To: Jennifer MacFarlane, ENGL 301 Student
From: Beenish Fatima, ENGL 301 Student
Date: February 21st, 2019
Subject: Peer Review of LinkedIn Profile- Assignment 2.2
URL of Reviewed (Jennifer Macfarlane’s) LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-macfarlane/
Thank you for providing access to your LinkedIn for this review. The profile is very well organized and reflects an appropriate balance of professionalism and personality. Below are some additional comments and recommendations for improvement.
First impressions
The profile has a professional appearance, an initial scroll through highlights the completion and the fluid layout of each section. The use of a personalized URL that simply incorporates a full-name provides a unique identifier effectively enables quick access and easy promotion of profile page. However, the headline is lacking information regarding current or target occupation impairing access of potential employers and recruiters.
Efficacy and Quality of Profile Content
Headline:
There is insufficient information in headline regarding career objectives, decreasing profiles discoverability. Headlines play a crucial role in identifying potential candidates for recruiting employers. Incorporating current occupation or aspirational career goals in the headline increases visibility to target industry and provides employers enough information to query and discover profile.
Summary:
The summary is well structured and maintains a good balance between professionalism and personalism. There are adequate details on current level of experience and qualifications, but there is little to no information about specific career objectives and future goals. Adding a description of long-term career aspirations will indicate commitment and passion for the target field and allow characterization of healthy professional ambition. It will also define a set purpose for the LinkedIn profile, validating the professional brand that it presents.
While the summary is interesting to read it is very broad in nature, there is a lack of ‘key words’ and professional branding targeting a specific audience. A recommendation would be to curate a defined professional brand by utilizing specific key words and targeted messaging throughout the summary. Incorporating key words derived from job posting that align with career interest, will select and attract employers hiring for relevant professions.
Experience:
The listed work experiences are relevant and significant to the field of interest. The experiences are appropriately explained with enough details, so that reader can gain a basic understanding of the role. Providing examples of past projects along with brief overview of what they entailed effectively gives insight regarding professional capabilities and resulting skillset. Incorporating the specific names of programs and languages is an excellent way to attract recruiters or employers using those terms as queries to search for potential candidates. Being restrictive with the experience included in this section help to define and develop a more targeted professional brand. Some recommendations below:
- Use targeted language— ‘key words’, in your descriptions to attract desired audience (employers from relevant industries)
- Explain how the skills gained from working on the mentioned projects and experiences are enhance your professional portfolio
- There is mention of retail experience in profile summary but it is not included in experience, would recommend adding it is being referred to in the summary.
Education:
Education listings include appropriate amount of information and are relevant additions to profile.
Volunteer:
Volunteer experiences listed are somewhat relevant to the intended professional brand. Description of these experiences need more details outlining specific roles and accomplishments. Furthermore, providing more and specific details could help to selectively highlight skills gained that are beneficial to professional portfolio even from experiences that might not be directly related.
Lastly instead of listing off position requirements, explaining the relevance and significance of skills and qualifications acquired through performing those requirements is a more effective strategy in communicating the breadth and quality of your professional portfolio.
Communication of Content
Grammar:
There are some grammar mistakes that can be fixed by doing a quick edit, they somewhat interfere with readability (i.e. interrupt flow of reading). Some examples are listed below:
- “coordinating meetings with with industry mentors to help gain industry perspectives”
- word repetition (i.e. “with”)
- “My academic and co-op experience as a software developer has fostered my love for programming.”
- “has” should be changed to “have”
- “Worked closely with designers to implement multiple components and pages for the marketing website using Javascript…”
- change to: “…and pages for a marketing website using Javascript…”
There are also a few run-on sentences through out the profile, this can be improved by breaking down long sentences into points on a bullet list. An examples is provided below from the ‘Volunteer Experience’ section:
“Providing mentorship for first-year BCS students by assisting in creating academic and career goals and coordinating meetings with with industry mentors to help gain industry perspectives and expand professional networks.”
The above description can be broken down to:
- Mentored first year BCS students
- Assisted in creating academic and career goals
- Coordinated with industry investors
- Gain industry perspectives and expanded professional network
Organization:
Organization style in work experience section is appropriate. Utilization of bullet points to structure work descriptions enhances readability, allows for fluid transition through each point and precise communication.
This organization structure is not consistent through out the profile. Volunteer experience section utilizes paragraphs rather than bullet points which decrease the readability of descriptions and detriment the fluidity. Would recommend organizing both sections in the same manner to maintain consistency and improve readability.
While the summary section is not organized in bullet points, it is still well organized into paragraphs and the readability of the section is not affecting. However, it can be improved with the incorporation of a bullet point list in the middle of the section that lists relevant qualifications and skills. This would help to enhance the organization and would effectively highlight the most important information.
Writing Style:
Writing style is clear and concise, it conveys a professional tone that effectively communicates the curated professional brand. It is appropriate for this platform, it conveys messaging in a purposeful and articulate manner.
Quality and Efficacy of Visuals
Profile Photo:
Profile photo is great quality and appropriate for this platform. It conveys a good balance of professionalism along with personalism.
Concluding Statements
Overall this profile is very well composed, it concisely outlines a comprehensive career portfolio and maintains a professional brand throughout. Recommendations and suggestions presented in this review are summarized below:
- Incorporating key words derived from relevant job postings to select for and attract a specific set of employers (i.e. employers from industry of interest)
- Developing a well-defined professional brand throughout profile by utilizing targeted language along and an established messaging directive that prioritizes relevancy.
- Place greater emphasis on how acquired skills or specific responsibilities related to a certain experience are beneficial in your field of interest or profession.
- Maintain a consistent organization structure through out profile to portray an overall cohesive look
- Use bullet points to breakup run on sentences, highlight important information in between paragraphs and to enhance readability of content.
- Review and fix basic grammar errors
URL of Reviewed LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-macfarlane/
Enclosure: 301 Beenish Fatima Peer Review Template
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