Over the past 7 years, I have reviewed over 10,000 LinkedIn profiles, and I have seen so many mistakes that people make with their job descriptions that make it harder on prospective customers and recruiters to take the action that you want them to take.
So today, I am sharing some of the most important questions I highly encourage you to ask yourself before you start writing, and some key aspects you need to take into consideration when strategizing your job descriptions on LinkedIn for lead generation.
Of course, there is not just one right way to do things. Different things are going to work for different people, different situations, different target audiences, but I will share with you today what I wish more people knew – and especially what I wish more people implemented – and my suggestion to you is to take what you think could work for you, and test it out.
Feel free to watch my suggestions or read below, whatever supports you more.
The Surprising Job Description Detail that Makes LinkedIn Lead Generation Easier
It’s surprising how simple it is, but let’s explore why it matters:
Add a short explanation to your LinkedIn job description about what your company does.
Now, if you actually work for LinkedIn or Amazon or any of these giant names, and you don’t want to add a description, fine. But otherwise – add one or two sentences to give me a quick understanding of what your company does.
You would not believe how many people do not do that, and how frustrating it is when you’re trying to review hundreds of profiles, and you have all these tabs open on your computer, and you have to go open the company link in order to understand whether it’s a relevant person.
Now, obviously, it could still be worth it to someone to click through. Say, if someone’s trying to sell something to you, it’s going to be worth their time to click an extra link. But the person looking at your profile could be your next big client, or someone who wants to interview you for a big publication, or your potential next employer at that dreamy company you’ve always wanted to work in.
They are busy, they are inundated with emails and to-do lists. Make their lives easier and just add one or two sentences about what your company does to help them quickly understand whether they’re on the right profile.
The Obvious Thing So Many People Skip in Their Job Description Sections
At the risk of sounding obvious, your job description box is actually there for you to explain what you do or did at your job.
For the same reasons we just discussed, do explain a little bit what it is that you do at this company. Or what you did at your previous employer.
You could be thinking, I’m a marketing manager. All the marketing managers do the exact same thing. But they don’t. There are commonalities and there are differences. And people who are looking to interview you or work with you want to know about your specific experience.
So think of what your day looks like, what kind of responsibilities you have.
I recommend you make a list. Write down everything you can think of. Do it outside of LinkedIn, so you don’t have to worry about the phrasing or how it sounds or any of that. Just make a list of all the things you do in your day to day and everything you’re responsible for.
Only then do I recommend integrating everything into the job description that you publish on LinkedIn.
But first… let’s get into a conversion mindset.
Keep Your LinkedIn Lead Generation Goal in Mind When Planning Your Job Description Section
Let’s say you’re a marketer in the customer service software company, and you want to use your LinkedIn profile to build relationships with potential customers, who are trying to improve how they do customer service and might be interested in your company’s software.
Well, one way you could approach your job description sections is to think what achievements or skills that you gained at previous jobs help you today in your current job, and make you the type of person that your prospects will want to do business with.
For example, you worked as a customer service representative when you were in college and you got the highest customer retention and satisfaction rates, or you worked in a completely different company as a marketing professional and you created a successful marketing advocacy program. These are things you can emphasize throughout your profile that could be relevant to a potential customer today.
Now, you don’t need to need to mention your current job when you’re describing previous jobs. You don’t need to spell it out, like, “I gained ABC skills in Company D, which makes me the best person to help you, potential customer, in my current position in Company E.”
No need to do that.
However, when you’re clear on your lead generation goals for your LinkedIn profile, you can sparkle some breadcrumbs to someone who’s reading your profile to establish your expertise in the field.
Use Your LinkedIn Job Description Section to Prove the Value You Can Bring (Plus: What to Write if You Don’t Have Measurable Results)
I highly recommend you always look for ways you’ve contributed to employers and include those ways in your profile.
Obviously, the best scenario is if you’ve driven measurable results, especially in marketing. That’s definitely going to help you stand out, so don’t be shy about it, and list everything that you’ve helped the company achieve, and use as specific numbers as you can – without hurting confidentiality, of course.
Now, if you don’t have numbers – whether you don’t have access to the numbers or didn’t get to have that kind of impact – you could still do this.
There are many things you help your company do that you can totally mention. You get the blog updated every week. You found that great website designer that finally got the vision that you and your team had and completely transformed your brand visually. You managed a team. You managed freelancers. You established a scalable or repeatable process. You found a way to collaborate with your sales team.
There’s usually something you can mention.
Go back to that list you’ve made of what you day to day looks like, what are your responsibilities, and dig something up from there.
And while you’re digging…
Gain Instant Trust for Better LinkedIn Lead Generation with a Few Quick Mentions
We all know companies try to emphasize as much social proof as possible – what big publications mentioned them, what big brands have worked with them, how many hundreds of thousands of people have subscribed to their newsletter, etc.
But hey – you can do it on your LinkedIn profile, too!
Have you been interviewed somewhere?
Have you published a guest post on a large site on behalf of one of the companies you’ve worked for?
Have you helped your company serve big brand accounts?
List whatever you can.
But if you don’t have any social proof, don’t worry about it. Not everybody does. And it is something that you can work on and add to your LinkedIn profile later.
And whether you have social proof or not, I want to take a moment and talk about a little sort of technical – but not really – thing you can do – totally easy – to get better results from your job description, before I continue and share one of my all-time favorite questions I recommend you ask yourself when writing job descriptions on LinkedIn. But first, let’s talk about this little thing.
Maximize People’s Time on Your LinkedIn Job Description Sections
We’ve already established that people who are going to land on your profile are potentially very busy, but at least some of them really want to take the time to get to know you – but then again, many of them believe they don’t have the time.
So what I recommend is to have a paragraph or two – depending on how much you have to share in a certain job description – and that’s an actual paragraph, so it’s like regular reading, but people actually have to stop and read it.
How you make them stop and read it is by bullet points.
And specifically, I would have two sets of bullet points.
The first one – “Some of the results I helped the company achieved.”
And then list a few bullet points that share those results.
And the second one is for social proof. I wouldn’t call it social proof – but that’s basically what it is. And for example, you can list a few large publications that mentioned your company thanks to work that you’ve done.
The rest of the content – it’s fine if you leave it in actual paragraphs – but having one or both sets of bullet points can help people quickly see why they need to stop and learn more about you.
OK! So ready for one of my favorite questions?
Here it is:
Humanize Your Job Descriptions to Create an Emotional Connection that Leads to Higher LinkedIn Lead Generation (Especially in B2B)
One of my all time favorite questions to ask clients when writing their LinkedIn profiles is:
What was your favorite part of the job?
For every job description section you can – and I know it’s not always possible, but for every job description you can – look for what was your favorite part or several favorite parts about the job, and include that in your job description.
Not only is it a chance to emphasize your excitement about the job, and it can get people imagining what it could be like working with you, but it’s really a chance to show a little bit of personality, humanize your profile and start connecting with people emotionally, which is extremely important in business, even though it’s often overlooked.
Why is it important in business?
