Building Your Personal Brand: LinkedIn Tips for MBA Applicants
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Want to make your phone time count? Discover tips for crafting a LinkedIn profile that business school admissions committees won't be able to ignore.
As the largest online networking platform in the world, with over one billion members, 67 million companies listed, availability in 36 languages, and a hiring rate of six people per minute, there are many benefits to having a LinkedIn profile.
For those considering applying to business school, a carefully crafted LinkedIn profile can go a long way toward impressing admissions teams. During a recent webinar, London Business School associate director Lowri Sparkes and Laura Fox, founder of The LinkedIn Fox consultancy, shared a number of actionable tips for creating a best-in-class LinkedIn profile.
So, here are some of their key insights.
Why choose LinkedIn for personal branding?
Before diving into how to craft a top-tier LinkedIn profile, it helps to understand how it can help you excel during the admissions process.
According to Laura, the key advantages of having a LinkedIn profile can be placed into three categories: identity, networks, and knowledge.
Identity
First and foremost, LinkedIn offers a place to digitally house your professional record. By sharing your skills, accomplishments, and experiences, you can build a strong personal brand and highlight why you are the right fit to admissions teams.
Building your LinkedIn personal brand opens doors by helping you establish credibility in your field, whether that be investment banking or nonprofits.
LinkedIn takes the data from your profile and uses it to match you to relevant job listings. Brand building on the app can therefore also help you find opportunities that correspond with your skill set and interests.
Through LinkedIn, you may even secure the very role that helps you stand out against other b-school applicants.
Networks
With more than one billion users, LinkedIn is one of the most efficient ways to network with professionals from all over the world. You can create meaningful relationships with others in your sector, send personalized messages to industry leaders, join groups of like-minded professionals, and participate in important discussions.
With 16% of users visiting daily and a further 48% visiting monthly, according to Laura, LinkedIn offers almost instantaneous connection with the very people who can define your business school fate.
Knowledge
As the definitive professional publishing platform, LinkedIn also offers a wealth of valuable knowledge for business school applicants. By following industry leaders, you can create a tailored newsfeed, allowing you to stay on top of industry news. You can then apply the business acumen you learn from LinkedIn to your application.
How to craft a best-in-class LinkedIn profile
Below are eight tips Laura suggests will help you pull together a LinkedIn profile that will strengthen and enhance your application to business school.
1. Increase your visibility
The key with LinkedIn is to “make yourself as visible as possible’”, says Laura. The simplest way to do this is to make sure your profile is set to public so that others can find you without limitation.
2. Take the perfect photo
Your profile photo is a key element of your brand, forming the first impression you give to others. It should convey that you are confident, organized, reliable, and above all professional.
Profiles with a photo get a whopping 21x more profile views and nine times more connection requests, Laura explains. Including one is therefore an easy way to increase your engagement.
A good profile photo consists of a high-resolution headshot paired with a neutral background and a warm, inviting smile.
Your profile banner is equally important, providing viewers with an extra insight into who you are. As Laura notes, it can be used as an ‘icebreaker’ or ‘conversation starter’. The graphic design platform, Canva offers easy templates for creating a LinkedIn banner that will grab people's attention.
3. Write a powerful profile headline
In no more than 120 characters, your profile headline should describe what you do, why others should connect with you, and what sets you apart.
Don't be afraid to expand—if your job title feels generic and doesn’t accurately portray your responsibilities, then elaborate. People should be able to understand what you do without scrolling.
4. Write an effective profile summary
The prospect of writing your professional summary can be daunting. Best practice is to think of this as an elevator pitch, telling your story in a clear, concise format.
You can apply a past, present, and future framework to create the perfect profile summary. The first part should consist of a detailed description of your past professional experiences, showcasing to others how you got to where you are today. You should follow this with an overview of your present state of play, for example, where you currently work and the projects you're involved in. Lastly, your profile summary should depict your plans for the future, conveying to viewers that you are ambitious and have aspirations.
Try to incorporate action verbs—such as ‘built’, ‘led’, ‘drove’, ‘collaborated’, and ‘hired’— as they demonstrate proactivity.
5. Formulate an impressive experience section
To really bring your profile to life, include a few pieces of media; this could be images or links to sites that support your experience.
Lowri highlights that you also need to ensure consistency between your LinkedIn experience section and resume, as it may be used to fact-check during the admissions process.
You can illustrate your soft and hard skill sets by adding skills to your profile. With the skills allowance now expanded from 50 to 100, the sky is truly the limit.
It's good practice, before submitting your application, to check that the skills listed on your profile align with those needed to complete the course. This is an effective way to demonstrate your compatibility with the program.
7. Take advantage of the ‘Featured’ section
LinkedIn has a ‘Featured’ section that enables you to highlight your favorite posts and add links to third-party content and PDFs at the top of your profile. This is an excellent way to showcase your most significant accomplishments.
8. Stay active
Your LinkedIn activity, which includes all the recent posts you have engaged with, can be seen by others on your profile and in their newsfeeds if you allow it. Permitting this visibility gives business school admissions teams insight into your professional interests, which may help them determine if you are suitable.
With LinkedIn currently growing at its fastest rate in history, according to Laura, now is a great time to implement these tips and grab the attention of business school admissions committees.
Find out more useful tips about making your business school application stand out.
