Revealed – the Do’s and Don’ts of a LinkedIn Profile

By The Press Association23rd March 2015Career AdviceCareer Advice, CPD, Social Media

Ever wondered what prospective employers value when looking at a LinkedIn profile? According to new research it’s not a person’s number of connections, recommendations or their clever contributions to groups, but the description which really matters.

The independent study was conducted among 100 HR heads of some of the UK’s leading employers on behalf of Norrie Johnston Recruitment. The report on the findings entitled, An Executive Recruitment Game Changer?, lifts the lid on the role of LinkedIn in the recruitment process.

When asked to score the various elements that make up a candidate’s LinkedIn profile, the description comes top, followed by skills and expertise endorsements, which in turn are more important than recommendations.

The number of connections – something many pride themselves on – is barely valued; scoring just 3.5 out of 10. Updates are also not important.

HR heads are more likely to judge a candidate based on the groups they join rather than their photograph. However, those spending a lot of time contributing to groups be warned, the things you say in groups don’t appear to matter as Norrie Johnston, who heads up the executive search and interim management agency behind the research explains:

“Almost without exception, contributions to groups come last in the list for the HR heads we studied. So before contributing to groups, executives, who are likely to apply for roles, should first ensure their LinkedIn description is top notch and truly reflects their experience and skills.”

While HR heads place limited value on many of the elements that make up a profile and few (8%) believe all that they see, the research suggests having a LinkedIn presence – especially a good description – is valuable. 38% of recruiters more often than not look on LinkedIn at senior candidates who have applied for jobs. This rises to 64% among the biggest employers employing over 5,000 people.

The research highlights some interesting sector variations; HR heads of public sector organisations are least likely to find LinkedIn useful for assessing the backgrounds of candidates, giving it a usefulness score of 2.6 out of 10. They also place the lowest value on each element that makes up a profile.

In the leisure and catering sectors the photo is deemed by recruiters to be the second most important element of a profile, scoring 7 out of 10 for importance, compared to the average of 3.7.

In logistics and retail businesses, skills and expertise endorsements outperform the description and are the most important consideration (scoring 8.2 out of 10).

LinkedIn Profile – What Matters?