Leadership | Career advice | Social Media | Personal Branding

William Arruda July 09, 2017

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Several years ago, I posted an article on the three steps to writing the perfect LinkedIn summary. A lot has changed since then. LinkedIn has made many updates and revisions, and they recently launched an entirely new interface. In addition, the world of work has evolved even more into a place where the free-agent mindset is essential for prosperity. So it’s time for a major update to my last post on this topic.

Before we get into the mechanics of crafting a brilliant summary, let’s start with why your LinkedIn summary is so essential to your success:

• LinkedIn is often the first place people go when they are looking to evaluate you in a professional capacity.

• If people Google your name to learn about you, your LinkedIn profile is likely to show up in one of the top spots in the search results. Since 62% of Google clicks go to the top three search results, those who start at Google will end up at LinkedIn.

• For many of us, a LinkedIn profile is the most comprehensive bio we have on the web. Your LinkedIn summary (all 2,000 or fewer characters) will likely be read by more people than any other version of your bio . This added exposure gives you a great opportunity to capture the attention of decision makers — but only if you have a summary that connects.

An effective LinkedIn summary does three things: Read more…