Make a Better LinkedIn Profile Headline

Before we start, I should remind you that we live in a society where we can give starts to rate people’s work. Now picture this, what if we can rate people instead. For example, you meet someone new and you have to judge him with the given rating. Immediately seeing the rating, it affects your mind. It tells your mind how that person should be treated (the same goes for you by the way). The higher the rating, the better a person is treated. The lower the rating is, the worse life gets for them. They lose their opportunities and are treated badly. If this sounds something out of a Si-Fi tv show…. well it is! This is the premise of a ‘Black Mirror’ episode.

It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.
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But think about it! Isn’t the world we live in today already close to this fiction? Don’t we judge people based on what we read on their Facebook bio? We may not be explicitly rating people but we are making perceptions to them by looking at what we see on their social media. The same thing happens in our professional life too.

Nowadays recruiters not only check your CV but also you’re LinkedIn profile. They don’t have the time to go through on each and every candidate ’s entire profile. So, the only opportunity you have to grab their attention is by your profile LinkedIn profile headline. Just like the fictional scenario, your LinkedIn headline is the baseline recruiters will go through to rate you. If they are not impressed by your headline, they won’t bother looking at your whole profile.

So, to have that competitive edge over others, you should remember the following things when you make your LinkedIn Headline.

These 5 ways you can use to make your LinkedIn headline looks better-

1. Don’t be Generic

The worst sin you can commit while writing you headline is being generic. Just stating “Content writer” isn’t very eye-catching. Is it? Why not include your specialty if you have one. Like if you review the latest technology, why not write “Tech content writer”. Now that’s more interesting.

2. State your desired Job

One great way to get noticed on LinkedIn is to write the role you want in the future. If you write “ Future Advertising Guru” on your headline two things will happen. 1) Your profile will show up when recruiters search for someone to fill an advertising position; 2) They will see your personality and the passion you have towards your goals.

3. State your current job uniquely

Everybody and I do EVERYBODY writes their current position in the most boring and bland way possible. If you wanna stand out from the crowd then why not write the results of what you’re doing. “ Human Resource Manager”? That’s boring! “ If you write, “ Making the workplace great as a Human Resource Manager since 2011” that will surely turn a few heads.

4. Be a Show-Off

Your LinkedIn headline is probably the only place in this world where being a show off will actually benefit you, instead of you know….making you look like a douche. If you have any sort of work published in any media, mention it! If you were part of a project that got any recognition, mention it! Stating your achievements upfront will only increase your visibility.

5. Show some Personality:

Finally, show that you are a person with interests and hobbies and not just some workaholic robot. Include a brief portion about what you are passionate about outside work, how you spend your time when you’re not working. These things may not add to your work accolades but they do help recruiters to get a better understanding of you. You will seem likable and different from all the other candidates out there.

Even though we don’t live in the crazy world of rating people, we do that everyday judging social media activity of a person. Now, whether that’s good or bad is a whole another debate. For now, making the best use of this existing system is what we should focus on. So, follow these 5 steps to improve your LinkedIn profile headline and make sure you never get overlooked again.

Contributor: Touseef Salam | Studying at Mawlana Bhashani Science & Technology University, Bangladesh.