 Your LinkedIn profile, like your resume, isn't one-size-fits all. What your profile looks like will be different depending on where you are in your career and what your goals are for the platform. Sometimes you may even need to get across multiple things at once, like continuing to grow in your current job while simultaneously putting out feelers for a new one. Here are some different scenarios we’ve encountered and how to deal with them. Choose the ones that feel most like you, and read on! Scenario 1: You are looking for a new job. LinkedIn is a great tool for job seekers, both because it offers tons of job postings (with an effective algorithm for personalizing recommendations) and because you can use it to actively cultivate your network. To make your LinkedIn job search most effective, your profile will need to appeal to recruiters and hiring managers, and it'll need to use strong keywords if you're applying for jobs through the platform. One thing you need to do is make sure you are getting across your passion for the types of jobs you are excited about. If you are a branded content producer trying to stay in branded content, this should be pretty easy – tell the story of what you do, list your accomplishments, and state your passion for the job. But if you’re looking for a switch, you may be trying to cater to multiple sets of eyeballs. In some cases, you can simply write in your headline or summary that you are looking for a transition and eager to meet people in that line of work. But sometimes it gets trickier. For example, we work with many clients who are trying to transition into a new side of the industry, or into a new industry altogether, but don’t want their current employers or clients to find out. This is completely understandable, but it means you'll have to be a bit more strategic about how you'll catch the attention of hiring managers and contacts in the new field. If possible, try to include some interests that cross reference the new type of role in your summary. You can also make sure you are highlighting the most transferable skills in your current job. If you’re afraid that your experience will be too confusing to the hiring manager, you could also take a more bare-bones approach with your profile and not give too many details in each section. You can also try to highlight things that make you unique – volunteer work or major accomplishments that may or may not have to do as much with your work history. Make sure to include relevant skills in the skills section, so you'll be considered a "match" for open roles. Your current employer isn't going to balk (or likely notice) if you list skills that aren't important to your current role, but a potential future employer will take these skills into account when reviewing your profile. Scenario 2: You are trying to grow in your current job/career path. If this is the case for you, your goal for your LinkedIn profile should be to try to build your network and make a name for yourself in your field. As far as the sections of your profile go, think about who you work with and what they’d probably want to know about you (often things that you talk about in general meetings or over networking drinks). You probably have a pretty good sense of the skills that are most relevant to your job, and you should highlight projects that you’re proud of or are notable, including links to your work, if applicable. In addition, you can spend time establishing yourself as more of a thought leader in the field by sharing relevant articles or headlines, or even blogging through the platform. You should also highlight speaking engagements or exciting opportunities you’ve been able to take part in. Lean into your voice and POV, and follow and actively engage with peers and companies you care about. The more visibility you get, the more connections you’ll make, and as we all know, success in Hollywood is all about your network. Scenario 3: You work in two different sides of the industry (or two industries) and are seeking jobs in both areas. This is a common scenario we see among our clients. The best advice we have here is that you need to be honest about your career trajectory! There's nothing wrong with having strong skillsets in multiple areas -- in fact, it can make you a huge asset to a company. Instead of worrying, think about what your unique perspective and expertise can offer a potential employer. LinkedIn is a great place for you to expound on your capabilities beyond your resume, so you can use your profile to showcase all the ways your dual paths inform your expertise. That said, if you’re leaning more toward one side of your expertise than the other for your next role (think: one is more of a backup plan), try to place more emphasis on it in your summary and showcase the skills you use for that role the most. Secondarily, you would highlight how your other work supports your primary goal. Be honest with yourself about how open you are to the backup path, and make sure your profile serves your real goals. Scenario 4: You own a business and are trying to sell your services OR you are a freelancer looking for new clients. Many people use their LinkedIn profiles to generate new business – at Hollywood Resumes, we sure do (feel free to follow us there)! But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about this. Your personal profile -- as opposed to your business page -- is about you and why you do the work you do. Explain what you do, why you’re passionate about your work, how you got your expertise, and what informs your approach to customers or clients. Keep a conversational tone, and encourage others to connect. You can share samples of your work through the platform as well, but save the more sales-y copy for your website. Just remember your audience; LinkedIn is about people trying to connect with people, and you want to make yourself seems like an approachable human that people will want to partner with. Scenario 5: You are an artist/creator open to creative opportunities. Similar to those who are trying to grow in their current career paths, artists will want to tell the story of what they do and why they are passionate about it on their LinkedIn profiles. It’s a great idea to showcase your most recent projects (or all your projects), and if you work in a visual medium, feel free to link to clips of your work. But one other thing to keep in mind is that those hiring artists (especially writers and directors) are looking for someone who has a unique POV and creative vision. Authenticity is also a big consideration when looking for creatives. So make sure you get across who you are as a person outside of work – what’s your personal backstory; what experiences have shaped the way you think and feel; what are your greatest passions; who has inspired you? The list goes on. Scenario 6: You are a student or very recent grad entering the workforce. For students, LinkedIn often isn’t a priority, as you’ve probably been a lot more focused on your coursework and activities rather than thinking about the job search. You don’t need to include tons of information on your LinkedIn profile if you are a student, but it is a good idea to add internships in the experience section and express any personal or professional interests in your summary. We’d recommend using LinkedIn as a way to build your network and start generating connections early on, so when you’re ready to look for a job, you’ll have a nice roster of people that can help you with referrals as you find opportunities that interest you. And you can also use LinkedIn as a research tool to identify career paths or companies of interest. As you grow in your professional career, you may want to lose some of your student work, so be sure to revisit your profile after you've held a few roles post-graduation. Scenario 7: You have a limited work history and are trying to re-enter the workforce. We frequently work with clients who have significant gaps on their resume and want to go back to work – often these are moms whose kids are finally old enough for them to go back to work, or people who have other life circumstances that prevented them from working full-time. That's okay! You're allowed to be human. Once again, the best rule of thumb here is to be honest! LinkedIn is the perfect place to explain your personal situation in your own words; in fact, it’s much easier to get this information across here than it is on your resume. This is also your chance to explain why you want to get back into the workforce and what experiences you’ve had in your life that will bring a unique perspective to your work. We find that nontraditional candidates are often the most hireable because of how much passion, grit, and drive they bring to the workforce. If this sounds like you, own your story! No matter what your unique situation is, the most important thing to remember is that LinkedIn is a social networking tool, and you can use it to get new clients, build your reputation, find work, or anything else you can think of. Craft your sections in a way that encourages people to want to connect with you or follow you, and if you have time, curate content on your feed that will keep these people engaged with you! -- Angela Silak and Cindy Kaplan
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 There’s a lot that goes into a LinkedIn profile, and what belongs in yours will depend on what you’re trying to use it for. But the one thing that is undeniable about LinkedIn profiles is that they require a lot of writing, and like a resume, they have to tell a story! Here are some general guidelines for figuring out what goes into the key sections of your LinkedIn profile: 1. Pinpoint your story. The way you craft your LinkedIn profile is entirely dependent on what you want to use it for, so it’s important to set a target for yourself before you start writing. Who are you hoping might look at your profile, and what do you want them to take away from it after they visit? Many people use LinkedIn as a job search tool (and it might be the best job search tool there is). If this is the case for you, you’ll want to think of your LinkedIn profile as a supplement to your resume – give context for the things that are on there, include additional information that wouldn’t fit, and share personal anecdotes about your proudest accomplishments or main areas of interest. However, if you're using LinkedIn as a sales tool that will bring in new business, you'll want to highlight the main selling points of your business and call out previous success stories. You can even explore becoming a LinkedIn creator, where your profile is more about creating content as a thought leader than for networking. But maybe you're simply using LinkedIn to maintain your network -- LinkedIn is good for that too. Whatever your desired story is, make sure your profile consistently tracks back to it at every touchpoint. 2. Give a good first impression. On a LinkedIn profile, the first impression you give is typically your photo. A picture's worth a thousand words, so don't discount this element as a part of your story! Make sure you select a photo where you look professional, yet approachable. We recommend choosing a photo where you are smiling, dressed professionally (this can differ depending on what your profession is), and your face is clearly visible (i.e. a headshot – doesn’t need to be professionally photographed). People make snap judgments based on your photo, so if you’ve got raised eyebrows and a sarcastic expression going on, some people might think you're quirky, but others might find it off-putting. The goal is to come across as friendly and pleasant – someone people will want to work with! It's not as necessary to have a cover photo, but if you do, make sure it aligns with your story. If you're using LinkedIn to promote your brand, showcasing your logo makes sense. If you're searching for a job, you might be better off without a cover photo, unless there's a pleasant, unobtrusive image that tells employers something about your candidacy. 3. Craft an accurate headline. Choose a headline that aligns with the story you are trying to tell. Often, that will be your title and company name – there’s a good chance that it might be the thing that describes you best professionally. But if you are trying to make a career transition or your title doesn’t really capture the type of work you do, you could pick something more generic (i.e. scripted TV development executive) or something that showcases your goals (events manager seeking transition to entertainment). If you're using LinkedIn to represent your company or grow your personal brand, you can use your headline to indicate a little bit about your differentiators. Keep in mind that your headline will likely change as your navigate different times in your career. Once you get that new role, you have to remember to update your headline from Job Seeker! 4. Write conversationally. One of the greatest things about LinkedIn is that it’s designed to showcase your voice. This is something that doesn’t come across in a resume, since that document is all about using specific keywords to show responsibilities and achievements in a limited amount of space. Think of LinkedIn as a place for someone to get to know more about the real you. If you’re funny, be funny; if that’s not your style, go for what is, but try to sound as if you are speaking to another human in regular conversation. We see a lot of LinkedIn profiles that are copy-pasted from resumes, that don’t give a whole lot of information about the person’s main interests and goals, and/or read like cheesy advertising copy. When writing your summary or entries in the experience section, think about how you'd spell out your job to a friend. Just try to sound like a normal person and you’ll be on the right track. 5. Get personal. As we said, people visiting your profile are trying to get to know more about you, so use the platform to give them what they want! LinkedIn is a great place to get across what motivates you, the career choices you’ve made that have led you to where you are, what your greatest work passions are, and what your goals are. Much of this information can go in the summary, but it can also go in the entries under your various work and volunteer experiences. Feel free to share anecdotes about your favorite projects or some of the more exciting moments on the job – especially the ones that come across in your resume. For example, if you once managed a team of helicopter and drone operators to capture an aerial stunt over the Grand Canyon in the middle of the night and spent 5 months working on it, that’s going to be hard to capture in a resume bullet point (you’d be limited to something like “managed complex production logistics”), but LinkedIn gives you the space to put this kind of information out there – it backs up the claims on your resume and will pique a potential contact’s interest. LinkedIn is also ideal for showing your passion for whatever kind of service your company is offering. Potential clients like to know that they are hiring a vendor whose heart is in the work, so if you can get across what motivates you, it will be a nice boost to your profile. Just like a resume, writing a good LinkedIn profile really all ties back to your personal story; it’s just a different form of storytelling! And it’s also a continually evolving personal branding tool. Do your best to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date and authentic, and it will serve you well in whatever you are using it for! -- Angela Silak & Cindy Kaplan We get lots of clients who have parallel career trajectories – they’ve been a producer for years but have also worked in events, or they’ve worked equally in TV and branded content, or they write while holding down a steady day job, or any number of other dualities (as resume writers and entertainment professionals ourselves, we fall into the same category)! But what does this mean for your resume and LinkedIn profile? How can you prove to a hiring manager that you’re interested in a specific job, when half of your experience is in a different part of the industry (or a different industry entirely)? First of all, you will almost certainly need at least two different resumes, one focused on each trajectory. The particulars depend on the specifics of your situation -- that's why we advocate for letting your story guide your resume format, not the other way around. Generally speaking, there are two ways to go about this: 1. If you can leave one path out without creating gaps, only include related jobs in your timeline and allude to your unique perspective in another way, like a call-out in your professional summary or skills & interests section; 2. Include both sets of jobs in your timeline, and for the divergent career path, only include transferable, relevant skills. If your timeline overlaps, put the more relevant jobs first. If you're looking to combine your two skillsets for an entirely new role, you'll need a strong professional summary or even a functional resume that allows you to organize your work by core skills -- these being, of course, the skills you'll bring to the new role. But what about LinkedIn? You can’t have two LinkedIn profiles. Before you write off LinkedIn as a tool for your career, consider that it offers a huge upside compared to your resume. LinkedIn lets you write in first person and tell your story in a truthful way -- it's an opportunity to add context to the simple chronology and explain what your unique perspective is. And with two backgrounds, you certainly have a lot to say! If there’s one side of your two career paths that you’re leaning toward more heavily, focus more on those skills on LinkedIn as well and express the other work as a side interest, highlighting what you've learned from those experiences that enhances your work in your primary path. But even if you’re looking for jobs in two fields equally, you can use your professional summary section to outline your unusual career trajectory and explain that you have two different passions, each one informing the other in its own way. Explain that you're open to roles on either side, and frame it as a value-add. Take the opportunity to give reasoning behind your career choices and explain how the things you have learned through each enhance your business approach. However, there are some times when you may want to be a little more vague with your LinkedIn profile -- if your boss doesn't know you're looking for jobs and expects your profile to reflect your full-time position, if you use LinkedIn as a sales prospecting tool in your current role and need to show focus to potential clients, or if there are other political reasons you need to maintain a level of privacy, that's fine. We still recommend you have a profile so that you can connect with people, but you may prefer to keep your profile sections short and sweet. When you've moved on to your next role, you can build your profile out more. One key thing to remember – no two people have the same career trajectory. In fact, the things that make you an unconventional candidate might be the same things that make you stand out from the pack! Take pride in your ability to excel in more than one area and come up with a few different frameworks to express your skills and background, so hiring managers get the information they need to see. It may take a bit more work to craft your story for your audience, but with two careers, we know you're no stranger to hard work, and in this industry, no stranger to storytelling! -- Angela Silak & Cindy Kaplan Are you one of the many entertainment industry professionals that works primarily on a freelance basis? If so, you may have experienced some frustration when trying to craft your LinkedIn profile. When you've got a list of 20 credits, it's really hard to align your experience with a LinkedIn template. Your instinct might be to keep your profile as thin as possible, and that’s certainly an option -- but if you’re looking to transition from freelance to full-time, if you’re pursuing jobs outside of the industry, or if you’re looking to build more of an online presence, you’ll probably want something more robust. There are a few ways to go about this, but the key is that the most important information must be at the top. Meaning, your professional summary is critical in setting up your work history and goals. Highlight a few key skills and achievements in this section, and consider name-dropping your most impressive credits. If you're looking for a job, you can say so, or take a moment to note what type of content you're most passionate about. Many people won't read past your summary and first couple of entries in the experience section, so make sure this part shines. As for the experience section, if you’ve primarily worked on projects that might not have name recognition, you can organize everything by job title or job function -- i.e. "freelance story producer." In each section, you can list credits and your main job responsibilities. It's also helpful to give a little description of the projects for context. If you’ve worked on notable content, you’ll want to highlight those bigger credits more clearly. We suggest putting your job title and the show name together as your “Title” (for example, Story Producer, REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS) and the production company name as the company. Your instinct might be to include the network here because it’s more recognizable, but don’t! By linking yourself to a production company, you’ll become more searchable when people look for connections at that company, and you’ll pop up as a suggestion to more people you may know. Too many people work at a network or studio for that to be useful for you. When it comes to dates, you’ll want to lump all seasons of any given show together, even if there’s overlap. Your profile will be too long and confusing if you separate each season of a show as its own job and intersperse those credits with jobs you took over hiatus. If you’re seeking entertainment industry jobs, you can rest assured that people understand the seasonal nature of your jobs -- and if you’re looking outside of the industry, you just need to be clear in your job descriptions. Often, freelance job descriptions will get repetitive, because you’ll have been hired to do the same thing on multiple shows. We find it’s best to include some top-level skills in your first few jobs and offer some highlights about working on the show. But as you get deeper into your work history (and into the “Show 5 more experiences” section of your profile), it’s okay to get more fragmented and just list high level information about the show itself. Overall, don’t let the LinkedIn template freak you out. Your freelance experience is no less valuable than that of someone working a more corporate job -- it just takes a little more creativity and finesse to display online! --Angela Silak & Cindy Kaplan |
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