LinkedIn: What to Enter for “Current Position” When You’re Unemployed

LinkedIn encourages users to always include a current position on the profile. This presents a bit of a dilemma when you have left your position and are currently on the job market. Without a “current” entry, ranking in LinkedIn search results is penalized, and you can appear multiple pages lower in search results than you would have otherwise. 

Since job titles are so important to your LinkedIn SEO (Search Engine Optimization), it is not advisable to fill the “current” job entry with unrelated activity.

A better option is to make a current entry that describes the position you are looking for, with a job title along the lines of your target role. This can be approached in a similar way to what I advise my clients to do on their headline: Create a tag line that describes you and your goal, for example:

“Global Supply Chain Executive Open to Logistics & Distribution Opportunities”

The body of the current work experience can be used to tell the reader what skills and capabilities you bring to the table. Make sure it is rich in the keywords and phrases that a recruiter looking for someone with your talents will be searching on.

Your Headline does NOT have to be the same as what you just entered in the Job Title field for the current position (which is what will happen if you let LinkedIn fill in that field with its default information). Be sure to put some thought into customizing the Headline to succinctly convey your brand or value proposition, since the Headline is all that the recruiter will see initially in most search results.

And by the way, neither the Headline nor the Current Position field are the place to tell the reader your sad story about being laid off or currently unemployed for some other reason. Only positive information goes here!

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