With all the advantages offered by LinkedIn, only a small proportion of users gain any benefit from being on LinkedIn, with the majority of people using LinkedIn having poor results.

The reality is that unless you have an effective LinkedIn profile, people won’t be knocking on your door, excited to meet you (In fact they probably wont even be able to find you on Linked).

To have a LinkedIn profile that works, you must have the following:

A profile that is 100% complete

If your profile is not complete in LinkedIn, then you are significantly less likely to generate interest for your profile. It is worth the time to get a 100% complete profile, as it will help improve your results. LinkedIn states that your profile will be 40 times more likely to be viewed, if it is 100% complete.

To have a 100% profile, you need to be an All-Star (this status will appear on your profile home page).

In order to get a 100% profile, make sure you complete all the following items:

• An up-to-date current position, with description
• Two past positions
• Education
• Your skills (minimum of 3)
• Your industry and location
• A profile photo
• And have at least 50 connections

You need to get connected

In order for LinkedIn to work you need connections. In fact if you have less than 50 connections LinkedIn will not consider your profile complete.

Depending on how actively you will be using LinkedIn, we suggest that you connect with as many people as you know. That way your updates will go to an increased audience and your name will come up more frequently in searches (you need to be connected on at least a 2nd degree level to be found by people conducting a search).

You will also find that if you have built a large LinkedIn network of relevant professional contacts, you will be able to use these connections to touch base with them to inform them that you are in the process of searching for a new opportunity.

If you have a small number of connections, finding jobs through your LinkedIn profile becomes harder. Plus if you already have a LinkedIn profile you have discovered that it takes time to build a relevant network. So whether LinkedIn can help you on this occasion or not, still continually build on your professional networks. That way when you need the network in the future, you have built a solid professional network that is capable of connecting you with your dream job

You need recommendations

It is essential that you get recommendations from colleagues, clients, supervisors or even staff. By having recommendations, you have social proof of your ability to deliver the good and will gain trust of potential employers, client and everyone else you want to impress on LinkedIn.

The way to get recommendations is to simply ask those connections, if they could write a recommendation.

You can either send them a personal email, or section ‘Recommendations’ from the Profile dropdown menu. If you use the LinkedIn recommendation tool, DON’T just use the default message.

Once you get recommendations back, you can display which ones you want at any given time. Obviously don’t display those recommendations that are ‘luke warm’ or don’t talk about you in ‘glowing terms’.

Remember that vague and noncommittal references and feedback are worse than none at all (e.g. did the job adequately ….)