LinkedIn Profile Changes in 2024

Hello friends, as we wind down another year together on LinkedIn. It’s been a year of significant change and constant disruption.

LinkedIn made hundreds of changes in 2024, some large and some small. For this end-of-year summary, I segmented out just the changes related to our profiles. I will also provide some advice on leveraging these specific feature changes.

Skills

The LinkedIn skills feature has gradually and radically changed over the last year or so. Now you can add up to 100 skills in the main skills section of your profile. Instead of spotlighting the top three, LinkedIn highlights the top two most prominently now.

You can now add some skills under About, Experience, Volunteering, Education, and Certifications. This is nice. Plus, it helps you to be found.

What to do with YOUR skills?

Be sure to list all your pertinent skills. Reposition the most strategic ones into the top two positions in the main skills section of the profile. Then, add relevant skills everywhere throughout your profile that make sense.

Here's my post ⬇️ about skills ………from the beginning of the year.

Public Profile

LinkedIn is changing the appearance of our Public Profile for people who aren't logged into the platform. This is too bad because many of our viewers arrive from Google. Less profile information will be available, unfortunately. The headlines aren't showing at all. The About section only displays the first line. On the positive side, some of our content is visible.

What to do?

Check your settings to make sure your Public Profile features what you wish. Even with the limitations, it’s smart to check this out.

Profile Verification

Profile verification is expanding to 16 more countries. And it is free, unlike other social media platforms. This is great news. The more people verify their profiles, the safer the platform will become over time for all of us.

What to do?

Verify your profile by uploading your driver’s license or other identity documents. CLEAR, the same people who handle our identity at airport check-ins manage this security feature for LinkedIn.

Profile Photo Options

Take your profile photo directly from your desktop or laptop now. Previously, this was only available on the mobile app. Look for the “use camera” option, as shown below.

What to do? Check to see if your profile picture is up to date. If not, why not try out this new feature? Alternatively, is it time to schedule a new professionally taken headshot?

Other Similar Profiles

"Other Similar Profiles" is now displaying to the right of your profile, and you can't do anything about it, unfortunately. This feature replaces the “People Also Viewed.”

This is a feature that provides most of us absolutely NO value. Why do we want LinkedIn to highlight our competitors on our page? We really don’t.

This feature benefits LinkedIn only because the site will rack up profile views. We previously had some control over whether to show this. I have a feeling that LinkedIn decided to take away our control just so they can keep users on the platform longer.

Resource Button

The More button on your profile is now called the Resources button. Check out the options that are part of Resources.

I posted about this and got some great comments and questions.

Here is the post. ⬇️

Open to Volunteering

Are you Interested in doing more volunteering? Now you can use the "Open to Volunteering" feature and specify your preferences.

Use it to discover personalized opportunities that match your skills and interests. You will select your preferences for causes, skills, and location. Your profile intro card will display your interest in volunteering too.

Learn more in my post. ⬇️

Premium Notes

We have seen some newer profile features that are only available for LinkedIn Premium users. These include:

·      Ability to add media to the Services Page part of your profile. Love ❤️ this.

·      Chance to add a custom button such as “request services”. Nice.

·      The brand-new rotating banner option. I can’t wait to get this one!

·      AI suggestions for your profile. So far, I am not impressed. YOU can do a better job than AI with your profile.

So, this is my quick profile list for you. I may have missed something, so please let me know if that is the case.

What do YOU think about these 2024 profile changes? What can you add?

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Looking forward to 2025

Happy Holidays. Please get in touch with me to see how we can work together in the new year.

 Let’s elevate your personal brand AND increase your organization’s visibility and impact.

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About Me

I am a global independent LinkedIn consultant, instructor, and speaker. I was honored to be named a LinkedIn Top Voice in 2024.

I am the author of a few best-selling books about LinkedIn. These include LinkedIn for Personal Branding: The Ultimate Guide. and Jumpstart Your LinkedIn Profile:67 Actionable Tips. I love hearing from readers on LinkedIn.

I also love ❤️ to speak to audiences and client teams.  I spoke about LinkedIn Community on the TEDx stage in 2019. I am very active with the New England chapter of the National Speakers Association.

For fun? Long walks and talks, outdoors, skiing, snowshoeing, boating, traveling, and trying to improve my gardening and cooking. I am a true New Englander, having lived in 5 out of the 6 New England states. Currently, I am living in my new home state of New Hampshire.

Thanks for reading my newsletter. I hope you will subscribe and also connect with me via LinkedIn. Please send me a note so I know to accept you. Happy Holidays to all.