3 Ways to Upload Your Resume to LinkedIn

In today’s digital hiring landscape, LinkedIn is the go-to social media platform for professionals. It is an indispensable tool, offering myriad benefits to the modern-day job seeker. Besides being the world's largest professional networking site, LinkedIn is also the place where many hiring managers go to look for candidates to fill an open position, which means you should see your profile as a job application of sorts. 

It’s not enough to build a high-quality profile, decked out with a full list of your skills and a professional profile picture—you should also upload a well-crafted resume that outlines your qualifications a bit more succinctly. Any potential employer will want to see your resume, so if you have it readily available for them to view on LinkedIn, you’ll make their job that much easier and leave a positive impression right off the bat.

Also, the combination of a polished LinkedIn profile and a top-notch resume gives employers a better idea of what you have to offer. Your resume is professional and concise, while your LinkedIn profile is less formal and broader; together, they provide a well-rounded view of your qualifications as a candidate. 

Below, we go over the three options LinkedIn offers for uploading your resume to your profile. First, of course, you need a complete and impressive profile to upload your resume to. If you require help writing or overhauling yours, check out our LinkedIn services.  

1. Upload via Settings 

When you upload your resume using the Job Application Settings page, LinkedIn stores it so you can reuse it when you apply for open positions. You can save up to four versions of your resume, meaning you’ll have a few readily available ones tailored to specific types of jobs. Ideally, you want to submit a resume tailored to each individual position you apply for, but you can start by creating broad, all-purpose resumes for specific types of jobs.

If you choose this option, simply navigate to the Job Application Settings page and click "upload" under the "resume" section.

2. Upload when you apply for a job

LinkedIn doesn’t just allow you to create a profile, upload your resume, and passively wait for recruiters to find you—it also gives you convenient options to directly apply for vacancies you discover on the site and lets you upload a tailored resume when you do. 

When you find an opening you’re interested in, click on the "Easy Apply" button, fill in the required fields, upload your resume, and submit the application. LinkedIn recommends your document be either a PDF or a Microsoft Word file with a size no larger than 2MB. Just be warned that if you use a PDF, the company’s applicant tracking system (ATS) could have trouble processing it, which could get you kicked out of the race before anyone even sees your application.

3. Upload to your profile 

The first two options for uploading your resume are private, enabling you to create customized versions and share them with the desired parties. That’s great, but what if you want to make a broad, all-purpose resume available to the world? Uploading your resume to your profile allows you to share it publicly with your entire network. 

However, if you choose to go this route, you should consider the following potential problems:

• Your job search information will no longer be private. Everything on your resume will be available publicly, including whatever personal and contact information you include. Not only can anyone see it, but they can also download it without your permission. 
• This version of your resume will necessarily be generic instead of tailored for a specific job opening. This may prompt hiring managers to ignore it because they’re looking for the best candidate, and it’s hard to convince them you’re it if your resume is generic. 
• If you decide to upload your resume to your network, you will not be able to use it directly for job applications. You'll have to choose one of the first two options instead, but that’s not a bad thing as it gives you a chance to submit a tailored resume for each position.

Make it easy to find your resume

Now that you know the three options for uploading your resume to LinkedIn, make sure it gets the attention it deserves. To make your resume work for you, it needs to be of high quality. It’s obvious that you need a professionally formatted resume with clear, polished writing, but that alone isn’t enough—you must also optimize it with the right keywords not only to capture the recruiter’s attention but also to get past the ATSs that most companies use nowadays. 

You can generally determine which keywords to use for a given position by picking out the most prominent ones in the job description. When you find a position you want to apply for, look through the job posting and use keywords from it that also apply to your specific skills and experience. Incorporate as many as possible, but do it naturally, or your resume may sound weird. 

Using the right keywords will help the ATS separate your resume from the hundreds of others and increase the chances of a recruiter finding you. If you need help optimizing your resume, consider our resume-writing services.