When I was job searching last summer, I was coming off a stint as a sports marketing manager at Spikeball. Over time, I had become a jack-of-all-trades with experience in video editing, graphic design, marketing, events, and social media – but as the idiom goes, I felt like a master of none. 

I wasn’t sure which lane to lean into for my job search and lacked confidence in choosing just one discipline. One thing I fully trusted was the success of people who use social media to hire and be hired, particularly on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking social media channel. 

Since all my skills were interconnected, I chose to present them on LinkedIn with clarity and confidence, and I quickly found that projecting the full picture was the right thing to do.  

Attracting the eyes and interest of the right people  

I soon received a message on LinkedIn from my now manager, Jenny Battershell, about a social media role with Goodwin Recruiting. At the time, I felt as though this Director of Marketing had entered my metaphorical room and figured me out as a professional. She affirmed that I was a good candidate for the job. 

Jenny’s profile and Goodwin Recruiting’s strong presence on LinkedIn were impressive, so in turn, I felt they were an ideal employer. Our connection was a success. My position as Goodwin Recruiting’s Social Media Coordinator is a perfect fit that uses my collective skills and experience. And I got the job because I made my online room current, purposeful, and tidy.  

Whether you’re an active job seeker looking for a new role or a recruiter or hiring manager looking for your next great hire, elevating your presence on social media is an important and rewarding place to build your candidate persona or increase your professional brand awareness. 

The benefits of keeping your account current on LinkedIn 

Job candidates, corporate hiring managers, and talent recruiters are wise to pay close attention to their presence on social media, for several reasons: 

• It legitimizes you as a professional and your organization as a great place to work. 

• It establishes you and your firm as subject matter experts or thought leaders. 

• It helps you find new job opportunities, attract top talent, and generate new business leads. 

A current and compelling online presence leaves no doubt that you take your professional life and employer brand seriously! 

Who are you more likely to connect with on social media? 

There’s more to a LinkedIn profile than simply stating your current role, experience, and work history. What others see instantly influences whether they want to engage with you for a new job opportunity, an open role you need to fill for your company or client, or to expand their network with industry peers. 

Consider these options in deciding who you want to connect with on social media. 

Option A: Would you choose to connect with someone whose profile projects… 

• a professional headshot   

• a succinct profile headline that defines the person’s role, goal, or intent  

• a professional network with more than 2,000 connections  

Option B: Or would you be inclined to engage with someone whose profile projects this… 

• a default profile image (no headshot)   

• no profile title or headline  

• fewer than 50 professional connections   

I think most of us are going with Option A because it builds credibility and trust. Strong social media profiles are critical for potential employees to see, and for talent recruiters and hiring managers in the hiring process. Your profile is a first impression and you only get one chance to make a good one!  

Top tips for expanding your social media presence 

While having a great profile on LinkedIn is an essential first step, keep in mind that the most successful job candidates, talent recruiters, and corporate hiring managers are also active participants on social media. 

They regularly share informative and insightful posts with their networks, interact with posts from their connections, and participate in LinkedIn Groups that align with their professional interests and industries. All of these expand professional networks, build reputations, and create new opportunities. 

Here are my top three tips for increasing your presence and connections through social media interaction.

1. Publish different types of content

Social media posts created with graphics or videos tend to be more eye-catching. When you post something, it’s great to receive ‘likes,’ but what you’re really after is engagement in the form of comments, shares, and saves. These interactions from others boost your posts so that you reach more eyes beyond your existing network. 

That said, there’s not one type of post that consistently performs better than others (with one trending exception noted below – native document posts). Use a combination of mediums – graphics, videos, polls, and textual posts. You never know what’s going to hit the algorithm and put your posts in front of new audiences and professionals with whom you can connect and build valuable relationships. 

Which types of posts see the most engagement on LinkedIn? 

Socialinsider’s 2026 LinkedIn Benchmarks report examined the best-performing LinkedIn post types based on the analysis of 1.3 million LinkedIn posts from 16,645 LinkedIn business pages. Here’s what they discovered: 

• Native document posts – a PDF, PowerPoint, or Word file uploaded directly to a post, which LinkedIn converts into a swipeable, interactive carousel – generate the highest levels of engagement out of all LinkedIn content types. 

• Posts containing multiple images drive more likes across the board. 

• Engagement has grown across all formats – videos (+7%), images (+9%), and text posts (+12%).

Other recent research suggests that simple expertise explained clearly often beats polished personal brand theater. What does that mean? Less guru. More substance!  

How to monitor your engagement rates on LinkedIn

There’s an analytics tab on all LinkedIn member pages, where you can see how your content is performing and compare what types of content are working best for you.

A good social media engagement rate is usually around 1% to 5%, depending on the platform (on LinkedIn, it’s around 1% to 3%), and rates above 6% are considered excellent.

We compared several post types over the past few weeks by Goodwin Recruiting and were thrilled to see these engagement numbers!

• Image post on remote jobs we are filling – 9.78% engagement rate (759 clicks and 7.7K views)
• Video/gif post with a blog link on “5 Ways to Spot True Leaders During Job Interviews” – 6.91% engagement rate (87 clicks and 1.26K views)
• Poll directed toward HR professionals – 6.7% engagement rate (1,751 clicks/responses and 26.1K views)
• Document Carousel with multiple slides on career switch advice – 45.12% engagement rate (786 clicks and 1.7K views)

Explore and try it all to see what works best for your personal story or professional message.

2. Engage – and above all, be authentic in posting content 

If you haven’t made a habit of posting on social media or are nervous about doing so, don’t worry. Everyone starts somewhere. Just know that engaging on a platform like LinkedIn has the power to take you where you want to go. The more you flex that muscle, the more comfortable you’ll become, and the more you post, the greater traction your posts will gain over time. This is about personal brand-building. 

Here’s the most important thing: People want to see you BE REAL. If you’ve spent much time on social media, I think you’ll agree that over time, it has become increasingly performative, earning a reputation for having a certain voice and a lot of rather stuffy, corporate, and promotional jargon, like, “I hope this finds you well,” or “Here’s how to increase revenue by XX%.” 

Be original. Be you. Let your real voice shine through your posts. Write it yourself and embrace what makes you human. Post about what day-to-day life is like for you, or how parenthood teaches you lessons about yourself, how your hobbies help you relax and regenerate, or news that has impacted your life. Show yourself as a multifaceted human being – not just about what goes on in your professional life. 

If you don’t know where to start, look around with new eyes while you’re perusing social media. What catches YOUR eye? What makes you want to comment on or share someone’s post? How can you use those examples as inspiration for posts you can create on your own?  

3. Don’t be afraid to specialize in a business sector 

There are many talent recruiters who never turn new clients or candidates away, even if those organizations and professionals are outside the usual verticals the recruiters serve. And there are a lot of job candidates who promote every industry they’ve ever worked in and every skill set they’ve acquired, even though doing this can cloud what they’re really after in their professional lives. 

The issue with recruiters working in unfamiliar spaces is that they get pulled in different directions and end up spreading themselves too thin. And candidates who muddy their career goals with irrelevant experience don’t appeal to the many employers and recruiters who are looking for right-fit talent. 

Specialization is a big driver in hiring decisions in today’s competitive hiring and job markets. For this reason, I recommend streamlining your work by focusing on a maximum of three to four industries. Do this for your own sake, your clients’ sakes, and your candidates’ sakes. 

In the same vein, I recommend changing your LinkedIn headline to reflect your streamlined focus. For example, a recruiter might showcase “Top Hospitality, Accounting, and Finance Recruiter” – and a candidate might show, “Demonstrated IT Leader in Manufacturing and Retail.” This way, at a glance, your potential connections know exactly what you’re about. 

Specializing doesn’t mean you’ll pigeon-hole yourself. It means you’ll sharpen your expertise and find more people in your niche, where you will succeed by connecting, growing, finding or filling job openings, and helping one another. 

Get tailored guidance for your talent search and social media accounts 

Whether you’re an employer in search of top talent or a professional looking for great job opportunities with leading employers, reach out to our team of experts at Goodwin Recruiting. Our recruiting partners are located nationwide and excel in helping companies and job candidates find success – including in the ways they present themselves online. 

Get in touch with a Goodwin Recruiting Partner today.