Boasting more than 706 million users over 200 countries and territories, LinkedIn is undoubtedly the world’s largest business-oriented network. Curating your LinkedIn profile in a way that showcases your professional and personal brand can lead to building your network, and even create new opportunities.

Consider these additional benefits:

Online Portfolio
With sections such as “About,” “Experience,” “Education,” and “Featured,” LinkedIn encourages users to highlight their professional development, achievements, and milestones. While tracking these, users can directly tag the business profiles of organizations, universities, and more. LinkedIn also lets users upload supplemental documents, such as resumes and samples of their work, to further showcase their capabilities.

Expands Your Network
You may have heard the term, “your net worth is your network,” a statement that is important in both the professional and personal realms. Thanks to social media, users are able to connect with like-minded individuals across the globe. On LinkedIn, users can search terms to discover individuals and groups that directly relate to their inquiry. Mindfully adding people to your network has the potential to connect users who can help each other professionally.

Provides Exposure
According to U.S. News, roughly 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to analyze (and even recruit) candidates. Thanks to Google’s algorithm, when potential employers search candidates’ names, social media networks are some of the first results. Having a polished and up-to-date LinkedIn profile makes users visible while acting as a CV.

Builds Trust & Credibility
If your resume seems too good to be true, recruiters can easily view your LinkedIn profile to confirm your honesty. Scanning through personal profiles, readers have access to your work history (or as much as you’ve provided), are able to gain a sense of your writing abilities, and can validify your skills by reviewing your endorsements (a feature that allows your connections to act as references by endorsing you for certain skills).

Acts as a Research Tool
Not only can employers assess potential employees, similarly, candidates have the ability to assess potential employers. For example, because business profiles are able to post employment opportunities, users can find industry-specific opportunities on the virtual job board, and actually view companies’ profiles to gain a better understanding of the company before deciding whether to apply.

LinkedIn is the superior platform for connecting with like-minded professionals. If you haven’t created your professional profile yet, we encourage you to do so, and to follow the Blueprint Alaska business profile to connect with our team.