Lately we have been getting questions regarding LinkedIn. More specifically, what makes a great LinkedIn Profile? For those who aren’t familiar with LinkedIn, all I can say is get it! It is a social media medium where young and old professionals keep in contact, find new opportunities, or even create some!

Let’s say you’ve signed up, there is a progress bar which indicates profile completeness reads 0%. Where do you start? First thing you should do is to upload your resume which should fill in the important information such as education and experiences.

Once the information is accurate and verified, what differs between a good and great profile? It is all in the details.

Clear Headline and Summary
Your headline will be one of the first thing potential recruiters and/or employers see. Keep it short and snappy, it should reflect how you would like to be seen and where you want to go. Ideal headlines would be something along the lines of “Project Management Consultant”, “Marketing Professional”, or “HTML5 Expert”.

Resume
Your resume and LinkedIn should match eye for an eye. Whatever is on that piece of paper should be on your LinkedIn profile as well. This should be relatively easy as the information is filled automatically when you upload your resume. Check for discrepancies’, if any, fix it.

Recommendation
Recommendation from peers is a great way for potential employers/recruiters to see you are doing your job well. One warning though, too much of a good thing can indeed be bad for you. If you have 100 recommendations saying “X did his job well and is pleasant to be around” recruiters will be worried about how you spend your time. One strong recommendation will beat out 20 mediocre ones.

Relevant info
So you are freshly graduated and eager for your first job. LinkedIn is not the place for everyone to learn about your university stints unless you were interning. Leave your perfect pouring skills with the boys.

Network
Like Facebook, the numbers of friends you have determine the size of your network. You shouldn’t worry too much about this if you have just signed up. It is easy to search for people you know on LinkedIn and you should have a small starting base. After working for a couple of years though, if your network doesn’t grow red flags would be raised.