LinkedIn has literally changed the entire landscape of job hunting over the course of only a few years. Before the popularization of LinkedIn, it was much, much, harder to find relevant job postings. You used to pour through the newspaper classifieds (for you recent college graduates: a Newspaper is like the Internet, except made from paper and in black and white) hoping to find a job that was in your field of specialty. LinkedIn has undoubtedly made searching for a job much simpler, but for a price. It’s not enough to simply type “Communications/Public Relations Jobs” in the search box and just apply to the first twenty posts. You have to use LinkedIn the correct way (and often) to land that perfect job. Here are two LinkedIn optimization tips that will make your profile easier to find and more impressive.

1) Linkedin Optimization: Buzzwords, Buzzwords, Buzzwords!

You may have been told to avoid using those tedious buzzwords when updating your resume. This could not be further from the truth, especially when you plan to use LinkedIn to search for jobs. Here’s a little secret that you might not have been aware of: employers are constantly searching through countless LinkedIn profiles, looking for the perfect candidates to fill the position. What criteria are they basing their search on, you might ask? Well, the answer is simple: buzzwords. If an employer needs to fill a position, they will not waste time searching irrelevant LinkedIn profiles, so to limit their search they use industry keywords (such as Accessibility, Usability, Standards-compliance, SEO, SEM). So no matter how obvious it might seem to list Microsoft PowerPoint as a skill on your LinkedIn profile, you should make sure to include ALL of your skills. If you do, you may just find employers landing on your page more and more…

2) Keep your Linkedin Profile updated!

If you’re like most people, you really don’t find the need to use LinkedIn all that often unless you’re actively searching for a job. Unfortunately, when you are actively searching for a job, you may have wished you had. Employers don’t like to see “dead pages” (otherwise known as LinkedIn Profiles that have not been updated in over six months) because they are forced to assume that the user isn’t checking their LinkedIn profile on a regular basis and therefore will not receive any messages sent via LinkedIn. In other words, if an employer lands on your profile and wants to contact you, they are not likely to do so if they’ve noticed that you haven’t visited your page in over a year. Instead, they are either going to assume that you do not check your page often (employers don’t have time to wait around for your response), or that you already have a job, and simply did not update your profile. Two tale tell signs are keep a new looking picture; a headshot is great. Also keep your work history synced up with your resume.

Taking the time to properly do some “linkedin optimization” can be tedious work, especially when you aren’t looking for a job. We get that. But doing so can make all the difference when you are. So remember, use buzzwords to your advantage and keep your profile up to date. You may just be surprised at how much more activity your page will generate and how much more easily potential employers and peers will be able to find you, all thanks to a little LinkedIn optimization.