After you create your account on LinkedIn, you will be taken to your profile page. Your profile is the backbone of your LinkedIn account, and it’s where you get to show off all of your great qualifications! In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to fill it out (and fill it out well) and add a photo of yourself to boot.
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P.S. If you want to come back to your profile and edit it again after signing up for an account, simply log into your account at www.linkedin.com and click Me in the menu across the top, and then click View Profile.
How to add photos to LinkedIn
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Let’s start building your profile by adding a photo to it. To begin, simply click the Add a Photo button.
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In the window that pops up, browse through your saved images. This will open an explorer window where you can look through your computer files for a photo of yourself that you want to use on LinkedIn. Make sure it’s a nice photo of yourself that makes you look professional. Click it to select it, and then click Open.
- Once your picture loads, you will have many options for editing and perfecting it. You can choose from Crop, Filter, Adjust, and Visibility as your main options.
Crop: Click and drag your photo, straighten it, or zoom in. The white circle shows how your profile image will appear on the website and in the app, in most cases.
Filter: You can choose from the circles offered to add a filter to your photo.
Adjust: Here, you can adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, and vignette or your photo.
Visibility: Click this option to choose who can view your profile picture. Choose from your connections, your network, all of LinkedIn, or the public. By default, Public will be selected.
When you’re finished, make sure you click the blue Apply button to save your changes. At any time, you can also click Change Photo to select and work with a new image.
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You can also add a background photo to your LinkedIn profile as well. Simply click Update Background Photo at the top of your profile. Then, follow the same instructions above as you did to create your profile image.
Typically, it’s good to choose a neutral background, or something related to your brand – rather than a picture of yourself. Remember, LinkedIn isn’t Facebook!
How to write a LinkedIn profile
If you add a profile picture for the first time, and save your changes, LinkedIn will automatically take you to the rest of your profile to edit it. If this doesn’t happen though, or you haven’t selected an image first, simply click the pencil icon on your profile to edit your LinkedIn profile.
From there, here is how you can edit your profile:
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Begin simply by filling out the form to describe yourself in your profile introduction. Click in any box, and type your answer.
Enter information in the following fields:
– First name
– Last name
– Headline
– Current position
– Country (you reside in)
– ZIP/postal code
– Location (city)
– Industry
– Summary -
The next step is to add your work experience, and previous positions you’ve held. By default, LinkedIn will already have the job you currently hold (if you have one, and indicated so while you signed up) on your form. To add anything else, Click Add New Position.
From there, fill out the form by clicking in any box and filling out the information using your keyboard. You can enter information such as:
– Title
– Company
– Location
– Time you worked there
– Whether you currently work there
– Description of the job
– Upload/link to media (ex. documents, presentations, websites, videos, etc.)
When you’re finished, make sure you click Save.
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After you’ve added your work experience, the next step is to add education to your profile – a key component to showcasing yourself on LinkedIn. On your profile editing page, click +Add New Education to begin adding information about your schooling.
On the form that appears, click in each of the boxes and enter information about your previous schools, including:
– The name of your school
– The degree that you were (or are currently) pursuing
– Your field of study
– The overall grade that you achieved
– Activities and societies your belonged to or participated in
– The dates you attended your school
– A description of your program/experience
– Upload/link to media (ex. documents, presentations, websites, videos, etc.)
When you’re done, click Save.
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The final thing you can add to your profile overall is to upload a document or link to media that will help round out the information, or showcase something you’ve done that just can’t be explained with the text of your profile. On your main profile editing page, click Upload to add a document, image, presentation, video, or other form of media to your profile. If the information is already presented somewhere on the Internet, or you have your own website you want to show off, click Link to Media instead.
The supported file formats you can attach to your LinkedIn profile include:
– .pdf
– .doc
– .jpg
– .jpeg
– .ppt
– .pps
– .pptx
– .ppsx
– .pot
– .potx
– .odp
– .png
– .docx
– .rtf
– .odt
That’s a quick primer on how to set up your LinkedIn profile, including adding a photo! Be sure to read up on the rest of our course on LinkedIn so you can learn all about how to make connections, add skills and endorsements, how to find jobs, and how to contact LinkedIn if you ever run into issues.
