8 Tips To Optimize LinkedIn Profile For Recruiters

If you want your inbox to flood with DMs from recruiters, you’ll need these 8 tips to optimize LinkedIn Profile for Recruiters.

It’s important that you follow each and every one of these because if you just miss any one of these – it could be the difference between a recruiter reaching out to you for a high paying job or not.

Having a strong LinkedIn presence is key to setting yourself up for the most job opportunities. As a result, make sure you optimize your profile using the right frameworks. If you optimize linkedin profile for recruiters, we have high confidence that you’ll be able to land more interviews. As a result of more interviews, you should expect to see more job offers.

February 29, 2024 by Kazu Fujimoto

Use Professional Photos In Your LinkedIn Profile

People absolutely judge a book 100% by its cover – your LinkedIn profile photos should be solid.

There are plenty of tutorials on how to take a solid LinkedIn profile picture.

Either spend the time to learn how to take one on YouTube or just hire someone professional.

There is no better return on investment in things regarding advancing your professional career.

Profile Picture

Your LinkedIn profile picture needs to be a professional headshot of you. There’s really no exceptions to this one. Executives, managers, engineers, all use a professional headshot with a nice background.

Banner

When you get people to view your profile, you want them to feel something.

What you need to accomplish with your profile picture and your banner is that you make the recruiter feel something.

Take a look at the snapshot for my profile below:

I use a professional headshot and combine that with a picture overlooking the city that I’m residing in.

The emotions that the photo makes me feel are – accomplished, motivated, eager, reflective and these are the emotions that I am portraying to the recruiter.

Canva, Unsplash, or Pixabay are great sources for these.

See: LinkedIn Banner – 14 Best Images to 10X Inbound Leads

Use The Optimal Profile Headline Formula

Use this formula for the perfect LinkedIn headline and mirror it to your specific skill and job:

Let’s look at mine:

The formula for your linkedIn profile should be:

I regularly get DMs from recruiters for engineering positions so I know that this simple method works.

Additionally, adding other disciplines and skills in the “Job Title” portion of the formula works too:

Examples

Software Engineering

Human Resources

Finance

Ensure That Your Profile About Section Is Clear and Concise

At a minimum, your about section needs to include:

• Job Title
• Skillsets
• Industries and Applications supported

It’s really important that you tie in the industry and applications you support – adopting this framework when you talk about yourself will put you in the Top 1%.

Most people don’t specify their relevance to macroeconomics and as a result, they are not viewed as a business asset.

Ultimately, companies are businesses – they need to make money, support customers, come out with products and support different niches.

The more you frame yourself as an asset with specific business results, the more attractive you are.

As a result of this, I always advocate tying in business impacts to your things!

Maximize The Number of Connections You Have On LinkedIn

If you only have 5~10 connections, you need to build up your profile ASAP.

It’s pretty alarming when you don’t have a large number of connections – it implies that your network is weak.

If your network is weak, it means that you don’t provide much value.

Along with showing that you have a large network, having more connections will make your profile more relevant due to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree connections in LinkedIn.

The world is becoming digital and you want to maximize your presence.

Your Experience Should Detail Quantitative Results and Accomplishments

This goes hand in hand with tying in business impacts to the things that you do.

Start analyzing everything you do from a metric driven standpoint.

You should have an understanding of what numbers you’re contributing to.

The experience section will mirror those bullets of your resume, in which you should already be using quantitative results and accomplishments.

If you don’t use quantitative results and accomplishments on your resume, you’re likely not being considered for jobs.

The most important thing to optimize linkedin profile for recruiters is the framework that ties your business impact.

Maximize The Number of Endorsements On Your Profile

Reach out to colleagues, coworkers, mentors, professors, etc.

Having professionals endorse your profile gives you social proof.

Bonus points if you’re being endorsed by someone who is an expert or is “highly skilled”.

To be able to do this, you can start off by endorsing people you know for their skills, and reach out to them and see if they can pay it forward.

You’ll need to develop close professional relationships to do this as you might feel awkward in reaching out to do so.

Optimize the URL in your LinkedIn Profile

Your resume should be including your LinkedIn profile – this gives employers more to look into so if you already have a solid profile, your chances of locking the interview will skyrocket.

Many of my clients forget this and leave a chance to leave a deeper impression on the table.

Your resume will funnel into your Linkedin, and when your profile is optimized correctly, recruiter DMs will come flooding in your inbox.

DO NOT have a bunch of numbers in the URL in your profile:

Example

linkedin.com/in/john-smith-128489930

(The above is absolutely attrocious)

Instead, use something like

linkedin.com/in/john-smith

Example LinkedIn URLs to use if your name is taken:

I understand that there are many common first and last names.

If there’s the case that the LinkedIn URL you’re trying to use is taken, use a variation:

Add something unique pertaining to yourself such as a skillset or your background:

• linkedin.com/in/john-smith-CAD
• linkedin.com/in/john-smith-CPA
• linkedin.com/in/john-smith-HR
• linkedin.com/in/john-smith-MBA
• linkedin.com/in/john-smith-SWE

See: How To Change LinkedIn URL (And How It Improves Your Profile)

Add In As Many Skills As Possible In Your Profile

Recruiters will be typing in skills in the LinkedIn search engine.

Make your profile relevant by adding any and all skills you have that are relevant to the position that you’re applying for.

When recruiters will type in skillsets in the search box – your name will be more likely to pop up when you add as many skillsets as you can.

Optimizing LinkedIn Profile – Closing Thoughts

Regarding your LinkedIn profile, there is a clear cut framework to optimize linkedin profile for recruiters so that you maximize your results.

Follow the tips above and make sure you implement each one.

You’ll see that the people at high paying jobs already use these frameworks.

These frameworks work for a reason and there’s also a reason why they have high paying jobs.

If you’re overwhelmed by this, we do offer LinkedIn optimization services that will get you hundreds of DMs in a year.

If you thought this was useful, then you’ll love our in-depth guide on LinkedIn Optimization. We break down each in an easy to read step by step manner that you can then use to improve your LinkedIn profile.