How to Use LinkedIn

karlmontgomery • May 30, 2018

How recruiters and head hunters view your Linkedin profile

As a software developer/engineer, you get a lot of InMails from recruiters, right? Recruiters love Linkedin. We live on Linkedin.

Your Linkedin profile is basically an online, interactive CV. If you want the chance to be headhunted for a new role, you need to make sure your profile sells you properly! You may not even know you want a new position until a head-hunter presents it to you, so you need to make your LinkedIn profile attractive!

Terminology

Linkedin Profile – your personal page – unless you make this private, anyone can view your profile.

News Feed – the main home page of LinkedIn, where any of your connections’ activity can be seen. Your own activity will also be present on your connections’ news feeds.

InMail – internal messaging/communication on the site.

So what are recruiters looking for?

Headline

e.g. Sarah Arthur – Technology Consultant at Recruit Mint. This should state your current job title, or the way you refer to yourself as a professional. For example: Senior C# Developer at Lloyds Banking Group or Junior Web Developer at JP Morgan. NOT Software Developer. This is too vague and won’t encourage recruiters to read further into your profile.

Personal Bio

You have space on your profile to write a few lines (or as many lines as you wish) about who you are, what you do, what you can bring to a business and what you enjoy (professionally).

As a recruiter, I would recommend you keep this clear and concise; what is your background, what is your specialism, what do you enjoy and main skillset/tech stack? This will be similar to the profile section on your actual CV.

E.g. I am a C# Developer with 9 years of commercial experience in a variety of sectors, including finance and automotive. I currently work for (*company*) as a Lead Developer working on (*project*) and manage a team of four developers alongside my hands-on development work.

Skillset: C#, .NET, ASP.NET, MVC, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3 etc.

Work History

Recruiters need evidence that you have worked in a similar role to those they are looking to fill. So, when you list your previous positions held, you need to be a little more specific than ‘Software Developer’…was that Java? C#? Python…? You also need to make sure you have tagged the company correctly so that the recruiter can see the types of companies you have worked for.

Each role you list on your Linkedin profile needs to have a brief explanation of it – this doesn’t need to take long. Some people simply list the tech stack they used at each firm, others mention more details such as how many people they managed and/or the projects they worked on. It is up to you how much detail you go into, but a recruiter won’t contact you if they don’t know what experience you have.

This also applies to your educational history. Link the correct educational organisations (i.e. don’t just type ‘Sheffield Hallam’ but tag the university page it looks more professional and like you’ve given it some thought and care) and write a brief line or two summarising your course/experience there.

If you are a junior in your field and don’t have much by way of work experience, be sure to mention any voluntary roles you have had such as ‘President of Coding Club at Sheffield Hallam’… or ‘Volunteer at Django Girls’ and write a brief description of what that volunteer work entailed. It is also important that you spend more time on your personal bio and education sections as these are your selling points!

If you’re worried you may get bombarded by recruiters looking to steal you away to a new role but you’re not interested in moving on from your current company, simply state something to the effect of: e.g. Note to recruiters, I am not currently looking for a new role, OR, Recruiters – I am not looking to move on from my current company at the moment, I will remove this message when/if I decide to move on.

Good luck and happy LinkedIn-ing! If you want to be kept updated with our latest opportunities, then follow us on LinkedIn here. For more assistance on finding you the right job in Peterborough, register with us today!

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