Your LinkedIn Profile’s Summary Section … It’s what I like to call your elevator pitch. It’s the high level overview of your personal brand, the space where you convince the reader you’ve got what it takes.
Every LinkedIn profile needs to have a compelling summary section.
So why do so many people leave it empty?
Your elevator pitch
If you were going to say you don’t know what you want to put in it, think of it this way – you’re on your way to a meeting, and you step into the elevator. You happen to have the great fortune of sharing this elevator ride with a very influential business person.
What is it that you’d like to say?
Oh – and while you’re traveling to the 18th floor, they’re only going to the 8th, so you don’t have much time to do it in;-)
Your platform
What is it about what you do, what you stand for, and how you go about your business that makes you special?
You can write something generic about how you bring out the excellence in people or how you develop great things – or you can get specific and describe how unique you are and give someone a reason to get in touch with you.
I’m sure both approaches will have comparable success rates…
Half don’t have a summary!
I’ve been looking at the profiles of my connections recently and started noticing that many hadn’t written a summary! This got me wondering just how many of them didn’t have one?
While it’s a non-scientific survey, I had a look – I started with my very last contact and looked at the last ten profiles of my connections – of those last 10 connections, 5 had not created a summary – half of them!
So here’s the call to action…
Create one today!
And it isn’t just the people that I’m connected with, it’s the average LinkedIn user – the account that has 20 connections and a page worth of details in their profile.
So here you go – if you’re reading this, have a look at your LinkedIn profile and read your summary. Don’t have one? Create one today.
Hard to compete when you don’t get in the game
I’m not sure how your first attempt at a summary will work out, but it’s hard to imagine it being worse than no summary…
Why don’t you have one already?
steve
I’ve noticed what you mean, even among my connections.
It seems that a number of individuals think that their jobs should speak for them; however, if they can’t articulate why they should rise above the rest, I find it difficult to accept that they are the cream of their particular crop.