How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

In today’s digitally-driven job market, creating a strong LinkedIn profile is secondary only to presenting a well-rounded executive resume. Unfortunately, many executives lack the experience or expertise to create an impactful profile without stealing lines from their resumes. Cloning your resume on LinkedIn gives recruiters a redundant (and often lackluster) perspective on your executive experience. Although they may seem similar at first glance, LinkedIn and professional resumes have distinct purposes in the executive job search. To fully utilize each job search document, executive resumes and LinkedIn profiles should differ in several key ways.

Why Not to Clone a Resume on LinkedIn

  • Sharing the same content on LinkedIn and your executive resume is redundant.
  • Any tangible job leads will invariably result in sharing your resume. A LinkedIn profile teases the full scope of your executive experience, encouraging recruiters to contact you for the full narrative. If you’ve cloned your resume on LinkedIn, you lose an opportunity to share additional information.
  • LinkedIn and resumes serve different functions. While LinkedIn profiles do display executive history, skills, and recommendations, it is primarily a networking tool.

How LinkedIn Profiles and Executive Resumes Should Differ

Create a distinctive personal brand by playing to the strengths of each job search tool.

  • Resumes should have a highly professional tone and focus. LinkedIn profiles shift into the networking sphere, allowing professionals to show more of their personalities when discussing career narratives.
  • While a resume tells a complete professional story, a LinkedIn profile should be crisp and concise, with an additional focus on keywords pertinent to the specific job search.
  • Executives should filter proprietary information out of their LinkedIn profiles, which are public to any professional.

For assistance creating an impactful executive profile on LinkedIn, contact Executive Resumes Atlanta.