Writing headlines is a specialty – there are outstanding writers who will tell you they couldn’t write a headline to save their lives. – Bill Walsh
It’s for a reason that workplaces are getting less formal with cool office spaces, casual dress codes and relaxed work cultures. Interviews are getting unstructured with informal conversations at coffee shops. Just google “creative resume” and you will see that job seekers are challenging the norms and getting stunningly creative with their resumes. Cool and informal is the way forward. It helps build an instant rapport, makes people feel spirited and enhances productivity.
Linkedin Headline
By extension, it’s helpful to get creative with the LinkedIn profile as long as you have used the necessary keywords and clearly conveyed your key message. LinkedIn is not a Facebook to post family pictures and holiday updates. But it is also not a plain bio-data form to be scanned only by machines. A LinkedIn headline is to LinkedIn user what a title is to a blog post or a headline is to a newspaper article. A LinkedIn headline is to a LinkedIn user what a slogan is to a company.
Imagine if McDonald’s slogan was Burgers | Happy Meals | Toys – On time Delivery, >100 countries, 36K restaurants, 69M customers/day
Imagine if Who Moved My Cheese were titled as “Change Management in Mice and Men”
The goal of a LinkedIn headline is to get found and also get attracted to.
Your LinkedIn headline should definitely contain the keywords related to your profession and skills . However, among hundreds of search results, how will you differentiate yours?? This is where the creativity comes in. After using the keywords, if you can play around with the remainder of your 120 character limit to put something that strikes a chord with the reader, radiates energies and brings out personality, the chances of getting noticed as well as getting clicked will be higher.
Most interviewers are looking for a headline. They’re not skilled. They’re looking for shock value. – Ice T
Let’s make up some LinkedIn headline examples
Skilled Java Programmer, who hardcodes apps to mint revenues
The One Sales Guy Nobody Regretted Hiring
Let me design your success with my graphics…
Soft skills trainer | Read more and you’ll want to talk to me
Contact me if you are looking for a bulletproof project manager
Experienced product manager – we could work together to build great CRM tools
Mobile app developer – 13 apps with over 2M downloads
Seasoned human resource professional, lived on a boat for two years
Data Scientist, Calvin & Hobbes fan
Quality Analyst | Found more bugs than any pesticide killed
These imaginary examples of LinkedIn headline include keywords + some spice.
Keywords to get found and inform readers about what they are or what they do. And some unfettered attention catching stuff that includes achievements, metrics, boasting, catchy analogies, a little exaggeration, personal interests and even call-to-action, just to appeal to the human readers who are overwhelmed with the search results and don’t know which ones to click. If these were for real, we could expect them to have higher click-through rates compared to their plain counterparts.
Try different ways and compare the performance. See which one gets you more response in terms of the number of profile views / followers / connection requests / messages / interview offers. And experiments may sometimes fail, but then you need to conduct them if you want empirical evidence on what is working better for you. Even top brands review and revise their slogans. Even i’m lovin’ it evolved from Let’s eat out, The Closest Thing to Home, You Deserve a Break Today, and what not.
Take well-calculated risks and experiment aggressively only in your uptime than downtime, i.e., when you are not actively looking for opportunities and you don’t lose much if it does not fetch great results. Once you know which one is working best for you, apply it as your slogan that can add to your personal brand image. Let it keep evolving.
