Easy Step-by-Step Guide for Making a Great LinkedIn Account

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An easy-to-follow tutorial on creating a LinkedIn profile

Co-authored by Shannon O'Brien, MA, EdM and Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: May 29, 2024 Approved

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Creating Your Account

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Personalizing Your LinkedIn Feed

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Filling Out Your Profile

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Q&A

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Tips

Having a LinkedIn account and profile is a great way to build a business network so that you are able to find jobs and apply for them. This wikiHow teaches you how to create a personal profile on LinkedIn with expert advice from Amber Leima, career coach, and Pete Canalicio, brand strategist and award winning author.

Quick Steps

Click Join now on the LinkedIn home page.
Sign up with your email and create a password, or click Continue with Google.
Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your account.
Click Me in the top right corner of the screen once you get to the LinkedIn dashboard.
Select View profile to go to your profile.
Click the round picture of a camera to add a photo.
Click the pencil icons on the page to fill in your experience, education, and more.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Creating Your Account

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1
Open the LinkedIn webpage. It will open to a page with several text fields in the middle of it.
2
Click Join now under the sign in button. Making a LinkedIn account is free, and all you need to get started is an email and a password of your choosing.

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3
Enter your information. You'll do this in the fields provided on the main page. Alternatively, you can click Continue with Google to create a LinkedIn account with your Google credentials. Otherwise, you'll need to enter the following:
- Email: Your preferred email address at which LinkedIn can contact you.
- Password: Your preferred password for your LinkedIn account.
4
Click Agree & join. It's the blue button below the information entry fields.
5
Enter your personal information. LinkedIn will ask for your first and last name, your location, and your most recent job title or your school information if you're a student.
- Click the blue Next button between screens to move to the next page.
- You may have to do a captcha to confirm you're a human during this step.
6
Confirm your email. LinkedIn will send a confirmation code to the email you signed up with. Enter the code from your email and click Agree & Confirm to move to the next step.
7
Indicate if you're looking for a job. You can select either Yes or No, or you can pick Not really if you're not actively looking for a job but you aren't opposed to switching careers.
8
Add up to five jobs that you're looking for. Include job title and job location, or check the "I'm open to remote work" box if you are open to working from home.
9
Turn job posting notifications on or off. For each job you added in the previous step, you can either turn job posting notifications on or off by clicking the toggle.
- You can also decide if you want your profile to display that you're looking for work or not. To adjust this, click the toggle on the next page.
10
Download the LinkedIn app, if you want to. If you're not interested in the LinkedIn app, you can click through to the next page, where you can start personalizing your LinkedIn feed.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Personalizing Your LinkedIn Feed

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1
Select some people to connect with. If you already know some people on LinkedIn, be it friends, family, former colleagues, or current coworkers, you can connect with them on this page. Either click the Connect button under someone you know on the page already, or search for a name and click the Connect button next to their name in the dropdown list.
- Once you've added everyone you want to connect with, click the Next button.
- If you don't want to make any connections yet, click Skip for now at the bottom of the screen.
2
Select companies and people to follow. The people you decide to follow will determine the kind of information you see on your LinkedIn home page. Following is different from connecting in that the people you follow won't be able to see your posts or in-depth information, but you will see their posts on your home page.^{[1]
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Research source}
- LinkedIn recommends that you follow five people or companies that are relevant to your interests. Click the Follow button under some of the suggested profiles, and click Next to move on to the next step.
- If you don't want to follow anyone, click the Next button without clicking the Follow button. LinkedIn won't force you to follow any profiles.
- After you finish making connections and following profiles, you will have free reign with your LinkedIn account.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Filling Out Your Profile

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1
Click the Me tab. It's in the top right corner of your profile, directly to the right of the Notifications icon.
2
Click View Profile. This option is at the top of the Me drop-down menu.
3
Add a photo of yourself. To add a picture of yourself, click on the round image of a camera above your name, then select Upload photo to upload a picture of yourself or Use camera to use your webcam (if you have one) to take a picture of yourself.
- Profiles with clear, professional photos are much more likely to be viewed by employers, which can lead to more job and networking opportunities.
4
Add a cover image. On LinkedIn, this is also called a "background photo." Click the pencil button in the top-right corner of your cover image and select Upload a photo or Add a custom image. Select a professional-looking image that also shows off your personality. If you're a photographer, this is a great space to show off some of your work.
- Canalicio says that "you should look at LinkedIn almost like a digital form of your own personal website" and that "one of the benefits of LinkedIn is that you can really personalize it."^{[2]
  X
  Expert Source
  
  Pete Canalichio
  Brand Strategist & Licensing Expert
  
  Expert Interview. 2 February 2023.} He stresses to not let the cover image space go to waste, and suggests that your cover image could be a graphic outlining some of your accomplishments that help make you stand out.
5
Click the pencil icon back on your main profile. It's to the right of your profile image at the top of your profile page. Doing so will allow you to edit the following info in your profile intro (but note that this info is public for all LinkedIn users to see):
- First, last, and additional names: Your first and last name are required, and you filled them out when you were making your account. If you want to edit this name or add an additional name (such as a nickname or preferred name) do so in these fields.
- Name pronunciation: Phonetic pronunciation of your name. This can only be added with the LinkedIn mobile app.
- Pronouns: You can select he/him, she/her, or they/them from the dropdown. You can also select "custom" if the pronouns you use aren't listed.
- Headline: A catchphrase or brief personal description. By default, your headline will be your current profession at the company you work for (for example, "Writer at wikiHow").
- Current position: Your position at your current company. Click Add new position if you work multiple jobs and want to display them all in your intro.
- Industry: The industry you currently work for. Click the industry options link below this field to learn more about the options you can select.
- Education: Click Add new education to add education information to your intro.
- Location: There are separate fields for your country or region, your postal code, and your city. Your country/region and city are the only required location fields.
- Contact info: Click the Edit contact info button to edit your LinkedIn profile URL and add or change your email, phone number, website, and instant messaging info.
6
Click the pencil icon next to "About" to write a summary of yourself. The "About" summary should go over your education, employment, and any relevant personal experiences you have. You can also add a touch of personality by including some of your hobbies or accomplishments.
- Leima says to keep the "About" section short and sweet. "Avoid the boilerplate phrasing of the automatically-produced LinkedIn summary that it churns out for you, as this often doesn’t make much sense," she says. "For example, the fact that you have a 'demonstrated history of working in the automotive industry' will be abundantly obvious from the briefest glance at the rest of your profile, so you don’t need to waste space by including it in your summary."^{[3]
  X
  Expert Source
  
  Amber Leima
  Resumé Consultant
  
  Expert Interview. 18 March 2022.}
- Canalichio says that your "About" summary should explain who you are, what you do and what your mission is, and what qualifications you have to back that up. "If you put yourself in the shoes of the reader and think about what you would want to hear, what would that look like?" he says. "...I'm guessing it's something around the idea of 'Oh, I want to know all about this guy beyond just his name and his title.'"^{[4]
  X
  Expert Source
  
  Pete Canalichio
  Brand Strategist & Licensing Expert
  
  Expert Interview. 2 February 2023.}
7
Add work experience under the "Experience" header. When you are adding your experience for the first time, you'll click on the "+" button, but after you've added some experience you'll see both the plus button and a pencil icon. Click the pencil to edit your current info, and click the plus to add new info.
- When adding professional experience, you'll want to enter information about the workplace (i.e. what company, the company's location, etc.) as well as how long you worked there, what your title was, a brief summary of your duties, and any skills you learned at this job. This information is extremely helpful to have on your profile so potential employers can see what your skills are.
- Click the Save button when you're done adding or editing the "Experience" section.
8
Add your education information under the "Education" header. When you are adding your education for the first time, you'll click on the "+" button, but after you've added some information in this section you'll see both the plus button and a pencil icon. Click the pencil to edit your current info, and click the plus to add new info.
- This section will ask for the school you went to, what degree you got, your field of study, your start and end date, your grades, what activities you did, a description, and any skills you learned at school. Fill this section out to the best of your ability, though the most important information here is your school's name, your degree program and field of study, and the dates you went to school.
- If you don't have any college experience, you can include your high school education on your LinkedIn. If you end up going to university, you can remove your high school from your LinkedIn later on if you wish, or you can keep the information.
9
Fill out additional sections as needed. While "Education" and "Experience" are two of the most important sections to fill out, you should fill out as much information as possible in the following sections if it applies to you:
- Projects: If you worked on a project at your current/previous job, include it here. If you have a link to the project, you can add it to this section so other LinkedIn users can look at it as well.
- Skills: Fill out this section with as many skills as you can think of. These skills can help match you to job postings if you are looking for a job, and they give employers who are hiring a quick overview of what you can do.
  - Leima agrees that the "Skills" section is incredibly important for LinkedIn profiles, especially if you're looking for a new job. "Make sure your 'Skills' section is up to date with all the skills you have that relate to your current or desired field of employment. The more the better, as long as they’re specific—and, of course, true," she says.^{[5]
    X
    Expert Source
    
    Amber Leima
    Resumé Consultant
    
    Expert Interview. 18 March 2022.}
- Publications: If you've worked in a job where you were published (i.e. news articles as a journalist, research papers as a scientist, etc.) you should add them to this section of your LinkedIn profile, especially if you want to work in a career where you'll be publishing some sort of writing in the future.
- Courses: Most employers aren't asking for college transcripts, but you still might want to add to your profile that you've taken a certain class. This is a good spot to put classes you've taken for certifications, if your career requires them.
  - According to Leima, adding relevant coursework to LinkedIn is a great way to display this information without cluttering up your paper resume. "While adding coursework to your paper resume would usually add too much bulk, you can use LinkedIn to easily provide links to as much documentation as you see fit," she says.^{[6]
    X
    Expert Source
    
    Amber Leima
    Resumé Consultant
    
    Expert Interview. 18 March 2022.}
- Languages: If you speak more than one language, that makes you even more attractive to potential employers. List all the languages you speak and what level you speak them at. You can include your native language if you wish, but it's usually not necessary.

Community Q&A

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Question

If my husband and I have the same email address, how do we both register on LinkedIn?

Community Answer

You can't. One of you will have to create a new email account.

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What do i do if my spouse and I share an email account?

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You can create a personal email account for free. Common free email sites are Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo.

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Do I have to answer all of the questions when setting up my account?

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Yes, you are required to answer the questions and also to read and agree to the terms and conditions.

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Tips

Look for member-hosted groups that are relevant to your interests. You can further expand your network by reaching out to people in these groups.

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When posting an update, be sure to keep it general, positive and professional. Importantly, don’t give people an unwanted look into your personal life or anything unprofessional.

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Share your LinkedIn profile URL in your favorite social media sites or messaging apps. This will help you create new connections.

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