LinkedIn tips and Tricks 2017

LinkedIn has changed a lot since 2016, especially because at the time of releasing this article, they are rolling out the new desktop user interface, which in our opinion… let’s say not the best ever. So far it looks like LinkedIn is also changing and removing a ton of features on their website, trying to drive more people to the premium membership, by making the free experience more limited and useless for advanced users. At least at this moment most of the people think that’s the case, but we think they are just withholding some of the features since the user interface is new and they have a huge workload on their designer/developer/customer service because of the current features already. For example, the “saved searches” function was missing from the new LinkedIn user interface for free users, but they’ve just added back (still not visible for all members). Since LinkedIn’s 2017 user interface is still just blooming, if there will be further changes on LinkedIn, this article will be updated accordingly.

The basic things didn’t change on LinkedIn in 2017

You can have a profile for free that you should fill as much as possible with a nice profile picture of course because we humans like to have a face attached to a person that we might hire and/or do business with. According to this, we suggest reading our article from 2016 since it’s still useful now and covers all the basics.

The best things you can do for your LinkedIn profile in 2017

We have a feeling that LinkedIn will adjust the current user interface here and there. A lot of users are not satisfied with it, but that is just personal preference. There is no website on earth that suits everyone’s needs. But there are several bugs at the moment, malfunctioning features and design mistakes that should be fixed. That is why this article and it’s content applies to the current state of LinkedIn’s user interface.

1.) You should change your summary
On the new user interface not the whole summary is displayed, only a small piece of it. That is why you should concentrate on the first sentence to grab the attention of your visitor. Just like most movies that start with an explosion a shootout or something shocking/interesting to make the viewer stay to watch the whole movie. You should do the same with your summary. You can check how much is visible by default is you visit your profile in “view as” mode or in a separate Private browser window.

2.) You might need to change your profile picture and the background picture
The new profile picture is round. Check if you are still fully visible in it or not? Some people had their faces on the side of the old rectangle shaped profile picture and they got cut off on the new one. Make sure on your profile it’s not the case. The size of the background picture also changed, so if you had something nice there positioned perfectly, it’s very likely that now it looks a bit off. The new size is: 1536 x 768 (previously 1400 x 425)

3.) Move your most important 3 skills to the top
LinkedIn is displaying only the TOP3 skills by default on the new user interface. If your visitors are interested in your full skill list, they need to click the “show more” button. Don’t be fooled by this, LinkedIn endorsements are still very important, according to LinkedIn’s official statements: “people with at least five skills listed on their LinkedIn profile receive up to 17x more profile views.” and they are considered as a ranking factor in the search results. The more endorsements one has the higher he ranks when someone is searching for professionals with that skill.

4.) Revisit all sections of your profile
In general everything got shortened, the whole profile is more compact. A lot of information is hidden by default. Make sure to visit your own profile and check the experiences section, your education. Make the necessary changes to display as much data to your visitors in the minimized view as possible because they might not click the “show more” buttons and some of your crucial information will be hidden treasure for them… never found.

5.) Re-add missing contact information
Some sections of your old profile is (or will be) gone on the new user interface, such as interests and advice for contacting. It’s a well debated topic that should you put your contact information to your name/headline field or not… well, it’s on you. Just make sure that your visitors can find your contact details easily, because if they need to struggle contacting you, they just won’t.

6.) Final words
You can’t move the sections of your profile around anymore, the order is fixed. Also all of the attached rich media are gone, no more images and videos attached to your work experiences. For some industries it’s a pity since it was a great way to showcase previous works of creative professionals such as designers. Now you can write about how good graphics design do you do, or if you really want, you can use some fancy ASCII art.