Congratulations! You’ve been promoted or have landed a new job! You’ll want to reflect this change on your LinkedIn profile as soon as possible. This is a ripe opportunity for you to review and enhance your story, especially your Headline, About, and Experience sections.
Remember that updating your LinkedIn profile is beneficial for both you and your employer. It doesn’t necessarily signify that you’re looking for a new job; rather, it shows your growth trajectory within the organization, as well as promotes company innovation and a positive culture. Updating your profile can also make you more visible, especially if you are qualified for corporate board roles.
Here are a 8 profile areas to refresh when you’ve been promoted:
Header
Update your title description with wording that best describes your new position.
Company Names
Make sure you have the correct spelling and format for all company names, including letters in upper case and lower case, registration marks, etc.
Headshot
If you are getting a new headshot (many companies do this upon joining the team) try to pose so that your eyes are “looking” toward your profile.
Common Names
If you have a common name, such as Jane Smith, then personalize your URL with a word such as a middle initial or a word such as “innovator” or a middle initial which identifies you from others with the same name.
About
Revisit your About summary and ask yourself, “What needs to be added to properly communicate some of the high points about my new role?”
Experience
If you’ve moved up within a single organization, make sure that your positions line up and are under one company. For one of my clients, we had to make some adjustments to streamline the information as she had taken on board roles in between roles at the same company. Sometimes removing the months from the dates alleviates this issue. In lieu of hyphens, consider using this special arrow character ➣ as It is more upscale and impactful than a hyphen (-)
Skills
Update the Skills section throughout your LinkedIn profile, including the new areas you’ll be focused on. The higher up you move, the more your interpersonal skills count, so don’t forget to include explaining how you manage and interact with others
Privacy Settings
Not everyone wants their network to know they were promoted or got a new job. Fortunately, there’s a way to turn your privacy settings on or off. Here’s how: On your profile page, go to ME, located under your profile photo in the upper right corner. Then, go to Settings and Privacy, then to Visibility. Scroll down to see Visibility of Your LinkedIn activity, then Share Profile Updates With Your Network. There you can manage what your network can or can not see. If you move the toggle to the “Off” position, your network will not be notified of any profile updates.
Note that if you make any changes or edits to your public profile, it can take several weeks or months for search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing to detect changes and refresh. LinkedIn doesn’t control that refresh process. If you’re incorrectly appearing in search results on those sites, you can contact them directly to resolve incorrect search results.
