LinkedIn or left out.

• Author: Schaffer, Neal
• Position: Business & Finance - Ways for searching a job

IF YOU HAVE BEEN in today's job market for more than five minutes, you know that it is a complex, competitive, even cutthroat environment that is difficult to navigate. Not only is the market overflowing with highly qualified individuals but, to complicate matters, the job search and application functions of yesteryear no longer are valid. If you simply update your resume and e-mail it off to a hiring manager, you probably will be left twiddling your thumbs for a long, long time while other applicants get all the interviews.

Whether you like it or not, you need to take your job search on the social media road but, even then, there are numerous do-and-don't rules you need to follow, and the most important place of all to cross your t's and dot your i's is your LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn continues to evolve at a fast pace, but many job seekers' profiles are stuck in past years. That is a big problem, because an increasing number of businesses use LinkedIn to find prospective employees and fill openings. So, if you want to maximize your chances of landing that interview, you need to consider your LinkedIn profile to be the front page for "the website of you"--a place that summarizes who you are, what you represent, what your professional history is, and your area of expertise.

If you are asking, "Why LinkedIn?" the answer is clear: it is a professionally geared site that is focused on the quality, rather than the quantity, of its users; it is fertile ground on which to find and develop meaningful networking connections.

From a demographic perspective, LinkedIn is very different from other social media channels in that it has a very influential, affluent, and educated audience. According to reported data, more business decisionmakers, people with household incomes exceeding $100,000, and college and postgraduates are LinkedIn users than the physical distribution audience of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times. That definitely is a group to whom you want to be showcasing your skills and experience.

Whatever activity you do on LinkedIn, it always will lead people back to your profile. Think of all the time and effort that businesses put into investing in creating a well-branded and strategic website. Have you spent even a fraction of that time thinking about how to create a strong professional LinkedIn presence? If not, read on to learn what you must have:

A serious photo. You always should have a professional picture represent you--wearing office-appropriate attire and avoiding distracting backgrounds, and no cocktail-in-hand photos or on-the-beach vacation shots. You might be tempted to go photoless if you do not already have an appropriate picture, but keep in mind that having a visual will increase your CTR (click-through rate) after people find you in LinkedIn search results. Actually, LinkedIn itself has asserted that profiles with photos are seven times more likely to be viewed by others and, besides, if you want to...