Using LinkedIn to progress your career

LinkedIn is a great tool for progressing and boosting your career. It allows you to share your knowledge and your expertise. It makes it easy for you to build your network and enables you to find new jobs and new clients.  Let’s look at the best ways of using LinkedIn to progress your career.

Updating Your LinkedIn Profile

Photo

A photo on your LinkedIn Profile is a must! Remember LinkedIn is a Social Networking Platform, so keep this in mind when you are updating your profile.

Do’s

Don’ts

Headline

You’ve got just 120 characters to make an impact, so keep it short and to the point.  Remember that the role of a headline is to get people to read “the article”, so make sure it grabs their attention.  Your job title simply will not do. Think about how you help your clients and use something from that.

Summary

This is the section clients and recruiters will be scanning before approaching you. Keep it engaging, conversations and informative. What you write in your summary will help you rank in search results, so use important keywords but don’t over fill it with buzzwords or jargon!

If you’ve achieved a Paralegal Qualification from the National Paralegal College, this is the perfect opportunity to showcase your skills and what you’ve studied.

Experience

Write in the 1st person! This is all about you and so should be “I help my clients by….”

Remember your LinkedIn Profile isn’t your CV, so don’t over complicate your profile. Include a summary of your role and bullet points for your experience.

This is another great place to include you are a Member of NALP, adding your membership category as ‘Experience’ and linking it to our Company Page. This demonstrates your expertise and gives confidence to your employer or client.

NALP on Linkedin

We have an active company page on Linkedin, we share all the press we’ve been receiving including articles, interviews and legal guides. You may also like to join our Group on LinkedIn. Make use of it to take part in discussions and even start your own.

Find new connections

Expanding your network is easy on LinkedIn. You have so many options for this:

  1. Look at the connections of those you are already connected to. Would you like to have them in your network too?
  2. Use the keyword search tools to find people in your area, your speciality or even your firm (if it is a big firm).
  3. Invite people to connect who post content you like.  It makes a great starting point for a conversation.

Remember that connecting with someone is just the start.  You need to find out more about them, understand what their interests are and what they are looking for professionally. This conversation (face to face or over Zoom/Teams) also gives you the opportunity to educate them on what you are all about.  After all, the more you know about each other, the better the introductions you will be able to make.

Remember to keep in touch regularly. If they forget about you, or you about them, how can great introductions and referrals be made?

This is just a starting selection of ways of Using LinkedIn to progress your career. We will be writing more very soon.