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Have You Looked at Your LinkedIn Headline Lately?
Written by Karin Lee
Published: Jan. 21 2020
What are you? Maybe you were raised with the thought that you’d ‘be’ something when you grew up? Maybe that something was a job with a title? Because it’s an important part of your identity that tells everyone else what you do. Many people are proud of their job titles, and that’s not a bad …
What are you?
Maybe you were raised with the thought that you’d ‘be’ something when you grew up?
Maybe that something was a job with a title?
Because it’s an important part of your identity that tells everyone else what you do.
Many people are proud of their job titles, and that’s not a bad thing. After all, they’ve probably worked very hard to earn the right to use them.
So when some people say, ‘I’m an engineer’ or ‘I’m a teacher’, we understand their background and how it has led to where they are today.
How does your own headline look?
These people might use these same words in their LinkedIn headlines. Do you?
They’ve/You’ve probably assumed that this is what they/you should do because everyone else is doing it.
That’s because it’s been the standard for profiles to contain short, simple headlines that often contain only two words:
Product Manager, Software Engineer, Senior Adviser and the like.
Yet while the short and simple, two-word title works well enough, how much more informative and better these people’s headlines would be if they’d use a few more words to explain what they actually do on the job. Or want to do if they’re looking for (a new) one.
The LI times they are a changin
Newsflash: Headlines are moving away from generic simplicity and toward more informative description.
And LinkedIn gives you 120 characters to join this movement.
I looked through my own LI network to find a few headlines that stood out from the crowd:
Freelance Copywriter specializing in Educational Marketing and Technology
2019 Mechanical Engineering Grad Seeking Entry-Level Position
Planting Design Consultant creating enhanced environments that wow your visitors and motivate your staff
Different? Definitely. You? Maybe.
Have a look – do you like what you see?
But isn’t it worth taking a new look at your own headline and asking if what’s written there tells readers what it is you do professionally and/or what it is you’d like to do.
Telling us not just what you are, but who you are as well.
After all, isn’t that what a personal profile – your personal profile – should be all about?
