LinkedIn is a search engine

The more tangibility you have on your profile, the bigger amount of relevant content you can see. The better you can tell what you are able to do, what you want to do and what you do, the better LinkedIn can show you suitable jobs, companies, people or articles. Make sure you have discussed your experience and expertise using the same key words as the others when they are, for example, searching for experts in your field.

Key words are essential

• You find them in job advertisements, other LinkedIn profiles, company web sites
• Key words can be tools, processes, titles, equipment, software, certificates, methodologies, training titles, programming languages and other concrete things
• See what words people in your field use to describe their expertise.
• Steal the best ideas!
• Describe your expertise with the right words: check the terms and key words related to jobs, education and titles.
• Make sure you have key words in all the sections of your profile.

Where do I find my professional key words?

Find at least three vacant jobs that you are interested in and copy-paste the advertisement texts to tagcrowd.com. Geographic location or other external motivation factors are irrelevant. This web page tells you how often the words used can be seen in the texts.

Copy the advertisement content and follow these instructions:

• Go to tagcrowd.com 
• Attach the content of all the advertisements you have copied into the empty field
• Click Yes on Show frequencies
• Tap Visualize! 
• Are there any key words you could use?
• Think about concrete examples of your expertise. Is there something you could use as key words? Tools, programming languages, certificates etc.?
• List some key words you recognise into the response field below.

For example, if you would like to work as an environmental engineer, find suitable job advertisements on LinkedIn or monster.fi.

By following the instructions above, the list of key words could look like this:
1. Engineer 61 (9%) 2. project 52 (8%) 3. wastewater 42 (6%) 4. experience 41 (6%) 5. environment 41 (6%) 6. management 34 (5%) 7. planning 31 (5%) 8. energy 30 (5%) 9. language skills 30 (5%) 10. cooperation skills 27 (4%)

Judging by the Tagcrowd key words, the suitable title could be: Environmental Engineer with Management Experience | Wastewater & Sludge Treatment | Energy Efficiency 

This title does not only explain what kind of jobs you are interested in but it also shows your expertise. You should sprinkle key words in different sections on LinkedIn.

Make sure you have key words in all the sections of your profile.

Maintain and update you profile constantly: add new experience, education and achievements in work as well as studies accordingly with your progress. Update your profile regularly with new interests.

Have I managed to optimise my profile?

When revising your profile, you can test how well you have managed to optimise it as far as your key words are concerned. You can do this by following these tips:

• Go to your profile
• Click … menu next to Headline
• Press Save to PDF and open the document
• Choose all the text and copy it
• Go to tagcrowd.com
• Attach the text you just copied into the empty space
• Click Yes on Show frequencies
• Tap Visualize! button. What does it look like?
• What are the most frequently used words on your profile right now?

The gathered information helps you to work with your key words. After streamlining, repeat the exercise.

You can take a screen shot of the word cloud after the exercise and attach it to the response field below. When you repeat the exercise, you can return to the starting point with the help of the word cloud.

This article is part of a LinkedIn training series written by TEK’s career coaches. Read more on what is LinkedIn, the basics of a LinkedIn profile, improving search results, how to become active on LinkedIn and the use of different features.