As an entrepreneur or small business owner, having a polished, visible LinkedIn presence is essential for expanding your opportunities. This includes featuring an up-to-date resume that allows potential partners, investors, clients and press to quickly review your skills and accomplishments.
Why Showcase Your Resume on LinkedIn
- Over 90% of talent acquisition teams rely on LinkedIn to source candidates
- 75% of job seekers have been hired after connecting with a recruiter on LinkedIn
- LinkedIn drives more external traffic to websites than any other social platform
For entrepreneurs, LinkedIn serves as far more than just a job hunting site. It‘s a vital networking platform for promoting your business, attracting partners, connecting with potential funders, and sharing your thought leadership.
Having an easily accessible resume on your LinkedIn profile allows important stakeholders to instantly gauge your suitability for key business relationships.
Entrepreneurship-Focused Profile Optimization
While your resume provides the nuts and bolts of your work history, your LinkedIn profile has ample room to showcase the unique skills and accomplishments that set you apart as an entrepreneur.
Here are the key sections entrepreneurs should focus on beefing up:
Featured Projects
Highlight 3-5 projects that demonstrate your capabilities and potential for future success.
Publications
Display important articles, white papers, or books you‘ve contributed to that position you as an industry thought leader.
Recommendations
Request recommendations from colleagues, partners, mentors, and investors that reinforce your talents and trustworthiness.
Skills
Include keywords and expertise areas that align with attractive partnership and funding opportunities.
Video Introductions
Record short intro videos to convey your passion, vision, leadership style and interpersonal abilities.
Controlling Resume Visibility
As an entrepreneur, you need to be selective about who can access your resume. LinkedIn provides privacy settings to control resume visibility:
Public Profile
Your resume will be visible to anyone that views your public profile. Useful for general brand awareness.
Private Profile
Only your direct connections will be able to see your resume if your entire profile is set to private. Better for limiting access.
Group Visibility
Share your resume only with specific LinkedIn groups that contain your target collaboration partners.
Why LinkedIn vs. Just Your Website
Featuring your resume on your company‘s website is also important. However, there are a few key advantages to also showcasing it directly on your LinkedIn profile:
- Increased visibility – profiles frequently show higher on Google searches
- Higher trust and credibility, especially for those not familiar with your brand
- Allows you to evolve full profile alongside resume to showcase diverse capabilities
- Fosters more direct professional connections versus simple website visitors
So if facilitating fruitful new business relationships is a priority for you as an entrepreneur, be sure to optimize your LinkedIn presence with an updated, visible resume ready provide partners, investors and the media a window into your entrepreneurial worthiness.
