Tips to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Career Success

Is your LinkedIn profile serving you and your career well? I thought so. Neither was mine.

Think of LinkedIn profile maintenance like spring cleaning. No, not like it's something you want to avoid at all costs but like this: there is no right or wrong way to do it and just when you think you are done, you see a cobweb here or a dust ball there, and know there is more to do.

Wait, let me put my dust brush down.

What you do with your LinkedIn profile is a matter of opinion and of choice, and Miriam Salpeter gave me a lot to think about in her book, Social Networking for Career Success.

Miriam devotes chapters to social media networks and tools in a straight forward, easy to follow way. Social Networking for Career Success is a virtual roadmap to success and a book I know I'll keep handy as a resource for myself and others.

Knowing my LinkedIn profile has been in dire need of a spring cleaning, I scanned the chapters and jumped right to those on LinkedIn. Yes, you can do that - you can go from front to back or jump around. Use it as you need to.

Of the most value to me were the LinkedIn tips on looking at profiles from others in your industry for ideas for strong key words <yes, that was my popping into your profile> and not overlooking the headline, the summary section or specialties.

What does Miriam say about each tip?

"Use your headline to describe what you offer - your value proposition."

My headline was my current position. It's what I do but it's not all that I offer. So, instead of Human Resources Director, my headline now reads Human Resources - Leader - Writer - Trusted Advisor. 

The summary is one of "the most important sections of your profile. The most important factor to consider is how your summary appeals to your target audience."

My summary does not yet answer the 3 important questions Miriam poses, Who are you? Who do you want to help? How are you going to help them? but I now have something to work towards. 

The specialties section "is another fairly basic section; all you need to do is include relevant keywords."

My specialties section was sorely overlooked. I may have gone overboard adding 5 lines of specialties. Things I had not considered were including my maiden name and my full name "to ensure everyome who finds your profile has access to your name, even if they are not connected to you."

What else did I do? I clicked through each and every privacy control and setting option for my profile as well as email preferences and group settings.

So, how is my LinkedIn profile today? Serving me better today than it was yesterday and always a work in progress. Take a look, let me know what you think.

What tips do you have to share? 

Social Media Got You Down? It Had Me Too

I entered the summer with a commitment to savor. The pace of my days were such that something had to give. Not only was I using my time ineffectively, I was flat out social media crabby.

All of my activity began to feel like an obligation. It took a few lash-outs for me to really see that I wasn't enjoying what I was doing and I made it the fault of others <not a pretty side of me.>

Bottom line: I lost my spark.

So, short of shutting it all down with the press of a few strategically placed DELETE keys in a moment of regrettable reaction, I gave myself the permission give it up. I gave myself permission to step away from the blogs, let the cobwebs form on Tweetdeck, let that perfect speaking opportunity pass me by and permit Google+ to evolve without me.

Once I knew I could give it all up . . . I realized I didn't want to. 

I was so stuck on the mechanics of what I was doing <insert pictures, post, edit, comment, retweet, approve group members, prepare proposals, arrange speakers, update friends, neglect blogroll, update profiles, encircle people> that I had lost the why of it all. 

I am not completely selfless and without ego so I'd be lying if I said I don't like it when my posts are retweeted and my blog subscribers increase or I am asked to speak, sit on advisory boards, etc. or that I worried you would forget about me if I stepped away and technology would pass me by. 

But that wasn't the source of the spark.

The one thing - through it all - that holds meaning for me is bringing out potential in others. The spark for me is providing something that enables others to be that much better or reach that much further. Now, throw in the chance to work shoulder to shoulder with smart women I respect and admire.

There, now the sparks really begin to fly. Here's to clarity and focus and a little less crabbiness all around.

Photo credit iStockphoto

Guest Post: Gamifying Human Resources

While games were once solely played for pleasure, game and simulation applications are now used widely within companies as a tool for organizational development. 

Who would have thought you could increase utilization of a software application or compliance with a business policy simply by turning the process into a game?

Whether your goal as a human resources professional is to improve company morale, facilitate internal communications, or deliver professional training, gamification is a great way to spark one’s competitive edge and foster learning and development within an organization. 

Here's how you can “gamify” employee relations for greater organizational success.

Know What to Gamify

Achievement Levels

Sculpt your company’s culture with achievements that reflect your core values and mission. Achievements could be awarded simply based on tenure (one year anniversary) or could recognize individual contributions towards specific company goals (meeting sales goals).

Award/Redemption

Many perks and benefits employers offer today are one size fits all. But what if employees could redeem points they’ve earned by working at your company for the extra perks/compensation/benefits they want? Imagine a world in which you could redeem your badge/achievement points at work for extra vacation, premium healthcare, or something important to you.

Participation

HR professionals can see an increase in participation/compliance rates in their projects if they can turn it into a competition, especially if there is a public leader board that shows how everyone is doing. It might not bother a particular individual that they are tardy in complying with a human resources request, but no one wants to be responsible for losing the game for their team.

Know How To Gamify

Workplace Badges

Social badges are typically rewarded for small, yet significant accomplishments or milestones. They work because people can’t seem to resist collecting badges if there’s one to be earned. HR professionals can create badges to promote almost any type of behavior within an organization.

Imagine creating badges to promote attendance (perfect attendance badge), on boarding (certified in company culture badge), or even compliance with benefits enrollment deadlines (early enroller badge).

Quizzes

After a company-wide presentation or webinar, quiz your employee base on their retention of key points. To spark competition between colleagues, you could even post scores, and offer prizes for the individuals or departments who received the highest marks.

Foursquare

Consider utilizing already existing platforms such as Foursquare to create gaming among employees. Perfect for the natural-born competitor, this platform is ideal for attendance incentives, as employees are able to check-in and compete to become mayors of their respective organizations.

Why Gamify?

Ultimately, gamification works well in part due to a behavioral economics principle that human resources and organizational behavior professionals can use to their advantage. People make decisions based on either economic norms or social norms. Decisions made based on economic norms are based on logic, supply, and demand. Decisions made based on social norms involve relationships, emotions, and subjective feeling. Gamification helps take decisions out of the economic realm (i.e., “I’m here because of the paycheck”) and place them into the social realm (i.e., “I’m here because I believe in what we do”).

How else could you gamify human resources? Is there an employee task with a low compliance rate? Or could you use games to drive the mission, vision and guiding principles of your company?

About the Author: Josh Braaten is an Online Marketing Manager at Rasmussen College, where he blogs about educational degree programs such as Human Resources and Organizational Leadership and Business Management with a Specialization in Human Resources. Josh is passionate about search engine optimization and web analytics and blogs about Internet marketing in his free time.

This Blog Has Been A Major Distraction For Me

Yes, you read that right. This blog has been a major distraction for me.

Yet, the doors it has opened, the interests it has spawned, the friends I've met and the communities I've discovered are so worth the time, effort, blood, sweat, tears (!) 

Ha, it's not that bad but it most definitely is a commitment and one worth its weight in gold.

I was presenting a session on the benefits of blogging a few weeks ago and one participant asked, "how do you find the time?" My response, "I am a blogger. I make the time. It's that important to me."

There are HR pros, recruiters, career-advisors, coaches, leadership pros, writers and more breaking ground and making a difference every day from conferences, meetups and webinars to newsletters, radio shows, and more. For each one I linked to, there are many, many more out there.

This is not about me, it's about people knocking down doors and taking names. Here are some of the wonderful organizations and conferences  I've recently had, or will have, the honor of being part of in one way or another:    

   

   

  

 

 

Yup, this blog has been a major distraction for me . . . . and I wouldn't have it any other way.  

A Social Media Primer For HR

A hat tip to Chris Ferdinandi for sharing his find.

Chris has a buddy, Ben Eubanks from Upstart HR, who tipped him off to this awesome, free ebook on HR Marketing and Social Media.

Chris posted it on Renegade HR to share with his readers and that's where I found it.

Written by Kevin Grossman and the HR Marketer team, it’s a great primer for anyone looking to get more involved in social media as an HR pro. It's amazing.

Download HR Marketing: A Conversation Starter

Enjoy, learn and share!

My 9 Year Old is Digitally Distinct. Are You?

My daughter is nine years old. She owns her own domain, rocks her Google Rank and we track her online identity with Google Alerts.

She has a blog called Raising Tarah that she lets me share with her. Her page is the front page because she writes much more than I do. One of her posts inspired a highly respected leadership blogger Mary Jo Asmus to write Leadership Lessons From Children. 

She is working on her writing, "if you want your posts to be linked to, you have to write more details," sharing her space with guest authors, and is not afraid to share her feeling about others. She experiments with video, T-Rex Tango, and she shares her creative side via The Artist Within.

She knows that if one source says something she doesn't think is right she looks further. Just because something is in writing doesn't make it true and if you write something bad about someone you can hurt their feelings.

She is not online without our permission, she does not have a Facebook page or a Twitter account and is just beginning to e-mail. Her texting is limited to family members.

My daughter is interested and she is engaged.  Are you?

Cross posted on Raising Tarah