By: Heather Fork, MD of Doctors Crossing
When you think about networking on LinkedIn do you feel a bit of dread?
Would you prefer to not have to put yourself out there?
Does sorting colored pencils sound like more fun?
If so, you’re in good company.
As a physician, most of you have not needed to be on LinkedIn.
But as the Bob Dylan song goes, “The times are a changin’.”
With over 575 million members LinkedIn is the number one networking site for professionals – and it’s becoming quite the thing. You can hardly swing a hula hoop without running into someone talking about LinkedIn.
People are using LinkedIn for activities such as:
Networking
Job hunting
Nonclinical career transition
Recruiting
Business promotion
Establishing a platform/being a thought leader
In this blog we’re diving into 5 key tips to jump-start your LinkedIn profile and have it work FOR you.
1. Personalize your profile with a banner photo.
By default, your banner photo on LinkedIn is the grey rectangle at the top of your profile that has your headshot in the far left corner.
You can customize your banner photo. This is the blue rectangle that is at the very top of your profile.
On mine, I have a banner for the podcast with a background photo I purchased from Shutterstock.
You can upload a photo that is simply a nice backdrop, or it can have a specific theme that goes with your professional area of interest.
I like finding free photos on Pixabay.
2. Customize your headline.
The headline is under your name and by default, LinkedIn populates this with your job title and company name. The limit is 220 characters.
Ideally, you want to customize your headline by including keywords that will help those you want to attract, such as recruiters and others in your desired area find you. These words are keyword searchable.
If you have a side gig such as chart review, medical writing, or being an expert witness, you can put these words in your headline and help recruiters find you.
I was talking with one of my physician friends about her profile and as a result, she made a few changes in her headline and within hours several recruiters were contacting her!
It was like Shazam!
3. About section.
Make sure not to skip this part. The About section is a great way to let others get to know you and understand your goals for LinkedIn.
Think about if you were writing an online dating profile.
In a dating profile, you want to succinctly portray who you are in a memorable way and attract a very specific kind of person.
With millions of members on LinkedIn, you aren’t trying to attract everyone.
Think about what you could write about yourself that would appeal to the kind of people you’d like to have in your network.
Consider including the following:
Who you are
What you do –or the area you want to transition into
A call to action
The call to action will vary depending on your goals. If you are wanting to transition to a different sector, you can welcome people in that area to reach out to you and connect.
If you are wanting to grow a side gig or a business, you can invite people to reach out to you and include your website address.
Some people post short videos, podcast interviews or other content here.
I like an About section written in the first person that is not too long (100 – 300 words), with some white space.
4. Skills Section.
This is a great section to include skills that recruiters could be searching on such as “utilization review,” “informatics,” or “medical consulting.
If you’re applying for a job, make sure to include skills listed in the job description (if you have them).
One of the cool things is that you can write in any skill that you want. Just to try this out, I put in “bungee jumping” on my skill list.
Yes – it’s on my skill list. Now I better find some bungees and start jumping.
Another cool thing is that your contacts on LinkedIn will endorse you for the skills they know you have. This helps build your credibility and gain recognition.
Recruiters are searching on these skills and could very easily find you just from this section.
5. Adding Contacts.
People often ask, so who should I connect with?
First of all, you don’t need to worry about going over the limit anytime soon. LinkedIn allows you to have 30,000 first degree connections.
A good start is to aim for 150 contacts and work up to 500+. Here is where LinkedIn becomes a Rolodex on steroids.
When you connect with one person, their 1st and 2nd degree contacts (think friends and friends of friends) become your 2nd and 3rd degree connections. Very quickly you can have hundreds of thousands of people to reach out.
Your goals on LinkedIn will determine who you want to add to your own network. I connect mostly with physicians in both clinical and nonclinical areas, as well as recruiters. But I’m pretty open if someone seems like they would be a good connection.
Depending on what your interests are, for example, Pharma, public health, or informatics, you
would search on and connect with people in these respective areas.
Because you also never know who knows who, connecting with other physicians, in general, is often a good strategy unless you are transitioning to something completely unrelated to healthcare.
Bonus tip – there are a lot of customizable privacy settings you can set as to what information is shown on your profile and who sees what. Click on your me icon, go to Account> Privacy Settings.
That’s all for now! Please feel free to reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn!
And if you’re ready to optimize your LinkedIn profile and make LinkedIn work for you then you’ll want to check out my new video course LinkedIn for Physicians.
This course teaches you how to find jobs in your area of interest as well as how to reach out to folks on LinkedIn who can open doors for you in your career quest. You can learn more about the course HERE.
Heather
Note: article originally posted HERE
Dr. Heather Fork is a retired dermatologist based out of Austin, TX and the Founder and Host of The Doctor's Crossing Podcast.