Career pivot? How do you present the “new you” on LinkedIn?
Career pivot? How do you present the “new you” on LinkedIn if you want to do a career pivot and you want to reinvent yourself for your next career step?
Whether or not you are a veteran, you may be considering how you want to reinvent yourself or do a career pivot in your next career step.
How do military terminology or terms you used in a past industry work on LinkedIn?
What if you were a stay-at-home mom wanting to reenter the workforce after taking time off to raise a family?
What if you want to change industries and start a new career path?
You need to know what you want to be when you grow up! You need to know the direction and path you want to follow in your next career move.
If you need to explore that concept because you are unsure, there are many career assessment resources and career coaches who run assessments.
When you start looking for a new job, you will hopefully pick a lane and stick in it, and hyperfocus on that role. That way, you can target your key titles, keywords, and your positioning statement on LinkedIn to focus on your future-forward aspirations.
LinkedIn is a database, and it’s full of key titles and keywords.
Where can you explore keywords? There are a couple of ways listed in the article How Keywords Help you Win on Your Resume & LinkedIn Profile that include:
- Looking them up in the Jobs tab on LinkedIn
- Looking them up on Google Trends
- Using LinkedIn’s Resume Builder
Where can you weave in your keywords on your LinkedIn profile?
- Headline
- About Section
- Embellished job titles and in the text in your work experience
- Skills Section (which you can also connect to your work experiences)
- Publications and Projects
What do you do if you were in the Infantry Airborne Division and wanted to be in Business Development? You can highlight your transferable skills.
How does a homeroom mom or school fundraiser shine? Did you plan and execute events? Raise $X? Build a team (of other moms)? There are transferable skills in what you accomplished!
What if you turn to more mission-driven work, perhaps in a nonprofit? Maybe you are interested in changing from a career in real estate to healthcare or vice versa. You need to use the keywords on your profile that you have qualifications for that relate to your future forward position. In the About section, you can state that after x decades in the xxx industry, you want to do a career pivot to xxx.
What if you are a business owner and sold your business and want a W-2 job? There is a story you can tell about this.
I have helped people start their careers fresh out of college, advance in their careers, return to work, and pivot in their careers from self-employment or another industry, so I know reinvention is possible. I have changed industries seven times with experience working in corporate, nonprofit, education, and self-employment.
You are in sales and marketing when you are a job seeker. You will be selling and marketing yourself, but it does not come without work and preparation.
You must open the refrigerator door or get in the car to fetch food if you want to eat. It takes some effort, as does managing your career.
Today is Veteran’s Day, and I want to thank all veterans who have served, are serving, or will serve our country. I love this quote below cited in the article Use LinkedIn to Thank Veterans for Their Service.
“A veteran – whether active duty, discharged, retired or reserve – is someone who, at one point in his/her life, wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America, for an amount of up to, and including, his/her life.”
NEXT STEPS
- Subscribe to my newsletter on LinkedIn for bright ideas to manage your career.
- Join as a member at https://greatcareers.org/membership of the #1 business networking association on the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Book of Lists two years in a row!
- Register on the events page for these upcoming online events.
- If you need a resume or LinkedIn profile to get you to your next step, book a call to chat!
- Follow #GreatCareersPHL
AUTHOR BIO
Lynne M. Williams is the Executive Director of the Great Careers Network, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides career education and networking connections for 1) job seekers in career transition, including veterans, and 2) employed and self-employed for career management. She is also the President of ChemPharma.net and runs a Clubhouse session on Fridays at 11 AM ET in the Thought Leadership Branding Club.
Aside from writing keyword-focused content for ATS resumes and LinkedIn profiles, Lynne is currently writing her doctoral dissertation on LinkedIn for Job Seekers. She is a contributing author on “Applying to Positions” in Find Your Fit: A Practical Guide to Landing the Job You Love along with the late Dick Bolles, the author of What Color is Your Parachute?, and is also a speaker on career topics.
This article is also published on: vista.today, montco.today, delco.today, bucksco.today, and in the author’s LinkedIn newsletter. A list of articles can also be found in a Google doc.
