This document provides tips for creating an effective LinkedIn profile to help with job hunting. It recommends including a professional photo, filling out all profile sections with relevant details from your resume or CV, customizing your public profile to stand out to recruiters. The document also suggests connecting with contacts, joining relevant industry groups to get noticed, and following companies of interest to stay informed on opportunities and learn more about their needs for interviews. LinkedIn is positioned as an important professional networking platform that allows users to develop their knowledge, reputation, and connections beyond just job postings.

1. Good Profile
How to build and manage a good LINKEDIN profile
for effective job hunting (and not only)
Mini manual for beginners who are looking for a job (also) via SOCIAL NETWORK
1. Foreword
2. What is LINKEDIN and how it works
3. How to build an effective profile
4. The contacts
5. The groups
6. The companies
7. To conclude...
1. Foreword
The business world today is highly competitive.
Dozens, when not hundreds, of aggressive job seekers apply every day for few, very few
available positions.
Therefore, it becomes fundamental and strategic the capacity of getting out of the flock.
You should be able to excite the curiosity and interest of the entrepreneur, employer or
potential partner, whom you have to do with, in order to valorize and make known your
peculiar skills. You should be able to make the entrepreneur, employer or potential partner
clearly perceive your potential professionality.
During the last years LINKEDIN is standing out as a strategic social platform for all those
who are looking for job opportunities.
But: look out! LINKEDIN should not be seen only as a useful means in the job seeking
field, since it’s potentially much more than that.
Indeed, its usefulness lies in the fact that LINKEDIN allows you:
I. to get in touch with skilled professionals;
II. to obtain and/or provide opinions, tips, updates on professional matters.
2. What is LINKEDIN and how it works
LINKEDIN is a social network similar to FB but oriented to, and structured for, the job
world. In sum and substance, it’s a beautiful and huge modern “agorà”, where you can
meet and discuss with millions of professionals from all over the world.
On the level of job seeking, its importance depends on the fact that nowadays the bulk of
recruiters (headhunters, agencies for employment, and HR managers) has regularly

2. recourse to LINKEDIN in order to find potential collaborators or employees. Hence,
LINKEDIN is (or should be used as) a sort of lively CV.
Yes, because unlike the common CV, your LINKEDIN profile is an interactive CV, which
constantly needs you to be... active. How? Well, this is not a simple “virtual spot”, it’s rather
a true “piazza” where you can meet and “attend” people that shares your same
professional interests. With them you can:
I. share opinions;
II. propose topics to discuss;
III. ask questions;
IV. discuss particular issues or problems.
The importance and efficacy of LINKEDIN consists exactly in the possibility of developing
professional knowledge and relations. Knowledge that could be very useful at work and
that can contribute to enhance your know how and to better your reputation, thanks also
to the interactions that take place in the groups of discussion, to which you adhere to.
In a nutshell, LINKEDIN is an out-and-out dynamic and virtual (but “true”) showcase,
where you can show yourself and make others know your human and professional
characteristics. Where you can become attractive to those looking for collaborators.
3. How to build an effective profile
Your LINKEDIN profile (that is, your personal page on LINKEDIN) can be customized by
compiling several different parts, which are all equally important.
We are living in the era of images, where PHOTOGRAPHY plays a VERY IMPORTANT
role.
Hence, it’s really essential to put a good pic of you in your LINKEDIN profile. Profiles
without a pic are indeed almost automatically discarded by anyone who is looking for
someone.
It’s also important that your pic is PROFESSIONAL: LINKEDIN is not FB, so do not put
cats, dogs or pets in general, which don’t matter with the “identity” you are supposed to
convey on a professional marketplace.
On your profile you can either write directly, or upload your updated CV. Moreover, you
can add any other stuff you find significant for the professional image of yourself you
intend to convey, such as interesting documents, awards, mentions, professional
achievements, useful informations and/or web links.
You can also insert brief descriptions concerning your human and professional
characteristics (they should be brief to not bore those who are considering your profile,
whom generally prefer to read short but catchy descriptions).
In any case, the more your profile is enticing, the more you can gain visibility... and, with it,
the possibility of being contacted...

3. 4. The contacts
As with FB, also in LINKEDIN the network of acquaintances is not only important, but
really fundamental if you want eventually reach and get in touch with the people you are
interested in.
Hence, your first step in this direction should be to look for the good professionals you
already know off-LINKEDIN and aks for their LINKEDIN contact. One thing leads to
another and every new contact you add to your network can help you to increase the
effectiveness of your presence on LINKEDIN.
5. The groups
Since the groups of discussion on LINKEDIN are many, better you search for those that
interest you, according to the subject dealt with. Then, in order to participate actively to
the discussions, it’s essential you join-in.
The groups are good for meeting people and GETTING NOTICED by taking part in
discussions, suggesting topics and posting interesting and relevant links.
Advise: do not confine yourself to those groups that “speak” your language, but participate
also to those where other languages you know are used. Indeed, an international outlook is
important in any professional field in order to widen your culture and know how, and
improve the professional level of the foreign languages you speak/write.
6. The companies
It’s really important to follow the companies you are interested in on LINKEDIN, since
this allows you to stay up to date and in “contact” with your market.
If you have a direct interest in this or that company, and if you are hoping for a job in
one of them, then, it is for you advantageous to have a preview of the companies’
available positions and/or interesting initiatives.
But above all, to follow a company puts you in the position to better understand it and
have a sort of ace in the hole that you can play in case of a job interview: indeed, this
helps you in keeping your answers more focused on the actual needs of the company.
7. To conclude...
The more you get the more you want... then, when you’ve become familiar with
LINKEDIN and when you’ve realized the possibilities that it offers... you don’t have to do
anything other than... to get busy!
[P.S.: good luck!]

4. Mauro Moschin
Disclaimer:
This document is issued and distributed in the form TOTALLY FREE only for educational
purposes.
In accordance with the law (Art. 70 l. 633/41) parts of the same may be freely
reproduced provided the source and its author are cited.