Follow the leader – How to raise your LinkedIn Profile #hrblog

Some time ago I published a discussion in a group for people looking for work helping them by showing how to raise your LinkedIn Profile. This has been repeatedly removed by moderators on LI. Why? Because it works!

After the initial discussions were deleted, I published a post on the LinkedIn publishing platform Pulse. You can see one of the original posts: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-secrets-help-you-linkedin-no-one-tells-li-dont-morrison-fcipd – if you get a post not found message, please let me know (and LinkedIn don’t delete things, they just hide them from all except the poster!!

If you want to raise your LinkedIn profile views (it helps the recruiters find you) you can join the “Pay It Forward” group on LinkedIn. The group has just one purpose to work with like minded people to raise everyone’s profile that participates.

Things LinkedIn appear to not want you to know

This posted started out as a discussion in a group. It had over 500 likes and 1200 comments. The screen shot below was taken today, 6 days after the post was made, but they “hid it” after 4 days!

Then I launched a second version. This post was also recently deleted! This was taken 6 Dec after the thread was hidden from members.

Note the number of likes and comments made on each.

A third thread was stopped after just a few hours!

IMPORTANT information if you use LinkedIn

Also note that as the poster of the discussions I can still see this. To me it looks active, but NO-ONE else can see it!

So what is it that LinkedIn do not want job seekers to know? Well here is the post:

Steps to take to really raise your LinkedIn game

• So you have a profile – check
• Customise the URL from https://www.linkedin.com/yourname13ek43 To https://www.linkedin.com/yourname – do this under edit profile – check
• It has a good quality Photo – Check
• You have a summary that included key skills from your sector/ industry & says what you do CLEARLY
• You have the EXPERIENCE section complete with ACHIEVEMENTS and NUMBERS – growth of x by 20%, saved 33% by… etc
• At least one recommendation per year you worked at your last 3 jobs – Check
• You have up to 45 skills relevant to your industry – CHECK
• You have “Notify your network about profile changes” turned on – CHECK
• People can see when you have viewed their profile turned on – https://www.linkedin.com/settings/ – CHECK
• You have at least 200 connections (more is NOT necessary) Connect with people you know is the best strategy – CHECK
• You are in at least 10 groups in your sector – 2 of which MUST have over 100,000 members, 5+ must have more than 10000 members – CHECK

See where you are on https://www.linkedin.com/wvmx/profile/rankings? – this is your starting benchmark – UPDATE 2017 – LinkedIn have removed this. You can still see where you rank by searching for people with your skill and see where you come.

EVERY DAY check who has looked at your profile. If they appear to be a recruiter – message them back asking if you can help them in any way.

OK Now your LinkedIn Profile BASICS NOW IN PLACE

Now much like SEO for a web site, we need our profile to be high in the search results that recruiters make. Here is what you need to do!

One of the “secrets” of LinkedIn is that when recruiters look for people there are 2 factors which help put your name above others in search results. To get your name higher than others you need profile views

Now while there are lots of people in this group – most won’t take action – and many job seekers are not in the group, so this works…

NOTE – how many people view your profile seems to make a difference.

Actions to take

To help add your name to this post as a commitment – add a one line about your job or sector
To help this really come to life – visit the profile of at least 10 people that add their name to this list – that is both paying back & paying forward – and will cost you 2 minutes of your life!

IF YOU ARE CONNECTED TO THAT PERSON when you are on their profile – ENDORSE then for the skills you know they have – PAY it FORWARD

Every little helps each other! Good fortune in your job search

Part 2
You need to do this every few days – not a one off. The magic phrase is “little and often”

Add who you are & what you are looking for. ONLY AFTER visiting the profile of at least 10 people that have (will) comment in this thread.
Pay it FORWARD first and raise your LinkedIn profile!

Some comments from people that have tried this to raise your LinkedIn profile:

• I hadn’t considered that either “secret” would be that important. Eureka!
• This is a little embarrassing to admit but my profile views have gone up 2500% since last week.
• went from 31% to top 2%
• Up 1250%, among top 5%. :)
• This has definitely helped me as well! Profile views are up by 1450% and I’m in the top 5%
• This is so amazing! Checked my profile view stats and shows that I rank #1 among professionals like me and #4 among my University
• I’m number 4 in professionals like me (up 21%)
• Profile views up 2,300% – Speechless! Thank you everyone, I have viewed 25 of you today. It’s also just plain fun and I feel like I am giving back if I can help others in their search. Blessings to all…
• Top 16% from 31% :) Thanks everyone
• Top 10 ranking now! And got a message for an interview. Thnx everyone
• In the top 12% now! :) Thank you everyone once again. Special thanks to Mike Morrison FCIPD for this amazing post.
• loving the 289% profile view increase
• Thanks Mike for this post, I can’t tell you how much this has helped. I’m in the top %1 of the company I work for and top %3 of my connections
• My list of ‘professionals like me’ places me now at number 2, I was at number 75 before starting this process
  • A quick update on how effective this is:
    Professionals like you 29/100 up 59%
    My connections 65/228 up 49%
    That’s in just 3 days. I also received an unsolicited invitation to meet with a local company later this week
• Mike thanks for the informative post. I have been actively working my profile and now my status puts me at #3 in profile views/rank relative to my profession in publishing. I’ll be happy to work the views for other posting in this group. With more views…I hope to reach #1. Cheers!
• Thanks to this thread I’m now #1 out of 97 professional in my field. A week ago I was #25. I am now #65 in my overall network, a week ago I was #268
• When I started this a week ago out of 10000 <company name> Employees I was around the 9000 mark for profile views and this morning I was ranked 9 for # of profile views. Thanks Mike Morrison
• ok #1 ranking in professionals like me and #30 ranking in network.. not bad for a few day effort!
• Up to top 14% rank of my peers. I have moved up 2% within 2 days. Continuing to view profiles which again I will add is very interesting and enlightening. Thank you.

So who wants to play and raise your LinkedIn profile?

Pay It Forward – visit 10 of these profiles a day. Different ones. Add your LinkedIn profile link as a comment below & join the Pay It Forward group.

How to raise your LinkedIn Profile – look at the profiles of others, and look at those that look at yours.