By Danielle Mellema, Chief Ghostwriter, Digital Content Manager

LinkedIn is a useful tool for healthcare professionals who want to connect with colleagues, keep their finger on the pulse of their industry, and stay career-move ready. But with all the activity on LinkedIn, it can be hard to know how to keep your presence on this platform from getting lost in the noise.

If your LinkedIn profile and engagement is feeling a little blah, here are a few small changes you can make today to help you stand out on LinkedIn:

If your LinkedIn profile’s About section sounds like it was written by ChatGPT (“With over 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Jane Doe is a hospital executive who…”), then try this:

Think about how you’d describe your career in a conversation, not a professional bio.

Your About section gets top billing on your profile, and a dry, cookie-cutter bio is not going to help you stand out in a competitive marketplace. Craft an About section that sounds like it was written by a human with something to offer the world, and let your accomplishments and your personality shine. 

Imagine you were chatting with a new connection at a networking event and they asked you to tell them more about yourself and your career. What would you say?

Most likely, you’d give more than your professional stat sheet—how big a budget you’ve managed or how many service lines your hospital has. You’d talk about your strengths, passions, experiences that have shaped you, and the things you’re eager to learn and the growth you’re pursuing. You can still include some career highlights, key accomplishments, or specialty areas in your About section, but don’t make that the first thing people see.

Additionally, use first-person pronouns (e.g. I, me) throughout your profile, instead of impersonal third-person pronouns (e.g. she, him, their). This is your story that you’re telling, after all.

Want some more guidance on making your About section sound less generic and more like you? Let us know.

If you’ve been putting the bare minimum amount of info in your Experiences section (I mean, who has the time to add more than the job title and employer, anyway?), then try this:

Take five minutes to add one accomplishment to each of your most recent positions.

The Experiences section is basically an interactive resume. Fair or not, visitors to your profile will make instant, unconscious assumptions about who you are as a professional based on the content and how it displays visually.

Here are a few five-minutes-or-less ideas for how to improve your Experiences section:

• When you type in the organization you worked for, make sure it links to that employer’s LinkedIn page. It will display the logo of that employer and looks more professional. If you have your own consulting or freelance business, then create a company page.

• If you’ve held several positions with the same organization, make sure you select the same company page, so that your various positions are “nesting” under the organization name and displaying how many years you’ve invested in that organization.

• Describe each role in 2-3 sentences.

• Add at least one major accomplishment to each position you’ve held.

If your engagement on LinkedIn consists of liking other people’s posts and occasionally sharing a link to an article someone else wrote, then try this:

Create and share your own content.

You have worked hard and learned a lot in your healthcare career. You’ve had unique experiences and know a thing or two about leadership and putting your expertise to work in an ever-changing industry. You don’t need to be shy about it!

Often, even the most impressive, dedicated professionals question what they’d write about, or whether anyone would even pay attention with all the other noise online. But everyone has something they’ve given their all to accomplish, expertise that was hard-won, a realization that is helping them be a better leader, or something they’ve observed in their industry that gives them pause or a story that brings them joy. The willingness to share those things with others is part of what sets leaders apart.

Creating your own content is another way you can leverage your LinkedIn presence to stand out amidst the competition. If you’d like to brainstorm topics for your digital content and get help drafting articles that will help you to share your expertise and experiences, reach out to us.