Assignment 2:2- Memo Concerning LinkedIn Ten Best Practices

MEMORANDUM

To: The Writing Technicians, ENGL 301 Writing Team
From: Beenish Fatima, ENGL 301 Student
Date: February 9^th, 2019
Subject: Ten Best Practices for LinkedIn

As instructed on the English 301 Course Website, I have summarized the ten best practices on curating and developing professional profiles on LinkedIn.

1. Have a profile headline that is easily distinguishable and increases your visibility to potential employers on a network that is millions of users strong. Profile headline should reference your specialization and paint a picture of your professional brand.
2. Personalize and complete your profile. while a LinkedIn profile presents your professional profile it is important to remember that they’re are many others who might share the same experiences or qualifications. Therefore, to distinguish yourself and appeal to potential employers make sure to add a little bit of your personality when crafting your profile. While completing your profile may seem obvious, people often tend to leave important sections unfilled or provide insufficient information outlining their experiences, skills and qualifications. In order to provide a comprehensive introduction to your professional brand, always make sure to complete your profile.
3. Utilize keywords. Review target job descriptions to derive a list of emphasized keywords and incorporate them into your LinkedIn profiles. This will attract potential employers and recruiters to your page who use these keywords to search for target prospects.
4. Visuals are imperative, as the saying goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Visuals are a key form of communication when you are trying to relaying your professional brand to your audience. Incorporate a visual aspect to your summary that effectively showcases your work and supports the professional brand you aim to present. Additionally, pay close attention to quality and visuals of your visual profile photo as it plays a significant role in formulating first impressions.
5. Have a structured and well organized summary space. Your summary should be concise but through and consist of 3-5 short paragraphs with a bulleted section in the middle. It should briefly highlight your qualifications, experiences and work passions.
6. Be self-aware of your strengths and redundant with highlighting them throughout your profile. This like the earlier suggestion of utilizing keywords from target job descriptions will ensure that the right audience finds you.
7. Always include a current job entry, many employers and recruiters exclusively use current job entry title box to search for target candidates. Do so even if you are unemployed for the same reasoning but circumvent it by creating a “dummy job listing” that indicates your target job title followed by a phrase such as “In transition” or “Seeking New Opportunity”.
8. When updating your profile with new work experiences or skills make sure to change your privacy controls to turn off activity broadcasts. This prevents your contacts from receiving an annoying barrage of notifications alerting them of every update regardless its importance.
9. Recycle your content. Repeating the same content in different forms through out your profile amplifies its message and consistently reinforces your professional brand.
10. Joining groups will allow you access to individuals that might not be in your contacts list. Being part of a group permits you to reach out and invite individuals outside of your circle of connections to your network.

I hope you are able to use these recommendations as a guide to further enhance your professional presence online. I look forward to reviewing your profiles!

Kind regards,
Beenish Fatima

Work Cited:

• Editor, The Muse. “The Best LinkedIn Profile Tips for Job Seekers.” Free Career Advice, The Muse, 1 Nov. 2015, www.themuse.com/advice/the-31-best-linkedin-profile-tips-for-job-seekers.
• “Logo.” Certificate in Project Management – UW Professional & Continuing Education, www.pce.uw.edu/news-features/articles/10-tips-for-supercharging-your-linkedin-profile.
• Arruda, William. “22 LinkedIn Secrets LinkedIn Won’t Tell You.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 2 Sept. 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/2014/03/04/22-linkedin-secrets-linkedin-wont-tell-you/#19f4b13027fe.