LinkedIn remains to be one of the largest professional networking sites today – giving insight into the company and employee dynamic. When searching for a new career, keeping up with your personal LinkedIn profile and building your brand is an important aspect to any job search.

Your LinkedIn profile gives a quick snapshot of your experience and should be carefully constructed to provide recruiters with the most accurate depiction of who you are as an executive.

While an easy field to complete, adding a degree or certification level to the name portion of your profile increases the chances of coming up in recruiting search results. Following your name is the headline – a highly undervalued profile segment that should answer who you are, what you do and how you can help (Forbes, 2017). Consider this to be the most important aspect of your profile as it is, besides your name, the first and possibly, the last thing a recruiter sees.

Your summary should go one step further to engage with recruiters. This portion of your profile is suggested to include a summarization of measurable goals and attention grabbing achievements. It should answer who you are and what you do on a deeper and more intimate level. This field, while engaging, should be concise and effective. Ensure that if anyone stops looking at your profile at this moment, they have a good understanding of your current passions and future goals.

Your experience should be organized in a way that highlights how you handle problem-solution situations. Having quantifiable details that address what the problem was, the steps that were taken and the results achieved will quickly showcase your experiential skill set. As always, it is important to use key words and integrate the skills that were gained in each situation. Your professional experience is a way for recruiters to see if your achievements fit well based on what the company is looking for in a candidate.

By enhancing and articulating these sections of your LinkedIn profile not only will you grab the attention of recruiters and like-minded colleagues but it allows you to continue the professional demeanor that has been established throughout your professional career.

Performance reviews – a historically dreaded time in the office. Understanding how to take advantage of the review process and what personal and organizational improvements can be made will help both managers and employees alike to develop as an employee and contribute more to the company.

Meetings between manager and employee allows for the construction of individualized plans geared toward success. Not only do these conversations open a clear line of communication and transparency but they align company and employee goals and strategy. Setting goals that are smart, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (S.M.A.R.T.) allows employees to prioritize their work in the coming months based on personal and company goals.

And while performance reviews provide managers and employees the chance to speak openly about position performance, no review should come as a surprise. Employees should be aware of their strengths and weaknesses beforehand allowing the time allotted for a performance review to be focused on goals to improve or further success. The categories that are being evaluated must be clearly outlined to establish a clear line of expectations.

After the performance review, managers should take the time to review their notes that were taken during the meeting. Rather than stuffing the file into a folder and storing until the next performance review comes up, taking the time to map out a timeline of the milestones that the employee must hit to be considered successful is important to continue departmental success. This practice will not only provide managers the ability to map out their expectations, but it will also provide an insight into practices within the office that may require more focus.

One-on-one reviews are great to establish relationships between managers and employees; however, creating a system that allows the department to anonymously submit general feedback and personal role evaluation allows the opportunity for staff to identify micro-level needs regarding professional development.

It’s hard to believe that 2017 is already almost halfway done. Now, comes the time to take a look back and reflect on the goals set out at the beginning of the year and realign your priorities focus on your goals for the remainder of the year and finish strong!

While it may sound tedious, the number one priority for a leader approaching the second half of the year is building upon employee engagement and satisfaction. Satisfying existing employees will decrease the need for new talent acquisition. Engaged employees are happy employees, and those employees contribute positively to the overall success of the company. Defining career development initiatives and actively listening to concerns allows for employees to feel as if they can make a difference and impact on the organization.

As with every industry, new technology continues to shape the way organizations conduct business, impacting systems, processes, and people. And as much as some people may be trying to avoid the technological boom, the digital age is here to stay. It is important to keep up with technical innovation and develop strategies that advance the company to competitive heights. Innovative processes and new business models may need to be developed to support the movement. However, such implementations will lead to great success in the long run and will set you apart from other traditional companies.

None of these priorities are possible without satisfied employees that embrace the vision and strategy for the organization. Recruitment and retention should be a top priority leading into the second half of 2017. Think about establishing a formal recruitment strategy and hiring the talent of the future. This will significantly impact your organizational culture and create future success.