Launched in 2003, LinkedIn is now the most popular and most used platform for professional networking, job seeking and job posting. 

And as such, it should be taken with the utmost seriousness. 

Specially in a day and age where checking your online professional profiles has become a key step in the recruiting process. 

Here, a couple of points to keep in mind if you want to make your profile more attractive and catch recruiters’ attention. 

1. Make your profile Boolean-friendly: 

Often recruiters will employ boolean search strategy to obtain a list of all profiles relevant to the job position they are staffing for. 

For instance, let’s say that a recruiter is looking for the perfect candidate to fill the position of Plant Inspector. Someone who is, preferably, experienced with Pipeline installation. 

The boolean search query plugged into the LinkedIn search bar would look somewhat like this: 

(Plant Inspector) AND (Pipeline) AND (Installation) 

If a recruiter would run this search today, what is the likelihood of your profile appearing in the top results?

If not too likely, do not fret. 

You can help your profile become more relevant by taking keywords from:

• Your expertise
• Your career path, and/or 
• Your career ambitions 

Then, sprinkle these through your headline, summary section, job titles and descriptions, and your education and skills sections. 

If you are not too sure which keywords to add, look at specific vacancies you are really interested in and get some keywords from there. Incorporating them in your profile will make it rank higher in the results once a recruiter runs a search for those specific positions. 

2. Recommend and be recommended: 

Your CV or resume will give the recruiter enough information to determine whether you will be able to carry out the job. Recommendations will provide better insight on who you are as a person. What are your soft skills? What is your character like? What is it really to work with you? 

If your recommendations are able to answer these questions, recruiters will be able to better infer whether you will be a good fit for the culture of the company you are applying to. 

Usually, the favor is returned. If you want to get more recommendations in your profile, spend some time writing quality recommendations for people who know you and you’ve worked closely with. They will be more likely to do the same for you. 

3. Network: 

Make sure you connect with people that are relevant to your career interests and aspirations. Showing that you are well-connected in your industry works as an indirect endorsement in your favor. Also, this increases the chances of recruiters stumbling upon your profile when visiting your colleagues’.

4. Make that job feel special: 

A recruiter can always tell if you have been mass-emailing and spamming any and all recruiters around the area. This works against you, because they will not want to recruit someone who just wants any job. 

They are looking for people who are truly passionate about getting that position. 

So make sure you are personalizing every interaction with the recruiter and throughout the recruitment process. Show your intrinsic motivation! 

Quick-round: 

Add a professional-looking photo of yourself. Only of yourself. 

Do not make long lists of where you’ve been, what you’ve done. Put more effort in narrating your accomplishments and experiences. How have these experiences turned into expertise? How can you turn this expertise into enthusiasm for future roles?

Lastly, watch out for careless spelling and grammatical errors. They make you lose credibility. 

Now, stop reading and start doing. Put these tips into practice and see how they perform.