In a recent post, I asked my LinkedIn community to take a quiz consisting of 15 questions. Those who took it were honest about their LinkedIn prowess, or lack thereof. I promised in this post that I would reveal the entire quiz I give my clients.

The quiz I give my clients consist of 50 questions. If you decide to take it and don’t score 100%, don’t worry. There is always room for improvement. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t have a perfect score.

Some of my failures have to do with my inability to perform the “tasks,” some of them are due to caring not to perform the tasks.

We’ll start with the LinkedIn profile. I tell my clients that while it’s important to have a value-based, optimized profile, this is only one-third of the equation. Here we go.

Your Profile

Determined how you want to brand yourself, or deliver your message. Express this on your profile through the following. Answer “yes” or “no” to the following:

1. My profile is optimized with keywords. ___
2. I have a background image that is relevant or reflects my personality. ___
3. My photo is professionally done, or a buddy with a good camera shot it. (No selfies) ___
4. I have a headline that brands me with keywords or a tagline or both. ___
5. When you look at my Articles & Activity section, you’ll see I engage on LinkedIn. ___
6. My Summary, now called About, tells a compelling story that shows value. ___
7. My Experience section consists of accomplishments, not simply duties. ___
8. I utilize my Education section to the fullest. For example, I tell readers some of my accomplishments at University. ___
9. I show my Volunteer experience because employers like people who contribute to the community. ___
10. I list at least 30 Skills which are endorsed. (Job seekers, you’re given a break on the number of endorsements, but the employed should have at least 50 endorsements per skill.) ___
11. In my Recommendations section, I have at least 1 recommendation from a supervisor/manager for each position. ___
12. I’ve written recommendations for my employees, colleagues, vendors, etc. ___
13. My Accomplishments section has at least one of these: project, publication, patent, language, grades, courses. ___
14. I have at least media, e.g., audio, video, documents, Slideshare, in either About, Experience, or Education. ___
15. I post videos on a consistent basis. ___

Total number of yeses ___

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Another important part of your LinkedIn campaign is developing your network, which should be large, yet focused. The more homogeneous your network, the more value you’ll add to your connections.

Your network

1. My goal is to build relationships to land a job or increase sales. ___
2. I believe that building relationships is about giving. ___
3. I have 500+ connections. ___
4. At least 80% of my connections are in my industry. ___
   
5. I use All Filters to search for potential connections. ___
   
6. I search and connect with people using the Companies feature. ___
7. I search for people using See Alumni. ___
8. I know how to use Boolean Search to narrow my search. ___
9. Before connecting with potential connections, I read their profile in full. Well, mostly. ___
10. I send cold invites and include a personalized message. ___
11. I send invites with a personalized message using references. ___
12. I ask for an introduction from someone in my network to someone with whom I’d like to connect. ___
13. I thank people for joining my network. ___
14. I follow up with a message to new connections. ___
15. I make an effort to call or Zoom/Skype with my new connections. ___

Total number of yeses ___

Your engagement

Here’s where the rubber meets the road; thus, more questions. You’ve created a stellar profile, connected with people in your industry and some verticals; now it’s time to engage with your network and stay top of mind.

1. I spend at least 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week on LinkedIn. ___
2. I message my connections on a regular basis. ___
3. I occasionally use group messaging. ___
4. My comments are respectful, or I don’t comment at all. ___
5. I react (Like, Celebrate, Love, Insightful, Curious) to other’s posts. ___
6. I react (Like, Celebrate, Love, Insightful, Curious)  to other’s posts and write a comment for each one. ___
7. I write my own long posts. ___
8. I react and/or share articles written by my connnections’ or online publications, for example, The Muse. ___
9. I react and/or share and comment on articles written by my connnections’ or online publications. ___
10. I react to people’s videos. ___
11. I react and comment on other’s videos. ___
12. I produce my own videos. ___
13. I use LinkedIn’s Publisher to write articles. ___
14. When I share someone’s communications, I @ tag them. ___
15. I use the appropriate number of  # hashtags. ___
16. I endorse my connections. ___
17. I ask for and write recommendations for my connections. ___
18. I share my connections’ profiles with other LinkedIn members. ___
19. I give Kudos to my connections. ___
20. I use the LinkedIn mobile app. ___

OVERALL number of yeses ___

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Legend

• 45 out of 50 correct: Grand Master
• 40 out of 50 correct: Very Good
• 35 out of 50 correct: Good
• 30 out of 50 correct: Fair
• 25 out of 50 correct: Needs work

 

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Thank you for taking this quiz. If you are new to LinkedIn, don’t worry about your score; it will increase the more you use LinkedIn. If you are a veteran of LinkedIn, your score should be high. Maybe not perfect, but high.

As always, I’m interested in hearing about other questions I should add to this quiz. I’d like to increase the overall number of questions to at least 60.