Using keywords in your LinkedIn profile is one tactic that you should use to help your profile turn up in in a search by recruiters and hiring managers.
Q: Where can I find keywords to use in my profile?
A: Keywords for any job can be found in the job description. Look for them inside Duties and Responsibilities. Sometimes they are found in the Job Summary section as well as Requirements.
Q: How do I use keywords in my Profile?
A: There are more than seven areas in a profile where you can add keywords to your profile. The SEO tactic is called Keyword Density. This is different than keyword Stuffing or Packing as that would be consider a ”black hat” SEO tactic and is frowned upon by search engines. Whether the search function inside LinkedIn uses similar algorithms to those found in a Google Search, I am not sure. Still it is best not to look like you are blatantly adding keywords in a profile. Rather it should look natural and implemented semantically as found in normal speech. I always encourage LinkedIn users to “speak” in the first person narrative when adding content to a profile.
Example of a LinkedIn Search Result
The areas where you can add keywords:
- Professional headline (This is a very important area as this is the only keyword rich location recruiters can see in search results.)
- Summary
- Skills
- Experience (the descriptions found inside the experience as well as the position name)
- Interests
- Education (again the descriptions where you can add free flow text)
- Advice for Contacting <first name>
- Updates
- Recommendations made by others (When someone provides you with a recommendation, you do have an opportunity to do some editing)
- Photo File Name, use your name separated by an underscore, then separatre your job title and name by a hyphen and use underscores to separate any multi-word job titles
Let me know if you have any additional questions regarding keyword use in the comments below.