LinkedIn Profile: Career Development and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of LinkedIn profiles, detailing their advantages, common mistakes, and strategies for effective career development. It explores the benefits of using LinkedIn, such as networking, job alerts, and company research, while also identifying common pitfalls like incomplete information and unprofessional profile statements. The report further examines key employability skills like communication and leadership, and provides a plan of action for skill development. It also outlines personal career choices and strategies to achieve them, including the goal of becoming a financial analyst, with a focus on gaining relevant work experience and pursuing professional certifications. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of a professional LinkedIn profile for career advancement and provides valuable advice for leveraging the platform effectively. The report includes references to relevant academic sources and online resources.

LinkedIn profile

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART A ..........................................................................................................................................1
1. Advantages of using LinkedIn................................................................................................1
2. Common mistakes made by people while making a LinkedIn profile....................................1
3. Advice or recommendation to leverage LinkedIn accountabilit.............................................2
PART B ...........................................................................................................................................2
1. Be able to identify personal examples of key employability skills, evaluate where personal
skills require development and create a plan of action to show how skills will be developed....2
The major key employability skills that can provide an edge over other candidates include.........2
2. Be able to identify personal career and life choices, go on to develop a strategy to achieve
these, begin to apply them and appraise their efficacy................................................................3
3. Be able to reflect on personal career and life choices..............................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
LinkedIn is an American business employment oriented services which is operated by
mobile applications (Chiang and Suen, 2015). It allows people to create a profile, upload resume
and create connection with other people online in order to get a job. Present report will contain
advantages of using LinkedIn in the career, different mistakes made by people while developing
their profile and advise to leverage LinkedIn account. Further report will also contain the
practical application of preparing LinkedIn profile.
PART A
1. Advantages of using LinkedIn
LinkedIn is very beneficial for me in my current stage of career development. The
advantages are as follows:
 Get connected: Like different social platforms LinkedIn has also helped me in building
networks and connect with different people. It has benefited me by connecting with
professionals, business which have given me chance to present my resume and apply for
job. Specially at my current career stage I need to be connected with people to get future
opportunities (Van and et.al., 2017).
 Job alerts: Once I have created my profile on LinkedIn, I have started receiving e-mails
and notification of recommended jobs. It has saved my time and cost, I am able to see
notifications on the homepage as soon as I log in my account (Four Advantages of Using
LinkedIn, 2019).
 Company research: It is one of the major benefit that I gain by using LinkedIn is that I
am able to to do research about the company like visiting company page I am able to see
the hiring process of company, reading reviews I can determine the people and
environment of the company. It is beneficial for me in my career as it keeps me ahead of
the competition and increase employability (Tifferet and Vilnai-Yavetz, 2018).
2. Common mistakes made by people while making a LinkedIn profile
It is important for an individual's career to create an attractive and detailed LinkedIn
profile so that it leaves a good impact on the companies. Some people do common mistakes in
making their LinkedIn profile such as:
 Adding “Looking for new opportunities” instead of your name: If a person is looking
for the job using LinkedIn is very good but using these statements instead of their actual
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name is not the right choice. It is better to use only name to build network and relation,
using these statement will not create a good impression (Utz and Breuer, 2019).
 Incomplete information: Some people make a mistake and do not mention full
information of their current job and company. It is important to enter full name, title
carefully in order to make networks and get invite. It is necessary to act as a professional
so that people add them on their profile.
 Include website in the name: Sometime people ass website instead of their name and
hope that any time they comment people will see the website click and drive more traffic
on their site. It is annoying and achieves opposite result (Chiang and Suen, 2015).
3. Advice or recommendation to leverage LinkedIn accountability
There are following advice which every person need to follow:
 People need to post interesting articles which are industry targeted, it help them in
gaining future opportunities.
 An individual need to create a visible and professional profile so that companies are
attracted and provide job opportunities.
 People need to post regularly and stay active on the profile so that they are aware of the
new job vacancy which is beneficial for their career development.
 Joining relevant groups helps in recommending your profile to other companies and thus
increasing network (Van and et.al., 2017).
RATIONALE
1. Be able to identify personal examples of key employability skills, evaluate where personal
skills require development and create a plan of action to show how skills will be
developed.
The major key employability skills that can provide an edge over other candidates include
 Communication skills: Communication skills are extremely important in today’s
dynamic environment and not only I speak well but also I am a very good listener which
is very important as it leads to following clear instructions and minimizing the errors.
 Leadership: I believe I have what it takes to be a leader because I can provide guidance,
supervision and motivation to the team members which can further help in achievement
of organizational goals and objectives.
Personal skills require development and improvement
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 Problem solving: I need to improve my problem-solving skills even further as it would
help in my overall growth and development and also prepare me to face the challenges in
a business.
 Planning and organizing: Planning and organizing skills needs to be improved to avoid
confusion and conflicts in the company. It will also help in time management and save
future cost.
 Plan of action: I will read more books and try to solve more real life problems that I face
in my day to day life.
Also, I would plan and organize events, corporate meetings to improve my overall skills.
I will also use tools like work breakdown structure, Gantt chart and critical path.
2. Be able to identify personal career and life choices, go on to develop a strategy to achieve
these, begin to apply them and appraise their efficacy.
The personal choice of mine is to be a financial Analyst and I got the inspiration of it
from various entrepreneurs and business men who are Certified Financial Analyst. The strategies
to achieve the goal are getting work experience in one of the big four accounting firm and then
clear the CFA exam. After clearing the exam working in the top corporate companies in order to
gain their approach towards large data of finance.
3. Be able to reflect on personal career and life choices.
I have always been good with numbers and my interest in finance and accounting grew
from a very young age. Also, I wish to be a successful entrepreneur because I want to change the
world by creating something that can help the mankind. Currently, I am studying hard to fulfill
my dreams and LinkedIn profile is a good opportunity to make connections and networks.
PART B
URL: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/?trk=guest_homepage-basic_sign-in-submit
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that creating a professional profile on LinkedIn
helps an individual in developing their career. There are various benefits that an individual gains
by creating profile on LinkedIn such as get connected with people, company research and job
alerts. It is also concluded that there are various mistakes made by people which leave a bad
impact on the companies who are interested.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Chiang, J. K. H. and Suen, H. Y., 2015. Self-presentation and hiring recommendations in online
communities: Lessons from LinkedIn. Computers in Human Behavior. 48. pp.516-524.
Van and et.al., 2017. Personality perception based on LinkedIn profiles.Journal of Managerial
Psychology. 32(6). pp.418-429.
Tifferet, S. and Vilnai-Yavetz, I., 2018. Self-presentation in LinkedIn portraits: common
features, gender, and occupational differences. Computers in Human Behavior. 80. pp.33-48.
Utz, S. and Breuer, J., 2019. The Relationship Between Networking, LinkedIn Use, and
Retrieving Informational Benefits. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 22(3)
pp.180-185.
Online
Four Advantages of Using LinkedIn. 2019. [Online]. Available through: <
https://www.walsworth.com/blog/four-advantages-using-linkedin>.
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