Keeping your professional presence up to date can feel like a big task, but a quick refresh of your CV, LinkedIn profile, and email signature can make a huge difference. In this latest episode of Beyond Bites, Emma takes you through simple yet effective ways to tidy up these key touchpoints, ensuring you're easy to find, contact, and hire!
Key Takeaways
CV Spring Cleaning: The 30-Second Test
Your CV needs to pass the 30-second rule, if a hiring manager can't grasp what you do in half a minute, it's time for a refresh.
- Make it scannable – Reduce long paragraphs and use bullet points.
- Prioritise key info – Place a skills section at the top, highlighting core abilities.
- Check your job title – Ensure it's industry-recognised and not just an internal company term.
- Update contact details – Make sure phone numbers and emails are correct.
- Portfolio links – If you have a portfolio or case studies, check that links work and are easy to find.
Email Signature: A Small Detail That Makes a Big Impact
An overlooked email signature could mean missed opportunities.
- Include your job title & specialism – This makes it easier for contacts to find you in their inbox.
- Ensure all contact details are visible – Don’t make people search for your phone number!
- Use the same profile photo as LinkedIn – This builds consistency and recognition across platforms.
LinkedIn Profile: Optimise for Search & Visibility
Your LinkedIn profile is a powerful tool, make sure it’s working for you.
- Headline matters – Use industry-standard job titles and include specialisms and sectors.
- Update contact details – Avoid outdated email addresses or broken links.
- Revamp your About section – Highlight key skills, industries, and experience.
- Use hashtags – Add relevant industry hashtags to your About section for better discoverability.
A quick spring clean of these areas can dramatically improve how potential employers and clients perceive and find you.
Full Transcript
I'm going to take you through how you can spring clean your CV, LinkedIn profile, and email signature in no time at all.
CV Spring Clean
So, we start with your CV. Often, the CV is a really big task, and today we're just looking at a few key points that might make a really big difference.
First of all, that is whether your CV passes what I call the acid test, the 30-second rule. If someone reads your CV, can they, in 30 seconds of scanning through it, really get an understanding of what you are about and what you can do for them?
If they can't, if you've got too many paragraphs or too many words and it's really hard to read, then you need to relook at your CV and create more bullet points. Have a think about putting your skills section right at the very top, and that skills section can be padded out into certain sections.
Make sure, again, those are easy to read, whether that's bullet points, a client list, or, if you have any key achievements, putting those at the top of your CV as well.
Job Title
Then we come to your job title. There is no job title police, as long as you're not professing to be more senior or someone that you're not, i.e. the MD of the company.
But if your business says that your job title within their world calls you a Principal Creative, and that doesn't make sense in the rest of the creative world, then you need to look at what your job title was and what you're calling it so that whoever's reading your CV knows and understands what you can do in their world.
So, look at whether your job title is correct for the industry that you're in. If it isn't, then feel free to change it.
Contact Details & Portfolio
Secondly, your contact details. There are so many people who either forget to put contact details on their CV or have old contact details on there and haven't changed them.
And thirdly, the link to your portfolio. If you have a portfolio or case studies, is it easy to click through and read through them? Is the link working?
Look at all aspects of your CV as if you were a complete stranger. Take a step back and in 30 seconds, can you get what you do? Can someone contact you—are all your contact details correct? Can they find your portfolio easily?
So, those are your top CV spring cleaning tips.
Email Signature
If we move on to your email signature, email signatures are quite important, and a lot of people totally overlook this.
If your email signature just says, "Thanks, Bob," then you're missing the key fact that a lot of people store CVs or emails in folders. So, if they don’t need you now but might need you in the next few months, they need to be able to find you again.
Your email signature, you need to have a think about what you call yourself. If you're a copywriter, you could say, or if you're a freelance copywriter, you could say "Freelance Copywriter specialising in e-commerce and SEO."
Therefore, if they're searching for that in their Outlook inbox and thinking, "I saw a freelance copywriter pop up a few months ago. Let me put freelance copywriter and SEO," then your email will come to the top.
So, remember that you can be found that way in someone's inbox.
Make sure as well that in your email signature you have contact details, so that someone doesn’t have to open the link again to get in touch with you.
And then thirdly, what I would do as well is put the same photograph from your LinkedIn profile at the bottom of your signature sign-off.
That way, people can see who you are. If they choose to go onto LinkedIn to see if they're connected with you or to learn more about you, then they can see that it's the same person, because sometimes people have very common names.
Thirdly, they may recognise you from LinkedIn, and if you've been actively posting or commenting on posts, then it just builds a bit of affinity.
So, don’t neglect your email signature sign-off.
LinkedIn Profile Spring Clean
And then lastly, we come to your LinkedIn profile.
A very quick spring clean of your LinkedIn profile. Absolutely, number one is your headline.
Your headline is a fully searchable field, and it needs to really actively convey, as I said earlier, whether your job title is correct for the industry you're in and for the job that you're doing.
It doesn’t have to be the exact same job title that your company has given you. So, change it to reflect the jobs that you're applying for and the industry that you're in.
But it also needs to cover off the sector you’re in, and then, if you have any specialisms.
For instance, you may be a Senior Graphic Designer working in FMCG and retail agencies, specialising in point of sale and packaging. You can put all of those in your headline.
If you're the same person but as a freelancer or contractor, then do put the words "Freelance" or "Contract", so that you can be found the exact same way.
Check Your Contact Details
Secondly, look at your contact details. Often, people have websites that are out of date, links that are out of date, emails that no longer exist, or emails from companies that you no longer work for.
So, make sure that the contact details in your LinkedIn profile are all up to date.
Optimise Your About Section
And then thirdly, look at your About section.
Your About section should really cover off what you're about (funny enough!) and all the skills that you have.
So, list those skills out, list the specialisms that you have, the industry sectors that you're in, and what you can also do at the bottom of that About section is put some hashtags.
Many people follow hashtags, and you can put hashtags for the various different sectors, skills, and job titles, just so that you know you're going to be relevant and coming up in those searches.
Final Thoughts
So, hopefully that helps you spring clean all of those key touchpoints, and that's been really useful for you today.
For more Beyond Bites, do head to our website btbpeople.co.uk and you'll find a few more hints and tips.
Otherwise, have a great day!
Thank you, bye.
