Because LinkedIn is the premiere place for connecting and searching for work, it makes sense that you might want to upload your resume.
But if you’re a first time LinkedIn user, or even someone who’s been using it for years but isn’t an expert user, then you likely have questions on how to use the platform.
The simple answer is that you can upload a resume to LinkedIn. However, it’s not something that is that simple.
You have to determine if it’s actually beneficial to upload a resume to your LinkedIn profile. After that, you need to figure out how you are going to actually upload your resume to LinkedIn and how to make it look good.
Finally, we can discuss why a resume isn’t the major factor when creating a LinkedIn profile.
Do You Need to Have a Premium LinkedIn Account?
Ok, the first question to address is if you need to have a premium LinkedIn Account in order to post your resume.
Many people assume that you need to have a paid account in order to upload anything. And that’s not correct. Maybe it is due to some misguided blog post somewhere (most of which are written by people who have never used LinkedIn or recruited) or perhaps you just never looked around the dashboard.
But the fact is that you don’t need to pay for LinkedIn. Not something that LinkedIn sales reps would want you to know, but it’s the truth.
There are lots of reasons why you would want to have a paid LinkedIn account, but none of them have to do with uploading a resume.
I’ll cover this in a separate article, but basically a premium LinkedIn account is only needed for recruiters and sales executives. If you’re a job seeker, then you really don’t need all of the bells and whistles.
It does not cost you anything to post your resume online on LinkedIn. It’s free, and is easy to do even with a basic free LinkedIn account.
Is It Bad to Post Your Resume to LinkedIn?
Before I go over the process of uploading your resume to LinkedIN, let’s discuss if it’s ever a bad idea to post your resume online.
Can there be any reason at all to not put your resume on LinkedIn? Why would it be bad to upload your resume to a website that is geared to finding work?
Well, there are a few reasons why I do caution people to think about posting their resume up on LinkedIn.
First, it advertises that you’re looking for work. This is not something that you really want your current employer knowing about.
It’s fine to connect with recruiters on LinkedIn, but to plaster your resume online when you’re still employed is a big no no. Many employers will take a really negative view of employees who post their resumes on LinkedIn. They may then begin to transition their employers out and plan how to replace them.
If you are not working, then obviously there is no problem with alerting your employer as you don’t have one!
Honestly, I would say that most recruiters would tell you that they rarely use the resumes that they find on LinkedIn. Most of the time they ask the people they are head hunting to send over a CV via LinkedIn messaging or else via email.
The essential thing for you, as a job seeker, is to find work and one of the methods of getting access to jobs is to connect with a recruiter. So, it's sometimes better to use a recrutier in addition to applying directly.
Step by Step: How To Post Your Resume to LinkedIn?
Alright, so you still want to upload and post your resume on LinkedIn. Here’s how you will do it.
The first step is to make sure you have the resume located on your computer. You are going to need to upload it via a file upload in the LinkedIn dashboard.
So, find the resume and label it and then you are ready for the next step.
When you log into your linkedin account, you should head over to the profile section. There is a sectioned called “add a section”. Click that. Then, there will be an option for media.
This is where you will upload your resume. Your resume is the “media” that you will upload.
It’s important to note that this is not an intutitive design. It’s actually sort of a complicated work around for a better design feature that isn’t present.
Part of this cumbersome design is due to LinkedIn being a social networking site for job seekers. The entire design of the LinkedIn platform is such that it doesn’t need to have resumes.
People basically upload their resume as media, which isn’t the best approach. Remember, this is not Indeed or some other job search site where the primary or only method to view and review peoples work history is via some resume.
LinkedIn attempts to replicate and replace the resume by their own means.
That’s why I say to anyone who asks that it’s really not necessary to place your resume on LinkedIn. The job titles and the information you fill out are more important than an actual resume that you might upload.
Don’t Rely on the Resume Alone for Linekdin
The entire reason you should be using LinkedIn is that it is a professional networking program. It’s not a resume database. The design of LinkedIn is such that you don’t need to upload your resume, there are design features in it’s UX and interface that render the traditional resume useless.
What I always advise people to do is to make sure that you have all of your job titles and job details written up as perfect as possible.
Your LinkedIn profile is basically a replacement for the traditional resume. That's why it's important to make sure it's tight, professional looking, and comprehensive. If it's not, then you might not hear back from a recruiter.
And I’ll let you in on a little hint, recruiters don’t ever bother with the resume that you put up on LinkedIn. They are always going to ask you to send them one. Why? Because the format that LinkedIn allows via their Media upload makes the resume look terrible.
Recruiters are going to message you and want you to send them a PDF or a Word version.
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