Building Your Career Brand with LinkedIn for Veterans

Transitioning from your Military Career with LinkedIn – Jo Saunders, LinkedIn Expert

Thanks for attending my workshop for Working Spirit.

With more than 645M+ members, and a steady growth of 2 new members per second, and 20M open jobs, LinkedIn is an essential marketing and sales tool for anyone at any stage of their career.

Whether you are looking to start a business, become a consultant or seek employment, the decision makers, recruiters, and potential clients are already on LinkedIn. In fact, out of the monthly active users, 40% are reported to log in daily.

Do you have a profile that stands out and backs up your career achievements and goals?
Are you building a network of relevant professionals that could become important in building your career?

The 5 Most Important Parts of Your LinkedIn Profile

Visuals – Profile photo and background
Copy – Headline, Summary, Experience
Media – Documents, Video, Images and links to support your profile
Social Proof – Skills endorsement and Recommendations
Activity – Engagement, posts and articles that add value and credibility.

LinkedIn Career Networking

Aside from being one the best career branding profiles to optimise your presence, LinkedIn is the largest professional network, and a powerful research tool. It is a search engine for people, companies, content, and a place to list and find jobs.

In preparing your profile for the job market, research the roles you aspire to be in, and look at the language used, requirements and see how you can reflect in your profile. And follow the people who are where you aspire to be.

Who are the decision makers that you could follow or connect to?
Who works for the organisation that is worth following?
Don’t forget to follow the company page.

Creating, curating and conversing on LinkedIn allows you to reach your network beyond your 1^stdegree connections. Focus on posting content that adds value not volume, and put the rest of your focus into relationship building activities. Post and engage consistently to increase your visibility to start building authority, and take the time to join conversations and ask questions in your own content to invite engagement and build influence.

RESOURCES

Here are my slides and a link to my Profile Blueprint to help you get started reviewing and updating your LinkedIn profile.

SLIDES

LinkedIn Workshop for Veterans 2019 03 from Jo Saunders

LinkedIn Profile Blueprint

UPDATED LinkedIn Demystifier’s Profile Blueprint 2018 from Jo Saunders

PROFILE BLUEPRINT UPDATES

If you would like to receive an update of my blueprint whenever it is updated (as LinkedIn changes) then feel free to sign up for updates via this LINK

ACTION

What are your top 3 actions or tips you took away from the presentation? Share them on this post and @mention me:

5 LinkedIn Profile Mistakes

3rd Person Summary – It is hard to connect with someone talking about themselves, so write in the first person.
1-way communication – Talking AT your network isn’t the best way to build relationships – Engage.
Incomplete – update your profile as you achieve more and learn more about yourself and your purpose.
Spammy – Build relationships rather than trying to sell something or yourself too soon.
Out of date & inactive – Update your brand image and content often (use keywords) & engage with your network.

10 LinkedIn Profile Essentials

Well-positioned headline – 120 character positioning statement.
Branded visuals – Background & profile photo.
1st person summary – Tell your story with personality, using my formula.
Optimised experience – Focus on outcomes and achievements (include internships and work experience).
Media – Include a video introduction, PDF resume, portfolio links …
Relevant skills – Make top 3 most relevant (expertise/delivery) and seek endorsement.
Accomplishments – Add memberships, accreditations, awards, publishings, projects.
Contact details – Make sure they are up to date and professional: mobile – email – website/blog.
Connect to organisations – Link your experience and education to the the correct Page
Add value – Find your voice and write articles, create intersting posts, and most importantly engage with your network.

Working Spirit LinkedIn Workshop