In December 2010, the Los Angeles Times contacted LinkedIn officials to glean some tips on what current users are doing right and what they’re doing wrong based on employer feedback. The company shared some great tips, which can easily apply to commercial real estate agents.
First, the bad news. LinkedIn officials stated that employers were not fond of empty, superficial and often over-used phrases that many users wrongly believe will beef up their profiles. The top offenders, according to the Times, were “entrepreneurial,” “results-oriented,” “innovative,” “proven track record” and “fast-paced.”
Next, the good news. Officials noted that there are three great ways to beef up resumes without these hollow words. According to LinkedIn’s experience, hiring managers respond well when a user provides specific information about himself. This includes hard numbers, detailed anecdotes that exemplify your character or work ethic and profiles that feature headshots.
These details should be easy to add if you’re a LinkedIn user in the commercial real estate field. Being in the sales business, you likely already have a headshot on file. So upload it to your profile. Next, list a few details about your sales activity.
If you haven’t done that many deals, list the number of cold calls you make in a day, week or month. You can also discuss any deals that you’ve assisted with, or the number of neighborhoods you’ve canvassed. The point is to nail down concrete details about your commercial real estate activity.
If you’re a more experienced agent who’s looking to join a major firm, you might discuss your transaction volume or the number of square feet you sold last year in your LinkedIn profile.
Providing an anecdote should also be easy. Discuss one of your more challenging deals or a cold call prospect who resisted you at first but eventually agreed to a meeting. This would also be a great opportunity to talk about one or two of your sales or negotiation tactics and how they’ve worked for you.
Once these do’s and don’ts are tackled, don’t forget to review your profile for completeness. Finally, always proof-read any content you add or edit before you save your changes.