For the majority of people trying to get hired today, there will be no better tool to network, find jobs, and land a job than LinkedIn. The site is almost an industry standard for most careers, and as Twitter falls further into its own grave, LinkedIn has been swooping in to take its place. If you’re seeking a new job, there is an easy way to dramatically increase your chances of being seen by recruiters right now: LinkedIn’s all-star status.
What is all-star status on LinkedIn?
If you’re relatively new to LinkedIn or are just not good at finishing what you start, you’ll notice there is a completion bar on your profile. That bar tells you how close you are to reaching “all-star” status. To get that little pesky bar to 100%, you need to:
- Add a profile photo
- Have a location on your profile
- Select what industry you work in (or aspire to)
- List your education level
- Add your position (if unemployed, write “seeking new opportunities”) and any past experiences
- Add at least five skills you have to your profile
- Write a bio summary on your profile
- Make connections with people on LinkedIn; the more the better
Reaching that 100% milestone means you’re a LinkedIn all-star. And it comes with benefits: You’ll be 40 times more likely to be contacted by recruiters looking to hire workers, according to LinkedIn. You’ll also be 18 times more likely to show up on search results and differentiate yourself from the pack since only 51% of users have all-star status, according to LinkedIn “guru” Austin Belcak.
How to stand out to recruiters on LinkedIn
Now, you can just add anything to your profile to get the all-star status, but that would be selling yourself short. What you put on those categories is actually important to your presence on LinkedIn. Not just because it looks nice but because LinkedIn works similarly to Google’s search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. In other words, there are certain best practices you can use to rank higher than other people when recruiters search for potential hires.
Use keywords in your bio
When recruiters look for candidates or post a job and want to find candidates that match the description, LinkedIn relies on keywords from the “about me” bio section of your profile. The best keywords for you will depend on what job you want to get. A good tip is to find the top 10 job posts for the title you want and add the skills and major keywords from those posts to your bio.
You can see a simple way of doing this in Jeff Su’s video here:
Don’t have just anyone endorse your skills
When it comes to having skills listed on LinkedIn, there is an additional process where users can endorse those skills. While you can have anyone endorse your skills, like your mom or partner, there is more weight on those endorsements if someone with the same skill endorses it. An easy way to do this would be to ask your current or former coworkers for an endorsement—and you’ll return the favor. If you have good standing with previous managers, it would look even better if they endorsed you (at least in the eyes of recruiters).
There are countless other tips to help you rank better and stand out on LinkedIn, but having an all-star account and using keywords on your bio are the easiest and fastest ways to start getting noticed by recruiters.
