Your LinkedIn profile provides you with enormous visibility — for job searches, leadership roles, community involvement, board seat opportunities, and of course, networking. I’m a firm believer and advocate that your LinkedIn profile should be updated on a regular basis. Whether you’ve been given increased responsibilities at the law firm, promoted from senior counsel to assistant general counsel, or you’ve handled a major merger or acquisition, a robust and powerful LinkedIn profile is the conduit for greater opportunities along the career highway.
The question I receive most often from clients who are job searching (typically rising general counsels and those already at the general counsel level): how do they avoid sending smoke signals to their company when updating their LinkedIn profile?
The answer is simple: if someone mentions it, acknowledge that you’re highly visible at the company and therefore need to put both yourself and the company or firm in the best light possible. It’s the truth, isn’t it? That means having a clearly articulated brand message, details of what you do at the firm or company, and deep insights into your career trajectory (after all, that is what impressed the firm or company to hire you in the first place). Clients (current and prospective) might be scoping you out on LinkedIn, organizations might be looking for someone with your speaking background, and you might even be pursuing future board opportunities for enhanced professional leadership. Why wouldn’t your company or law firm want your LinkedIn profile to be better?
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Updating your legal resume, your executive bio, and your LinkedIn profile are basic elements of routine maintenance and professional development for your career. LinkedIn is an ever-changing platform with new features rolling out every quarter. With those changes come a greater commitment that you must make to yourself. Think about the impact LinkedIn has had on all our careers in the current legal market versus seven, eight, even 10 years ago. A lackluster LinkedIn profile didn’t make you or break you back then, but in the current times, it can lead to missed opportunities.
Today, an optimized LinkedIn profile makes you even more impressionable for your law firm or company. For example, if you’re the general counsel, a powerful LinkedIn profile is key, especially since you’re the face of the legal department and the trusted partner to the C-suite and business enterprise. That means you’re heavily researched on the platform and on Google. If you’re a partner at a law firm, you want to be present (and relevant) on LinkedIn to help drum up more business and share the firm’s accolades to enhance the firm’s brand and reputation. If you’re a law firm owner, you want a professional profile as well as a business page for your firm (two opportunities to get seen and noticed).
Thus, whether you own a law firm, you’re a rising senior associate at a midsized firm, or an aspiring corporate counsel, your visibility on LinkedIn matters.
Plan to update your LinkedIn profile at least once every six months — keep track of the projects you’re working on, the promotions you’ve received, when you’ve been in the news at the company, and other major initiatives you’re working on. At the end of the day, your professional image matters — and having an updated LinkedIn profile doesn’t just benefit you, but your company or law firm and its brand as well.
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Wendi Weiner is an attorney, career expert, and founder of The Writing Guru, an award-winning executive resume writing services company. Wendi creates powerful career and personal brands for attorneys, executives, and C-suite/Board leaders for their job search and digital footprint. She also writes for major publications about alternative careers for lawyers, personal branding, LinkedIn storytelling, career strategy, and the job search process. You can reach her by email at [email protected], connect with her on LinkedIn, and follow her on Twitter @thewritingguru.