Market Your Brand Top 10 LinkedIn Add-Ons - Work It Daily

Market Your Brand Top 10 LinkedIn Add-Ons - Work It Daily Would you like to enhance the quality of your LinkedIn profile in a way that encourages recruiters and hiring managers to read yours more thoroughly? If so, consider supplementing your profile with one or more strategic LinkedIn add-ons. Top 10 LinkedIn Add-Ons For Your Brand Many job seekers are unaware that they can attach documents and media to a LinkedIn profile. Yet doing so turns your profile into a makeshift online portfolio and gives you greater flexibility in promoting your career brand to recruiters, hiring managers, and influential contacts. What do I mean by profile add-ons? Through the one-click installation of a few applications, or software snippits, to your profile, you can “attach” documents, spreadsheets, videos, audios, and slideshows to your LinkedIn URL. To tempt you with some rich possibilities, here are my current Top 10 favorite LinkedIn add-ons: 1. A Personal Marketing Brief A marketing brief is a one-page document that succinctly and strategically showcases your career brand, job search goals, work history, and achievement track record. Recruiters love them and often use this document’s content to create their own briefs on your background when they choose to share your candidacy with their client companies. 2. Your Executive Bio Bios are more formal documents than marketing briefs, and are also more narrative in style. For executives, this is a must-have tool that serves many different networking purposes. Attach one to your profile to help recruiters and hiring managers get to know your background before they see your resume. 3. Your Resume If you’re presently employed, this option isn’t a great idea. But if you’re a free agent, then consider attaching your resume to your profile. You won’t be able to tailor it toward specific opportunities, of course, but if you attach more than one version, you can help recruiters in different industries understand why you’re a candidate they cannot ignore. 4. A Leadership Brief Appropriate for experienced leaders, this brief outlines detail-rich examples of your leadership experience. This is a one or two-page document that contains less branding and fewer work experience details. Instead, this brief dives deep into your leadership CAR (Challenge-Action-Results) stories. 5. A Case Study (Or 2 Or 3) Similar to a leadership brief, this document provides in-depth detail on your best CAR stories. Unlike the leadership brief, a single case study may take up a whole page. Or, you may have two to three shorter case studies on a single page. Case studies can cover a wide array of achievements, but must be positive with impactful results. 6. Video Interview Filming a short video of yourself can be a great add-on if you wish to showcase your energy and personality. Keep it short â€" less than five minutes â€" and practice, practice, practice to make it perfect. Share your well-thought-out reply to the infamous “tell me about yourself” question, or present a brief overview of your candidacy. 7. A Slideshow Using a fun tool such as SlideRocket, enrich a PowerPoint presentation with animation or interactivity. Whether you detail your greatest strengths, achievements, or the Top 10 reasons why the reader should hire you, you’ll be engaging them in a dialogue about your candidacy. 8. Your Audio Personal Commercial Perhaps video doesn’t work for you or your situation. Or maybe you’re concerned about potential discrimination? Audio might be a good option for you. You can use an audio add-on in much the same ways as you would a video or slideshow â€" just make sure you keep it short and well-paced. 9. Your Achievement Brief As with the Leadership Brief and a Case Study, an Achievement Brief is an in-depth look at a part of your background. This one to two-page document delves into some of your strongest achievements spanning multiple roles. This document is great in situations where you wish to be considered for different types or levels of positions or multiple industries. 10. Your Networking Resume While a traditional resume is usually two pages these days, there is a place for what some industry professionals call a networking or power resume â€" a one-page version of your resume that ruthlessly hones in on key details. It usually retains all the same sections of your resume, but with much less (though always strategic) information. To explore the applications available to add to LinkedIn, login to your profile and select “More” from the navigation bar at the top. Click on “Get Applications” to check out options such as Box.net, Creative Portfolio Display, and Slideshare. To install an app, click on its image or link, then click on “Add Application” in the lower right-hand corner. Most apps require minimal set-up before you can upload files. Note that you must select “display on my profile” for your uploaded files to be publicly attached. The critical thing to note here is that I’m not suggesting that you add content to your profile for the sake of adding content. Rather, I’m suggesting you develop strategically branded career communications tools to highlight your unique strengths, experience, and achievements to recruiters and hiring managers. Have fun turning your LinkedIn profile into an information powerhouse on your candidacy! Photo Credit: Shutterstock Have you joined our career growth club?Join Us Today!