Ambitious professionals will have more success if they're authentic online
by Nina Cuturic
The all-empowering digital age has challenged our pre-interview nail-biting saga. What first runs through an employee’s mind may now depend on that soft click of the mouse on LinkedIn, well before the sturdy handshake.
So next time LinkedIn tells you that your profile is 62 percent complete, know that it only wants you to kick your career goals, starting online – and here’s how.
Not all of us have to hold a writing degree to publish a best-selling LinkedIn profile. According to the recruitment platform, it’s all about being ‘authentic’ in both words and visuals. The aim is to exude approachability, allowing recruiters to imagine being able to engage in a friendly exchange in person. This includes being honest about why you are in your chosen career path, and also sharing snippets of your personal interests, which all work to ‘increase likeability’. A ‘conversational tone’ that adopts a ‘first person “I”’ is a recommended trick from LinkedIn also.
The Essay Expert’s executive resume writer Brenda Bernstein, in a webcast chat with Carol Ross, says it’s important to clearly articulate your goals. “That clarity extends also to who you are, and what you have to offer in pursuit of that goal,” she says.
Having built an empire on her efforts to help people ‘look great on paper’, Bernstein advises strongly against those slip-of-the-finger “spelling and grammatical errors” in bios. In referring to the platform as “the place people go, to find out who you are in the business networking world,” she pinpoints the biggest mistake being made is users not taking the platform “seriously”. Pleasant layout included.
LinkedIn advises the use of only ‘3-5 short paragraphs’, and generous ‘white space’ between them. Now in all seriousness - keep it real, log-in, and get writing.
