LinkedIn CV: Using LinkedIn for Job Applications

The purpose of LinkedIn in your CV

Research indicates employers are increasingly likely to check your LinkedIn, or other websites and social platforms, as part of their decision-making process. As such, it’s important to make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete, up-to-date and reveals insights into your career and skills that increase your employability.

LinkedIn is, in fact, a convenient way of keeping your career progress and achievements up-to-date. Its accessibility make it a valuable job application tool, while the content you add to the platform, including profile posts, can enhance your credibility and standing in your industry.

LinkedIn is also an ideal way to increase your network visibility. Having access to LinkedIn’s vast professional network immediately gives you opportunities to connect with valuable industry contacts and recruiters, so creating an impactful LinkedIn profile to supplement your CV can reap dividends. Candidates are sometimes hired primarily on the basis of their LinkedIn profile, so it’s important not to underestimate the power of a strong LinkedIn profile. However, even if an employer doesn’t rely directly on your LinkedIn profile for hiring decisions, a strong profile is still an excellent companion to a CV and cover letter.

Step-by-Step: How to enhance your LinkedIn CV

To make a strong impression with your LinkedIn profile, you’ll need to make sure you keep it up-to-date and complete all the standard sections. There are also some additional sections you can include that might help to showcase certain achievements or skills on your CV, while regular posts to your profile discussing industry insights and trends, can help to show your knowledge and expertise.

Follow these steps to complete a compelling LinkedIn profile that stands out from other candidates:

Craft a strong headline and summary

Your profile intro contains the most essential details about your job, your industry and your key skills. You can also add a headline that neatly summarises what you offer to prospective employees. Additionally, consider including a summary in the ‘About’ section. This performs a similar role to a CV summary. In this section, detail some of your key skills and achievements to catch the attention of the reader and encourage them to review your profile in more detail.

To update your headline, navigate to your profile and click the edit icon in the top-right corner of your header. Write a concise headline that outlines your job title, together with one of your greatest qualities or skills, that could help you stand out from the competition. For example:

Detail your work experience and achievements

The experience section of your LinkedIn profile is the place to detail your employment history, in the same way you would in your CV work experience section. Include your job title, the name of your employer and the dates you worked there, and in the ‘Description’ section, add bullet points detailing your achievements in the role.

Your CV typically only includes relevant employments, or your jobs from the last 10 to 15 years. However, you may wish to leave your LinkedIn experience section as a complete work history, so employers can find more detail about your career timeline.

Add skills and endorsements

In the skills section, you can add skills from a pre-defined look-up list. Search for both hard and soft skills, and add these to your profile. You can also highlight which job from your work history you’ve used these skills in. Once you’ve populated your skills list, your connections can endorse them. This acts as a confirmation that you have the skill, and you’ve used it in previous employment, and can be a powerful way of proving to employers that you’ve got the necessary skills and know how to apply them.

Education and certifications

You can add your core educational achievements and qualifications in the ‘Education’ section. As with your CV, list the name of the award, the name of the institution and your dates of study. You can also include your grade and a description of your course, as well as listing skills you used and attaching media from your studies, such as certificates or other documents.

Certifications can be added in a separate section, titled ‘Licenses and Certifications’. In this, you can add similar information to your core education, as well as a credential ID and URL. You can also add media or assign skills that you used or developed as part of the course.

Volunteering, extracurricular activities and other sections

If you’re a recent graduate or entry-level candidate, you may wish to add volunteer experience or other extracurricular activities to help your relevant skills shine through. You can also include information about publications, languages, causes you support, projects, honours and awards and various other optional details. Before adding these, first consider whether any of these will enhance your employability and showcase relevant skills that might help you stand out from other candidates.

How to download your LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn offers an option to auto-generate a CV based on your profile. To do this, simply head to your profile, click ‘Resources’ and select ‘Save to PDF’. Your profile will automatically be converted into a CV-style document.

However, LinkedIn’s PDF export provides a very basic CV design, and should probably only be used as a last resort. There are plenty of far more powerful CV creator apps that can do this job better than LinkedIn. Jobseeker offers the opportunity to import your LinkedIn directly into its CV maker tool. This automatically populates your chosen CV template with the content of your profile. In fact, Jobseeker’s professional CV examples can help you to create a more visually appealing CV than LinkedIn’s CV generator can offer.

How to upload your CV on LinkedIn

If you would like to upload your externally created CV to your LinkedIn profile, this is also possible. This can be an effective way of enhancing your profile, or providing readers of your profile with a document they can download and print. If you’ve used a tool like Jobseeker to create a professional-looking, optimised CV, adding it to your LinkedIn is an effective way of ensuring it gets seen.

Uploading documents happens via the ‘Featured’ section in your LinkedIn profile. Click ‘Add profile section’, and then ‘Add featured’ under the ‘Recommended’ drop-down. Click on the plus symbol and select ‘add media’. From here, you can upload your CV as a PDF, or any other document type (though PDF is the most recommended format). If you want to treat your LinkedIn profile as a portfolio, showcasing your work, you can also upload work examples or provide URLs to link to other sites where your work is featured.

"To make a strong impression with your LinkedIn profile, you’ll need to make sure you keep it up-to-date and complete all the standard sections."

Optimising LinkedIn for UK recruiters

There are certain steps you can take to enhance and optimise your LinkedIn profile for UK employers and recruiters. Follow these tips to make sure your profile is best equipped to appeal to hiring managers and decision makers in the UK:

• Use British English: If you’re looking for job opportunities in the UK, make sure your LinkedIn profile is written using British English.
• Strike the right tone: Create your LinkedIn profile using the same approach as you would to write a CV. This means adopting a formal, professional tone, using concise language and being aware not to use too much industry-specific jargon. You may also wish to adapt your tone and style of writing according to your industry.
• Be GDPR compliant: Avoid adding too much personal information or contact details that could fall foul of GDPR regulations, or be in contravention of the UK Equality Act 2010.

LinkedIn CV mistakes to avoid

When crafting your LinkedIn profile, avoid these common mistakes to ensure you leave the best possible impression on the reader:

• Copying your CV word-for-word: Simply copying sections from you CV into your LInkedIn profile word-for-word will do very little to enhance your job prospects. Employers often check your LinkedIn alongside reviewing your CV so it’s important that each says something different about your credentials.
• Skipping recommended sections and features: LinkedIn analyses vast amounts of data to assess the most effective profile sections, so it’s usually a good idea to follow their recommendations and add the content and sections suggested.
• Leaving profile incomplete: Leaving your LinkedIn profile incomplete will do little to improve your chances of success, and may even undermine your prospects. Make sure you complete all the basic sections of your profile, so employers can see you’ve made the effort.
• Failing to update your profile: An out-of-date profile could contradict your CV, and indicates a carelessness that will most likely harm your chances of job application success.

When should you NOT use a LinkedIn CV?

While LinkedIn is a highly valuable tool in most job search situations, it might not always be the most effective tool. Here are some situations where an automatically generated LinkedIn CV might be unsuitable:

• Custom applications: If your application requires a high degree of customisation or industry-specific detail, your LinkedIn profile might not be tailored enough to succeed.
• Creative industries: Creative industries tend to be more open to creative CVs that deviate from the traditional format and content. In this case, a LinkedIn CV may be too traditional.
• CVs requiring design-heavy layouts: LinkedIn’s automatically generated CV is fairly sparse in its design. If you want to showcase your design skills or match your CV to your cover letter template, a different approach may be required.

LinkedIn CV vs Traditional CV

If you’re trying to decide whether to use a traditional CV or a LinkedIn CV, take a look at this comparison table for some pointers:

Key Takeaways for your LinkedIn CV

LinkedIn is a powerful networking and job search tool, and as such, it’s critical to keep your profile up-to-date and showcasing your very best skills and achievements. However, LinkedIn hasn’t replaced the traditional CV, and you’ll find most employers still expect you to submit a professional CV as the main element of your applications. As such, it’s critical to take care when crafting your CV, including using an eye-catching CV design like those offered by Jobseeker’s CV maker. Sign up today to access tools, templates and CV and cover letter articles, to help you create a winning application.