Student Guide: How To Write A LinkedIn Summary
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Are you wondering how to write a LinkedIn summary so that your profile ticks all the boxes? Keep reading!
A LinkedIn profile that suits your needs and showcases your talents is a key skill that you must develop when you’re a student.
From your ample desk space at your luxury student accommodation, you know that you’ve got everything you need to get the grades.
Learning how to create a CV in an effective manner is one key skill, and online social channels are important too.
Here, we look at some pointers on how to write a LinkedIn summary that makes readers go ‘Wow!’.
What Is LinkedIn?
The largest professional network anywhere on the Internet, LinkedIn allows you to create a profile, showcasing your professional experience and qualifications.
It’s like an online CV and cover letter, but it also allows you to make connections with other professionals.
Whether those are people you know in real life, contacts in your industry, or recruiters.
Alongside countless profiles of other professionals, LinkedIn is also home to business pages, online events, groups, and much more.
The idea is to build your experience through professional expertise and build a network that will help you throughout your career.
You can access LinkedIn through a desktop browser, on your mobile phone app, or through mobile web browsers.
What Is A LinkedIn Summary?
The LinkedIn summary is the ‘About’ section that is the second box on your profile, just below the header section with your profile picture and basic information.
If you are to learn how to write a LinkedIn summary that really sparkles and makes the right impression on potential connections, this section should always be created carefully and thoughtfully.
Why Does A Good LinkedIn Summary Matter?
Many people decide to leave the summary blank on a LinkedIn profile, or just have a short, snappy tagline.
There is a misconception by many that it is better to include a short tagline or nothing at all, as you would with the headline and its character limit of just 120 characters.
Make A Good Impression
There is a lot more space to play within the LinkedIn summary (2,000) characters, and this means it is a great place to make a good impression.
Think about a 300-ish word summary of your skills and experience as a way of finding a job and building your brand.
Or, just to make connections with the right type of professionals on LinkedIn.
This is the first thing that people see when viewing your profile, so make it count!
Show Your Personality
When directly compared with other social platforms, you do expect a bit more formality on LinkedIn.
The summary is your chance to showcase a little bit of your personality!
This doesn’t mean to just have a list of professional qualifications and experience listed in a dry and boring manner.
The summary is the best place to show the different sides of your personality and the different skills that you possess.
Improve LinkedIn Search Results
The algorithms that LinkedIn uses for its search results takes your summary into consideration.
It might not be weighted as heavily as the headline, job titles, or job descriptions in the ‘Work Experience’ sections of your LinkedIn profile, but a well-written summary does play into better search results.
By using certain key terms that recruiters are looking for, you’ll increase your visibility, searchability, and opportunities.
How To Write A LinkedIn Summary Effectively
As you can see, there are good reasons to write a good LinkedIn summary and to help your profile be seen by those that matter.
Whether that is other people in your industry to network and make long-term connections, to build your brand, or to be seen by recruiters as you pursue a new job opening.
How Do You Write A LinkedIn Summary That Ticks Those Boxes?
Be Brave And Bold With Your Opening
The default setting on every LinkedIn profile is that the summary only shows around 300 characters to people viewing your profile, before they are asked to ‘click to see more’.
This means you have limited space in which to make that great first impression and entice the reader to click and see more about your story.
You can either choose to start with a catchy line that draws the reader into click through to the longer summary.
Or, go down the route of writing as many target and keywords as you can within that limited space to make sure recruiters see what they are looking for (for the latter you have to be careful that it remains readable!).
A Keyword Rich LinkedIn Summary
Recruiters on LinkedIn are searching for different combinations of job titles, specific skills and other keywords relating to the roles they are trying to fill.
You can see what types of search queries you are being found for and how many times your profile has shown up in LinkedIn searches.
This should give you some idea of what types of keywords you should be writing within your summary to attract recruiters.
If you are not confident with your writing craft, think about your most important skills and experience and use the summary section to list these.
Be Open About Your Careers And Goals
Although you don’t have unlimited space to talk about your life story, learning how to write a LinkedIn summary well teaches you to showcase your skills and experience.
You can show recruiters how those skills and previous jobs and projects will help you get to where you want to be in the future.
Leave little hints as to why you moved from one job to another (this could be for added responsibility or to learn a new skill) and demonstrate that there has been clear career progression.
For students with little practical experience, discuss specific projects that you have worked on that are specific to the skills you’ll need in your chosen career.
Learning how to write a LinkedIn summary that is accurate, easy to read, ticks the boxes for the LinkedIn search results, and gets you in front of the eyes of recruiters, is an important skill to learn. As a student, this is a good chance to start your career well and have a strong foundation within a LinkedIn profile to add to as you progress.
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