Get your LinkedIn profile to standout

Why is LinkedIn even important, really?

Here’s why:

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📎 Your LinkedIn profile is where you get to make a great first impression in terms of discoverability, impact, and trust - whether you’re looking to hire, get hired, or get promoted, or just building meaningful connections with interesting folks.

Watch this video for better context on how to approach your profile building.

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https://youtu.be/PsfNRY_zqFM

Now, Let’s look at this one by one.

1. Profile Picture 👤

Add a professional profile picture. It should be front-facing, slightly smiling, with a flat background. Preferably, get your image shot at a studio. Won’t take you more than 15 mins.

Don’t add selfie/ cropped image out of group photo/ old photo from 2010.

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This is a super high impact item.

2. Cover Picture 🔲

Your cover photo should have a minimal design- preferably with the branding of your current company. This helps to highlight brand loyalty and professionalism.

Avoid putting up quotes, random thoughts or something that gives a ‘want to be’ vibe.

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3. Headline 📈

The headline needs to be very crisp. Add your current role and company. This is what you want to be known for. Remember, this is the first thing audience sees even in LinkedIn search results. Don’t be a wanna be - “I’m on a rocket ship” But if you have sold your company to Disney, do write.

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ℹ️ Example

• Co-founder, CEO @ Airbnb
• Growth & Talent at GrowthX
• Design Strategist at Polygon
• Marketing manager at Uber </aside>

👉🏼 [TYPE YOUR HEADLINE HERE]

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4. Talks about🗣️

The ‘talks about’ section right below the headline should be updated with three topics related to your next preferred role/ current function.

This is valid if you frequently post and share content on these topics, without any posts - this would not be relevant.

5. Location 📍

If you’re open to relocate to another city for work - set that city as your primary location on LinkedIn. It helps people connect with you and initiate conversations.

6. The Featured Section ⭐

The Featured section helps you to highlight your posts or samples of your work, and is an excellent approach to demonstrate your knowledge and skills.

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💡 Make sure you’ve enabled the Creator mode to access this section.

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7. About me section 🎯

The first three lines of your about section should create curiosity and intrigue. Only if you are able to get the reader hooked here will they click on see more. The about section should not sound sale-sy. It’s the story you want people to relate, recall and remember you by.

👉🏼 Examples—

Look at the about section of the following profiles:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishpatil/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshitija-sarda/

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👉🏼 Put down all pointers for what you’d like to convey in your about section

• [TYPE YOUR POINTERS HERE]

Put your pointers into one synchronous story here: The story needs to have “The hook, The meat & The CTA”

[TYPE YOUR ABOUT SECTION HERE]

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8. Experience 💼

Follow the STAR approach while writing your experience. That is, write about the situation at hand, the tasks that followed, the actions you took and the result or impact it created.

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👉🏼 Company 1:

[TYPE ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE]

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👉🏼 Company 2:

[TYPE ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE]

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👉🏼 Company 3:

[TYPE ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE]

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ℹ️ Examples—

1. Growth at Dunzo

During my journey, the growth team scaled the monthly order numbers from 150K to ~2 million orders. Larger part of my work involved defining the growth model from scratch, identifying core levers, doubling down on top of the funnel.

Apart from scaling, I worked across problem statements which involved designing discounting mechanism, minimising demand supply mismatch, solving for sales automation for B2B teams and building micro-market profitability across select geographies.

2. New Initiatives and Partnership at GigIndia

Worked closely with the Co-Founder to build the entire sourcing vertical for onboarding freelancers / gig-workers, the active number of freelancers grew 4X within a few months. This also meant, the number of people who could earn and support their families grew 4X.

9. Education 🎓

Ensure this section is completed, especially with details about your professional degree.

Write simple one line highlighting key projects, achievements or wins for each school you add in this section.

For courses and experiences pursued additionally, feel free to highlight the learnings, skills developed and projects undertaken. Add GrowthX to the education section (not the experience section) - this helps you connect with Alumni, companies, and more.

• Here’s what you can add in the GrowthX education section. (Click on the Toggle to open)GrowthX members are from the top companies in India such as Google, Razorpay, CRED, Flipkart, Canva, Meesho, OYO, Bloomberg, Zoho, Cisco, Unacademy, Khatabook, Smallcase, Udaan and many more. Because of GrowthX, I can own the following (end-to-end) Acquisition: Decision framework & solving four major acquisition channels viz organic, ads, referral, product integrations. Scaling & prioritisation acquisition channels. Onboarding: Designing onboarding flows that hit activation metrics for web and mobile products. Engagement & Retention: Creating segmentations with frameworks that solve engagement metrics. Building campaigns and hooks to solve retention while reducing churn. Monetization: Identifying user segments to monetise, building pricing strategies, running pricing experiments. Growth Teams & Processes. Setting up & evolving growth teams. Fostering a growth culture throughout the organisation.

10. Skills 💻

Put down your top 3 skills. Write about something that is your superpower or is a niche for you. Don’t write stuff that does not lead to your potential outcome (hire/get hired)

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👉🏼 [TYPE YOUR TOP 3 SKILLS HERE]

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ℹ️ Examples of skills you should include —

Growth Strategy

Marketing Strategy

Product Management

Team Management

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11. Recommendations ✅

You want to get recommendations only from someone you’ve worked closely with or someone you’ve deployed projects with.

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Get recommendations from someone who adds trust to your place, not someone who borrows trust.

👉🏼 Make a list of people you want to get recommendations from here:

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Checklist to ensure you have completed every section:

✅ As the final step - take a look through your profile, and ensure these steps are completed:

• [ ] Your profile picture is professional, recent and shot in a studio.
• [ ] Your cover photo, if present, has a minimal design - preferably with the branding of your current company.
• [ ] You’ve updated a short and crisp tagline with your current role and company.
• [ ] Your ‘Talks about’ section is updated, only three things relevant to your function/role.
• [ ] Your ‘About’ section is completed, with super clear insights about your superpowers, career journey, motivation and goals.
• [ ] Each experience is updated using the STAR method. Highlight impact and clear wins.
• [ ] Make sure Education section highlights key learnings, projects and your GrowthX journey as well.
• [ ] You’ve picked and showcased the top 3 skills that showcase your functional expertise.
• [ ] You’ve received recommendations from someone you’ve worked with, someone very impactful.
• [ ] You’ve proofread your content, and made sure there are no spelling, grammar or punctuation errors.

📎 If you have gone through this document entirely and want to share feedback with us, please fill this form. Thank you in advance!

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