Please do not sit down on a rainy afternoon and think you can totally revamp your LinkedIn profile.

It takes introspection, planning, outlining, storyboarding, skill assessment, asking for recommendations, offering your  colleagues to endorse you for your skills, asking for recommendations, adding the extra sections that add spice to your profile (Publications, Certifications, Awards, etc.) and researching the links to use to support your achievements.

Yes, that’s just the beginning. Then you tweak the copy, edit it to fit to the character limits for each section, looks for tpyos, listen to Word read it back to you, then you make the changes that you think will make it shine.

Screech of brakes…

Your profile is not ready for primetime just yet. Now ask your 5 best colleagues to read the draft and ask them to be brutally honest with you: does it capture who I am and why I do what I do?

Need more work?

Get to it.

See, it’s a process. So is every investment you make in your career. Some have to ask for coaching help, others slog away.

Just don’t shortchange yourself by rushing through this self-defining  process.

You are branding yourself.

Look what Lois Geller wrote in her seminal article on branding:

“If you’re going to develop your brand, the last

thing you want to do is follow the beaten path.

You want to head down your own road. Your

brand has to plant itself in the hearts and minds

(especially hearts) of prospects and customers.”

Caution. Cerebral and emotional work ahead!