By Brenda Bernstein
The Essay Expert

Have you always wondered how some people got really cool graphics into their LinkedIn Profiles? Is it magic? No, it’s easy!

All you need is your character map.

“What’s my character map?” you may ask.

If you are a mac user, I refer you to this forum.

If you are a PC user like I am, just go to your start menu and start typing “character map” into the search box. Or, if you don’t have a search box because of an odd technical situation (not that I know from experience about this..  ehhemm…) you can click on All Programs, then the Accessories Folder, then System Tools, then Character Map. If you want to see images for these steps you can visit 386solutions.

Here’s what you’ll see once you enter the character map:

Simply choose the symbol you want to insert into your profile and double click on it. The symbol will appear in the “Characters to copy” box.

Using this feature, you can insert foreign language alphabets, bullets of many varieties, and any other symbols that strike your fancy. You will then be able to create profiles that look like these (click to see full profiles):

http://www.linkedin.com/in/albertrosscrimaldi

http://www.linkedin.com/in/brendabernstein

Another trick is to insert a line across the page for emphasis. Lines take up 40 characters but I think they’re worth it. The easiest way to create a line in your profile is to copy one from someone else’s profile. Feel free to copy and paste mine!

If you want to experiment with different geometric shapes, or even letters in different languages, try copying and pasting your favorites from Wikipedia's List of Unicode Characters or (for foreign languages) use Google Translate. Or, I recently found CopyPasteCharacter.com, where you can easily find, click and paste characters into your profile.

Using a combination of graphic highlights, you can make your profile “pop” in a way that everyone else’s does not. In my opinion, it’s worth putting a bit of effort into any strategy that will keep people interested in reading past the first glance. Graphics can do that!