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"If you don't have your own profile, how are you doing to be coaching partners on being progressive with their digital profile when you're not leading from the front and doing it your self?"
Key Takeaways
Why is it important to develop a LinkedIn profile as legal marketer?
- Having a profile is a must in the legal industry. If you don't have a profile, it will become "a real barrier" when applying for a position in the legal industry. These days, as soon as you have a decent CV in front of you -the first thing you do is look at LinkedIn.
- If you don't have a profile, Katie recommends starting one right away. Most people have a profile and it is important to get one set up and active. These days, as soon as you have a decent CV in front of you -the first thing you do is look at LinkedIn.
- There used to be a perception that if you're too active on LinkedIn, your boss is going to think you're looking for a job. Options have changed and no CMO will think this now. But it is important to be consistent.
- You will also notice you start being noticed more for approaches about roles. Katie said that as a head-hunter, "I am 50% less likely to put an opportunity in front of someone with less than 100 connections, no photo and no activity – if it looks dormant I’m skipping over you – and that might have been your dream job."
What are some easy, must-do actions we can do now and what are some more long term actions you recommend we take? (e.g., active LinkedIn, blogging, content creation, interviews, etc)
In this day and age so easy to go straight to digital but it’s more than that. It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on what you stand for. Personally and professionally? If you don’t know, then you need to do some self-reflection and start there. Some work with coaches to help them – but there’s simple tools online that can help.
- Use themes that you come up with can then then form the backbone of your profile – online or otherwise.
- Professionally – the key themes that I stand for are Contribution, Positivity, Outcomes. Personally, my themes are family and charitable work.
- You need one thing outside of work that you are passionate about and that people will remember you for. For some it’s a sport, others charitable endeavours, theatre. It’s important to know what this is as you can bring all of this forward to your online profile.
- At the absolute bare minimum you need a professional photo, full and well written profile.
- Participate on issues relevant to what you do. It’s a business forum and this is your business profile. Don’t constantly comment on topics outside of your industry.
- Best practice for a great LI profile is commenting on others posts and participating in conversation / posting your own insights - trying to mix in some personal with professional / posting articles or blogs can be great but perhaps depends on your role.
From your experience working with professional services firms, is there anything that candidates have done that have really wow’ed them? How can we stand out to prospective firms with our profiles?
- Hard to come up with an answer to this on a purely “online profile” perspective. But I would say your professional profile and reputation is important with everyone you meet - online or in person.
- Katie once had a candidate who she had to really argue the case for to get them to first-round interview because the interviewer remembered being on a not-for-profit committee with them 10 years ago and them not really adding value - it was like their boss had told them to be there and they weren’t willing to go the extra mile. That person walked into that first-round interview at a real disadvantage. In this small industry, your professional reputation and profile is everything.