate is truly InMail-worthy, they can just reach out. Which is great for them - and great for you, at least when you’re that savvy candidate!
Bottom Line: Make sure you have an About section and then make it work for recruiters and for you.
Sample About section: Note the use of highlights and contact info for the human recruiter and keywords for the algorithm.
How to Optimize LinkedIn Recommendations
Even though LinkedIn Recommendations appear at the bottom of profiles, they’re actually quite important to recruiters since they provide the only 3rd party validation of what you claim above. And as a result, they’re featured prominently in LinkedIn’s Recruiter product.
Unfortunately, LinkedIn users are consistently making two significant mistakes:
42% don’t have even a single Recommendation. While quality matters more than quantity (since a recruiter only has the time to review 1-2 at most), not having even one can cause trouble. Especially since, as mentioned above, a recruiter has a very limited number of InMails to send each month. So why would they want to take a chance on a risky candidate when they can choose someone who’s been validated by colleagues and clients?
Recommendations are more likely to come from peers than managers. One quick quality test that recruiters apply is “Can I trust this testimonial?” And so it’s problematic that so many Recommendations come from peers or subordinates - where the power dynamic can lead to less-than-trustworthy reviews. Thus, whenever possible, we recommend that LinkedIn users get bosses or clients to provide Recommendations that immediately feel more credible.
Bottom Line: Make sure you have at least one Recommendation and that it comes from an individual who’s not incentivized to distort the truth.
Sample Recommendation: Note the use of a client vs. a peer or subordinate.
How to Optimize the LinkedIn Work Experience Section
LinkedIn’s Work Experience section might seem relatively straightforward since it’s so similar to the standard resume. However, our data shows two major issues - one that’s common on resumes and one that’s unique to LinkedIn:
28% of users aren’t including any bullets. In our experience, job-seekers typically spend dozens of hours perfecting their resume bullets. And yet more than 1/4 aren’t even copy-and-pasting those well-honed bullets into LinkedIn. Which is a real shame, given that bullets are even more important on LinkedIn than your resume. That’s because, unlike a resume that may only be viewed a handful of times, your LinkedIn profile is constantly being scanned, millions of times each day. And so every day you don’t have bullets on your profile is a day that you’re not being found for your keywords or accomplishments.
Only about 1/3 of users are including keywords and outcomes in their bullets. While this problem plagues many resumes as well, again, the issue is more pronounced on LinkedIn. That’s because keywords are the main way that LinkedIn’s algorithm helps recruiters discover your profile (e.g., a recruiter searching for “SQL” won’t find you even if you’re the world’s foremost SQL expert - unless you have that keyword on your profile). And, of course, outcomes are how recruiters assess the depth of your skill (e.g., someone who just lists “SQL” won’t come across as qualified as someone who lists “Used SQL to analyze customer buying patterns, leading to insights that increased revenue by $519K”).
Bottom Line: Start by making your resume bullets great with keywords and outcomes - and then make sure all that hard work ends up on your LinkedIn profile, too!
Sample Work Experience entry: Includes complete bullets, as well as keywords (e.g., positioning, web collateral) and outcomes (e.g., 50K visits).
How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile Photo
At first glance, we were thrilled to see that nearly everyone in our sample (98%) had a LinkedIn Profile Photo. That’s because LinkedIn research has shown that just having a photo makes your profile 14X more likely to get viewed. But upon further investigation, a significant number of our users made one of two mistakes:
41% didn’t match the attire of their desired company. While a photo may seem like a simple thing, research shows that we attribute all sorts of characteristics to just 100 x 100 pixels. And so inasmuch as recruiters are looking for fit (e.g., Do you fit this job? Do you fit this company?), your dress can subconsciously shape perceptions of workplace fit. For example, a candidate for finance and consulting roles who’s wearing a sweatshirt may seem unready to enter the corporate boardroom. Whereas a candidate for tech startup roles in a three-piece suit might be perceived as a potential fish-out-of-water.
27% weren’t closely cropped around the head and shoulders. Speaking of 100 x 100 pixels, that’s about how much digital real estate your photo is allotted in the LinkedIn Recruiter product (vs. a significantly larger plot on your own profile). So to make the most of this tiny allotment, it’s critical that your face fills the frame. After all, thousands of years of evolution has left our species so focused on faces, that even babies are born with the hard-wiring to process facial expressions.
Bottom Line: Go beyond just having a LinkedIn Profile Photo to having one that nails the two key components - a focus on your face and a wardrobe that matches where you want to work.
Sample LinkedIn Profile Photo: Closely-cropped around the face, with attire that matches the desired industry (e.g., tech startup).
How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Network
What does your LinkedIn network have to do with your LinkedIn profile? Well, in addition to the keywords that recruiters use to search for matching profiles, LinkedIn’s algorithm weights results by connection strength. For example, all things being equal, a recruiter would rather reach out to a candidate who’s more closely connected to them or their company than someone who’s a total stranger - which is why LinkedIn has built that exact filter into their Recruiter product.
So having a broad and diverse network becomes a major asset to being discovered. And it turns out that most people already have a broad and diverse network in their real lives - e.g., one estimate suggests you’re likely to meet about 80,000 people over the course of your life. Yet, many LinkedIn users have 100, 50, or fewer connections - which means they’re not getting credit for the thousands of people they do know every time LinkedIn’s algorithm scans their profile.
And most importantly, they’re missing out on the easiest way to remedy that imbalance:
57% of our sample had never imported their address books into LinkedIn. Which is a shame, given that your address books are the best digital archive of who you know (e.g., every time you correspond with someone, their email address is adding to your Gmail contacts). And so by simply connecting with people they already know (without reaching out to even a single new contact), these users could have exponentially grown their LinkedIn networks - and hence, their access to opportunity.
Bottom Line: Network size and diversity is highly correlated with being discovered on LinkedIn. So instead of worrying about making new connections, just start by getting credit for the people you already know!
Import Address Books: You can quickly sync your email or phone’s address book with LinkedIn - here’s how!
How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Headline
If you’re going to optimize any section of your LinkedIn profile, the Headline is where you should start. That’s because it’s both incredibly quick to do - and incredibly impactful for your career.
In fact, its impact is directly linked to its brevity. Since LinkedIn knows that many users will want to game its algorithm by stuffing their Work Experience and About sections full of keywords, it’s trained the algorithm to give greater weight to the Headline. With a limit of 220 characters, the Headline is just much harder to game - and much more likely to be a true indication of your interests and abilities. So matching a recruiter’s search terms in your headline has become the fastest and easiest way to boost your discoverability.
That said, we’re still seeing two big issues with Headlines:
13% of users are not including the most important keyword - the job title. When recruiters start a search on LinkedIn, they almost always begin with the job title of the role they’re looking to fill - e.g., Accountant, Project Manager, Sales Director. And then LinkedIn’s algorithm immediately looks to the Headline to see if it can match this most important keyword with the most accurate section of the profile. But, of course, if you don’t have any job titles listed there (e.g., you accepted LinkedIn’s default “Student at X University” formulation when you joined the site), you’ll never be discovered by these searches.
42% of users are listing their current job title - but not the one they want next. Similar to the inertia-driven student approach to LinkedIn mentioned above, many professionals will also just list their current role (e.g., “Architect at X Firm”). While this is great if you plan to continue in that exact same line of work, it’s a lousy strategy if you’re trying to change careers. That’s because your current job title becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, where recruiters only see you for what you’ve done in the past - not for what you can do next. And so you get typecast in your current role, no matter how hungry you are to change. Whereas, if you focus on the job title you want next (and even modify it to represent where you are in your career transformation - e.g., “Aspiring Account Manager”), you’ll now start to be filtered in for your new direction vs. filtered out.
Bottom Line: Don’t overthink the most important section of your profile. List the exact job title you want next in your Headline, no matter what you’re doing today.
Sample LinkedIn Headline: Notice the focus on the future state - and the precise job title you want to be discovered for!
It Wasn’t All Bad News!
Lest you think that our study was all doom and gloom, we’re happy to report that our sample did well with four other critical sections:
Education and Volunteer Sections - 87% of users filled out these sections, realizing that LinkedIn’s algorithm scans your whole profile for keywords, not just your Work Experience
Skills - 75% of users added as many of the key skills for their desired field as possible
Location - 62% of users set this to where they want to work next (so that recruiters in those areas will filter them in)
Background Photo - 60% of users ditched LinkedIn’s stock background in favor of one that emphasized their functional or geographic focus
Ready to Optimize Your Own Profile?
We’d love nothing more than to see these stats rise before we take our next snapshot in 2022.
So if you haven’t done so already, be sure to get your own profile graded for free. And then get ready to get discovered for new opportunities all year long!