Chapter 3. Define Your Target Direction Before You Write

Before writing your headline, About section or career entries, you need to define what you want your LinkedIn profile to support. Start by choosing three to five target roles:

For example, if you are an Ops Manager then these could include:

Operations Manager

Head of Operations

Service Delivery Manager

Programme Manager

Business Change Manager

Once you have your target roles, gather three to five live job adverts that closely reflect the direction you want; do not choose random adverts, but choose roles you would genuinely consider applying for.

Now analyse those adverts, look for:

• Repeated job titles

• Repeated responsibilities

• Repeated skills

• Sector language

• Seniority indicators

• Tools, systems or frameworks

• Leadership expectations

• Commercial, operational, technical or strategic requirements

Create a simple list under these headings:

• Target job titles

• Common skills

• Common responsibilities

• Common outcomes

• Common keywords

• Problems these roles are hired to solve

This is one of the most important steps because LinkedIn needs to reflect the language of the market, not just the language of your current or previous employers; for example, your employer may call something “customer transformation delivery,” but the market may search for “service improvement,” “change management,” or “customer experience.” Your job on LinkedIn is to bridge that gap by using the information to hand and align your language with the recruiters.