In today's professional landscape, having a strong online presence is essential, and LinkedIn is a powerful platform to showcase your skills, experience, and professional brand. This core competency will guide you through the process of creating and optimizing your LinkedIn profile, ensuring it stands out to recruiters and industry professionals. You'll learn how to set up your profile, populate it with relevant content, enhance it with recommended elements, and build a robust network of connections. By the end of this module, you'll have a polished LinkedIn that effectively represents your professional profile and opens doors to new opportunities.
LinkedIn is a great way to build your professional network and showcase your experience. Throughout this section we will be focusing on the basics of getting your profile set up. These steps are important and impact your profile showing up in recruiter searchers! First up, you want to start by making sure your personal information is correct and clear.
To edit your profile, click on the "pencil" icon on the right hand side. From there, you want to fill in several things:
The key area to update in this space is your headline. Here, you want to customize your headline to list job titles you are targeting. If you are in Full stack web, you want to list 'Web Developer' first, followed by your focus area of either 'Frontend Software Engineer' or 'Backend Software Engineer.'
Then, you want to add a few key tools that you have been working with recently. For example, 'JavaScript' 'React' 'Python' 'Java'
Customizing this headline section will help your profile be discovered by recruiters using the search algorithm, which can generate more connections and possible job opportunities.
In addition, be sure to scroll down and select an Industry from the drop down. 'Software Development' is a common choice.
Note: Do not add the 'position' or 'education' fields at this point. We will get to that later on.
Lastly, be sure to fill in your location with your country/region.
And of course, select 'Save' to save all your changes.
LinkedIn states that each section that is customized helps boost the strength of the overall profile. For the banner, it's recommended to select something that is industry related and professional as this is a professional platform.
You can create a custom banner image using free tools:
While LinkedIn does provide some banner options, it's recommended that you use your own customer banner. Once you find a banner image that you like, you are going to select upload, choose that banner, then apply to save the banner in place.
The open to work feature indicates to recruiters your job preferences and helps your profile to show up in designated recruiter searches.
The final feature in this box is to add the 'Open to Work' visual tag to appear over your photo.This indicates that you are actively searching for a job. However, there is an option to show this to recruiters only. Play around with this feature - see how engagement goes when the tag is visible versus not visible.
Make sure to save all your changes!
Pull up your LinkedIn Profile and begin to update each of the sections:
Once updated be sure to save!
Now that you've set up the basics of your profile it's time to get into the major content that can really help your profile stand out! Start off by clicking the 'Add profile section' button found under your profile photo. From there, you'll see a pop up of three options. Go ahead and select 'Core'.
We're going to fill in this entire section, so start at the top with the 'About me' and add something short and sweet. You want to avoid really long paragraphs because no one is going to read two or three paragraphs in this area.
Adding something that is eye-catching here and not too long, with enough valuable information is the key to grabbing and keeping the attention of the viewer.
Things to include:
Under your 'About me' you will see a new section with a button that says 'Add Skills' Here, you will want to indicate your top five skills that you want associated with your profile.
Be sure to hit 'Save' once you are done and review the information added to your profile.
Click on 'Add profile section' again and get started under the next area: Add Education
Fill out the following information:
Be sure to do this step for any and all degrees that you hold.
Note: Once you hit 'save' on this section, LinkedIn will ask if you want to share this news with your network. For now, click no or skip because you don't want to alert people of every little update.
Once again, click into the 'add profile section' under your profile photo, then select 'add position'
This is where you will add all previous professional positions, starting with the most recent.
If you have taken a career break, it's best practice to make your recent position 'Freelance Web Developer' as this will help with recruiters viewing your profile.
Fill out:
Click 'save' and then go back to repeat these steps for each previous role.
Yes, you've already added the top five skills in multiple places in this section but now we can add more.
Once again, click into the 'add profile section' under your profile photo, then select 'add skills'
This is where we maximize the amount of skills associated with your profile. The reason we do this is because recruiters use LinkedIn to search for candidates by skills and previous positions or titles. By maximizing the amount of skills in your profile, we are maximizing the amount of chances the recruiter can find you in a search.
Note: The max in this section is fifty skills. Be sure to include all fifty.
Pull up your LinkedIn Profile and begin to update each of the sections:
Once updated be sure to save!
In this section, we are going to add and customize the recommended sections in your LinkedIn content. This includes:
To get started, click on the 'add profile section' found under your profile photo. Once you do that, you will see the pop-up box and the drop down for 'Recommended'
Under the Recommended section, you will start at the top with 'Add featured'
This section allows you to add various media that includes:
To do this, click on the + sign on the right corner.
Note: It's recommended to add and highlight your project platform (medium account, Github projects, etc.)
Be sure to click 'save' and review the featured content on your profile.
Once again, you will be starting by clicking:
From there, click on 'Add license and certifications'
Examples of certifications to add:
For each certification, you can associate specific skills.
Hit 'save' and repeat the process for any license and certifications. Be sure to click 'save' and review the license and certifications section on your profile.
Once again, you will be starting by clicking:
From there, click on 'add courses':
In your course, you will see the specific topics highlighted. This is what you will add to the course highlight area.
Once you add the course names, you will want to select BloomTech from the 'Associated with' dropdown.
Click 'save' and repeat as needed.
Once again, you will be starting by clicking:
From there, click on 'add recommendations'
This section allows you to search through your contacts and connections and request for a professional or personalized recommendation.
Feel free to make this request and send this outreach message to anyone you are connected with on LinkedIn.
You can also provide recommendations to your current or previous work colleagues and classmates. This is a strategic way to have other professionals supporting your skills. It also adds strength and custom content to your profile.
Pull up your LinkedIn Profile and begin to update each of the sections:
Once updated be sure to save!
Linkedin offers a number of other sections that are optional but very impactful if included on your profile. The most important and one that we require here at BloomTech is a Projects section. Projects are your experience at this point in your career so highlighting them and making it easy for employers to access is extremely important.
Rounding out your LinkedIn profile, it's important to highlight your technical skills by showing off the projects you've created.
Start off by clicking:
From there, click on 'add projects'
The pop-up box will appear with the information for you to fill out, including:
Note: Projects can come from the sprint challenges, or any tasks in which you have worked on key elements within a web application or a specific project. Side projects done throughout the program should also be included.
Once you've completed filling in the information, click on 'save' and scan your profile to confirm the section is there.
Repeat as needed for all your projects.
Spend a moment scanning the options under the additional section to see if there's anything else you'd like to add to your profile. For example, if you speak additional languages, received honors & awards, or volunteer with an organization.
Congrats! You've completed your LinkedIn profile.
Take a minute to look over your profile and make sure you have customized the following:
Pull up your LinkedIn Profile and begin to update each of the sections:
Once updated be sure to save!
In the Career Readiness modules of Units 1, 2, and 3, we established the format of your resume and began building out each section. Now, in this core competency, we will finalize your resume, by reviewing each section of your resume to ensure you've included all required components. By the end, you will have a polished resume ready for submission in the next sprint.
If you need here is the BloomTech Template to get you started: Backend Resume Template
The General Code Assessment (GCA) is a timed, multiple-choice test that assesses your coding skills and knowledge. It is designed to help you determine if you are ready for the Applied Computer Science unit.
If you haven't already taken it recently, try and attempt it every 2 weeks.
You can find the link in the Portal.