Welcome to the modern Digital Age, where technology and the Internet reign over our personal and professional lives.

Whether or not you like it, your online presence significantly impacts possible career paths. In fact, around 75% of recruiters check social media profiles of potential employees. That seems like a great reason to take your online presence seriously!

Don’t get left behind with unsophisticated or absent online networking profiles.

Make sure you have the best online career profile to attract recruiters. There are many things you need to consider to remain professional and desirable as an employee.

Continue reading for a guide on the best practices for your professional online presence.

Start With a Profile Picture

It may be said too often, but it’s still a very true statement: First impressions matter.

It’s nothing to be vain about, but for your career profile, you need to get into the habit of promoting yourself as much as possible. This involves having a highly attractive, high-quality profile picture.

When a user visits a website, he or she will naturally be drawn to the visual images first. Make the most pronounced image a well-developed, highly detailed, recent, high-quality professional headshot.

There’s an emphasis on professional headshot. You don’t want future recruiters to see your profile picture feature a blurry one of you and your prom date at 18 years old.

Use this headshot as the profile picture for every social and professional networking account, especially Twitter, Facebook, and Twitter, as these are the most impactful platforms.

Not only should you stay consistent, but your profile is more likely to be taken seriously by fellow professionals. For example, internal information from LinkedIn shows that users with profile pictures received 21 times more profile reviews.

Make Your Brand Consistent

Speaking of consistent, the most successful brands throughout the Internet are repeatedly recognizable – emphasis on the word, repeatedly.

Loyal customers easily recognize brands that appear visually similar throughout each social media platform. There are some important branding tips you need to follow to cultivate a reputable, impactful brand online.

Use the same description of your skill set and career path throughout all of your online profiles (as well as the same headshot). This will naturally lead future employers to see you positively represented.

Write the Perfect Bio/Summary

That description of your skill set has a perfect place on the major online profiles. It’s called either a bio or a summary.

Your career profile summary should be simple, clear, and defined. At the same time, you want to stand out, so do your best to make your brand’s tagline enticing and unique.

For example, you might be a software developer, which is a perfect introduction to your career path. If you have experience working on a fun or interesting program (maybe a popular game or app), add that to your summary to show recruiters you have experience and enjoy what you do.

A lot of experts suggest avoiding what might be called “fluff” in your profile summaries. That means avoid words like “innovative,” “dedicated,” “creative,” etc. Every professional should be all of those things – find another way to positively describe yourself.

Come up with one short sentence that identifies you, specifically. Take your time with this tagline, as it is the second impression recruiters will evaluate after your professional headshot.

Direct Your Career Profile to Target Your Desired Positions

The rest of your online profiles should stem directly from that concise and engaging bio/summary.

This is your opportunity to clarify exactly where you would like to see your career path take you. It should look very similar to your resume or CV (which would actually be a great PDF link on your profile somewhere).

For example, you might have experience running a business’s social media, but you don’t want to continue working in that field. Well, you can mention it briefly to prove you are capable and experienced, but you don’t have to offer those services or expand on your expertise in the field.

Only provide details about projects and positions that would relate to what you want to do in the future. Show some enthusiasm about that particular field, too.

For sites like LinkedIn, there is plenty of room to outline your related experience and skill set.

Regularly Curate Specific Social Media Content

For some people, social media is something to dread and hate.

It can be daunting to feel as though you always have to be cautious and professional, even though it’s pretty easy to let off some steam online. It’s the quickest way to vent to your friends and family – but that’s not necessarily a good thing!

Remember that everything you post has a good chance of being seen by a potential employer (not to mention, perhaps, your grandmother). Not only that, but a well-developed content strategy could enhance your chances of hiring.

A content strategy means you need to be active and involved in your field and/or area of expertise. A good practice to follow is promoting and sharing the content of leaders in your industry.

To streamline the creation of appropriate and professional content for your online career profile, consider social media management applications. Hootsuite is one of the most popular ones, and it can help you schedule content in advance so that you don’t have to stress about what to post all week long.

Connect With Similar Online Profiles

Don’t forget you make sure to network with similar online profiles! Your professional career profile will be useless unless other people can find it!

Connect with other people in your field of choice, and continue to remain active and engaged within those online communities. Potential employers would more easily be able to spot an involved and engaged social media profile.

How Can We Help You?

We know how important your online career profile is for your professional development. If you are looking to upgrade your online presence, start with the best headshot for all of your profiles.

That’s what we’re here for. No matter where you are, we can connect you with a reputable photographer to bring out your “good side!” Check out our website to learn how it works, and we look forward to helping you take this crucial step to further your career.