Clients mention this to us all the time. They work on updating their resume and after spending a lot of time doing so, they think they’re done. We understand that. It takes a lot of time and effort just to update your resume, why would you want to put the same amount of time into working on your LinkedIn profile as well, especially when they seem like similar platforms?
Why you can’t copy and paste your resume into LinkedIn. We all know that 80% of jobs are found through networking. So having a professional, correct presence on LinkedIn these days is a no brainer and not optional. And – while uploading your resume directly to LinkedIn is the easiest route to take, it’s not the correct one because in doing so, you overlook several factors that LinkedIn offers for conducting a successful job search. Just copying and pasting your resume to LinkedIn isn’t enough, and won’t impress your connections.
These are some of the options that LinkedIn offers to help you increase your chances in your job search, that a simple copy and paste of your resume will not take advantage of:
- LinkedIn gives you the ability to highlight other things that you may not have space for on your resume – such as an in depth description of your significant achievements and a sense of your personality by talking about what you enjoy most from your work, as well as your passions.
- On your LinkedIn profile, you must use the right keywords that an employer would use to search for your brand of talent. On your resume, you do use keywords for the computer software that may scan your resume when you apply for a job, however, those are specific to the particular job you are applying for. Your LinkedIn profile must cover all bases, all keywords you could be searched by for any position you are interested in to ensure effectiveness.
- Recommendations can be gathered and posted easily on LinkedIn using their recommendations section. This allows you to collect referrals from colleagues or supervisors that will allow others to see your value as an employee. This is a feature that, if you copied and pasted your resume on LinkedIn and walked away, you would not be taking advantage of. Additional tip: We recommend you include LinkedIn recommendations on your resume. Be sure you do so under each job description they are related to, in a clean, concise fashion so they do not distract from the overall neatness of your resume.
- Write your summary statement. This section allows you to showcase your expertise and even more so, what you are passionate about, in a way that a summary in a resume is not appropriate for.
The bottom line is: When you optimize LinkedIn by using all of its tools, and craft your profile as a separate entity from your resume, you make yourself more attractive to recruiters, and more likely to secure a job.
Thank you to our resume expert, Jasmine Marchong, for this article and the resume tips.
