LinkedIn hosts profiles of almost 700 million users and this seems like an endless supply of opportunities. LinkedIn has proven to be a strong online professional networking platform facilitating career growth.
You can search for a job, look for new business opportunities, or find potential clients using LinkedIn. A strong LinkedIn profile can attract potential employers or clients.
Linkedin is no longer an online resume. It's your digital reputation. -Jill Rowley
However, along with a strong LinkedIn profile, there is a lot more to it. LinkedIn has been continuously updating tools and adding up new features to provide better results to its users.
Updates that give you better search results, recommendations, increase the credibility of your profile, and increase its reachability.
Here are 7 such things about LinkedIn that you might not be aware of but you need to know for sure.
7 things you might not know about LinkedIn:
1. LinkedIn’s Cover Photo Changes
Your LinkedIn photo alone can help you generate greater views on your profile.
Your profile photo is who you are. The cover image, however, shows what you love to do.
LinkedIn has changed its user interface and now it's time for you to update your cover photo.
On the desktop version, the profile picture appears on the left-hand side of the cover photo. However, for the LinkedIn app for androids, the profile photo still appears at the center of the cover image.
Recommended resolution for cover photos is 1584 x 396 pixels with a maximum file size of 8 Mb.
LinkedIn accepts PNG, JPG, and GIF file types for cover photos with a recommended 4:1 aspect ratio. Using cover images of recommended sizes has proven to get an increased number of views and comments.
2. LinkedIn Status Update Character Count Limit
Characters consist of letters, numbers, spaces, and punctuation marks.
Character count is limited for status updates, headlines, summary, and LinkedIn publisher articles.
You need to consider the character limit in order to send across your message using limited words.
The character count limits are as follows:
Status Update: 1,300 characters maximum
LinkedIn Publisher Headline: 100 characters maximum
LinkedIn Publisher Article: 40,000 characters maximum
Even if the status update has 1300 characters as the allowable limit, only 200 characters are visible to the reader and he/she needs to tap on 'click to see more' to read further.
Therefore, you need to make sure you grab the reader’s attention in the very first 200 characters. For the company, the status update character count is 700.
3. LinkedIn can hurt your job search if you are not careful:
The LinkedIn algorithm sends your connections a message to congratulate you whenever you edit your profile or update your status.
This might hurt your job search since the algorithm identifies any edit as a new job.
Also, when you follow companies that interest you, LinkedIn sends a message across your network that says 'John Smith is following XYZ Company'.
The employer might think that you have started working with that company which might result in you losing an opportunity. So be careful when you make an edit in your LinkedIn profile.
Not knowing about this feature so far could have landed you in a big mess.
While this looks like a major problem since you need to keep updating your profile, and you would not want to decrease your chances of getting hired, LinkedIn does provide a solution to this.
LinkedIn, allows you to turn off ‘activity broadcasts’, a feature that will prohibit sending alerts when you make changes in your profile.
4. Few words to avoid on LinkedIn
Strategic or relevant words on your LinkedIn profile are important for you to gain the attention of potential employers.
However, overuse of buzzwords or jargon might turn your connections away and damage your image.
You need to avoid the use of the following vague adjectives in your LinkedIn profile:
Passionate
Specialized
Creative
Motivated
Expert
Strategic
Skilled
Focused
Unique
Metrics
Experienced
Result-driven
5. LinkedIn Advance Search Results with Boolean Search
LinkedIn's Advance Search Results with Boolean Search allows you to filter your search more specifically to find exactly what you are looking for.
You can add or delete certain elements from the search parameters. For example, if you want to find an expert in personal branding and you put that key terms on search then results show all the people who have "personal" and "branding" in their profile.
Instead, if you add quotes around personal branding i.e. actually search “personal branding” instead of searching simply personal branding, it would only list the profiles and pages having the two words together.
Here's how the Boolean search in LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature works:
NOT searches: Used to exclude someone from your search results and limit your search results. For example, "programmer NOT manager".
OR searches: Used to include one or more items in a list and broadens your search results. For example, "sales OR representative OR advertising".
AND searches: To include all items in a list. For example, "Data Analyst AND data Mining".
Parenthetical searches: Parentheses to refine your search with multiple terms. For example, "account AND finance NOT (manager OR executive) ".
Quoted searches: Used to search for an exact phrase such as "product manager" or "cross-functional collaboration".
6. Take Advantage of LinkedIn's Saved Searches Feature
You can save the search term that produces good search results using LinkedIn’s Advanced Search.
You will get alerts when people match the criteria for your search. You can check those search terms any time and can check out relevant profiles that match your criteria.
This feature is available for both basic and premium members. For a free account, you can save up to 3 saved search results. For the premium version, the number of saved searches varies according to the membership plans.
Plus, LinkedIn sends an email per week with any new profiles that match your Saved Search parameters.
7. Personalize connection requests on the LinkedIn mobile app
You can personalize each connection request that you send out.
On the mobile app, LinkedIn sends the default connection request.
You need to carefully check the default invitation before writing a personalized connection request.
There are two options "Accept" or "Ignore" to your connection request and if you select Ignore, the person who has sent you a request might select ‘I don’t know this person.
If in case five people select ‘I don’t know this person’ for your account, then your account could be restricted.
Therefore, to send a personal request from the mobile app, go to the profile you wish to connect.
To the right of "Connect" click the three dots … it will open a new window to invite a person. You can use up to 300 characters to personalize connection requests.
The above-listed features not only enhance your searches or optimize your profile and your activities on LinkedIn, being unaware of them might create a problem.
Since the entire platform is data-driven and the activities that the platform carries out are based on algorithms, they might sometimes prove harmful for your motive.
You thus, need to be a little cautious while sending out requests, following Company pages, and updating profiles. Eliminating the disadvantages of these features you can use LinkedIn to its full advantage.
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