LinkedIn for Building Products Sales Professionals. Part 2 of 7.
Recruiters spend about 7.4 seconds looking at your LinkedIn profile. Photo, banner, headline. That's where most of the attention goes.
But here's what candidates don't realise. Before I even click into your profile, I've already made a snap judgement based on two things. Your current job title and your current company.
It's muscle memory. After 10+ years recruiting in building products, I know most of the companies in the sector. I know what they sell. I know who they sell to. I know their routes to market. So when I see "BDM at Etex" or "Account Manager at CSR" in a search result, I already have context before I've read a single word of your profile. I know roughly what products you're working with, what kind of customers you're calling on, and whether that experience is relevant to the role I'm filling.
That works in your favour if your profile is accurate and up to date. It works against you if it's not. If your current role still says you work somewhere you left two years ago, you're giving me the wrong context before we've even started.
Around 80% of recruiters check LinkedIn before making contact with a candidate. 87% of employers use it to evaluate people before making hiring decisions.
Your profile isn't a formality. It's doing a job for you whether you've thought about it or not. The question is whether it's doing that job well.
Not sure where to start? Take the 5-minute readiness check.
The dual purpose most people miss
Here's where salespeople in building products have an advantage if they think about it properly.
Your LinkedIn profile needs to do two things at once.
First, it needs to speak to your current market. If you're a BDM selling cladding to architects and builders, your profile should position you as someone who knows that world. When a specifier or project manager looks you up after a meeting, your profile should confirm what they already suspect. That you know your stuff.
Second, it needs to act as the best resume you've ever had. When a recruiter or hiring manager finds you, your profile should make it immediately obvious what you sell, who you sell to, and what you've achieved. Not a list of responsibilities. Proof of results.
Most profiles do neither. They read like a half-finished CV from 2019 with a job title and a company name and nothing else.
What I see every day (and what it costs you)
I review hundreds of LinkedIn profiles a month. The same mistakes come up constantly.
Incorrect timelines. You left a role 18 months ago but it still shows as your current position. You're listed as working at two companies simultaneously because you never updated the end date. Most people don't realise how this looks. To a recruiter, it creates confusion. To a hiring manager, it raises questions. And if I'm searching LinkedIn for candidates in a specific company and you come up because your profile says you still work there when you don't, that's a wasted conversation for both of us.
If you've just accepted a new sales role specifically, work through the day-one update pass for sales reps starting a new role before you touch anything.
No detail in the experience section. Just a job title and a date range. "Business Development Manager, 2020 to 2024." That tells me almost nothing. What did you sell? Who did you sell to? What territory did you cover? What did you actually achieve? The candidates who stand out are the ones who include project wins, revenue figures, territory growth, and specific examples. Not generic responsibilities that anyone in the role would have. Actual proof that you made a difference.
Duplicate profiles. More common than you'd think. Someone created a LinkedIn account years ago, forgot about it, created a new one. Now there are two profiles floating around, one of them outdated and potentially showing up in search results. If you've got a duplicate, you can request LinkedIn delete it through their help centre. Search your own name and check.
Old profile photos. I've met candidates in person who look nothing like their LinkedIn photo because the picture is eight years old. I'm guilty of this one myself. Didn't change mine for eight years. It doesn't need to be a professional headshot from a studio, but it does need to look like you. Profiles with a clear photo get up to 14 times more views than profiles without one. And 71% of recruiters have said they've passed on candidates because of an unprofessional or outdated photo.
Unclear role titles. Some companies give their salespeople titles that make sense internally but mean nothing to anyone outside the business. If your official title is "Growth Partner" or "Commercial Solutions Executive," consider adding a translation. Something like "Growth Partner (Business Development Manager)" so that recruiters searching for BDMs actually find you.
What your headline should actually say
Your headline is the single most important line on your profile. It's the first thing people see in search results, in connection requests, and when you comment on posts. It's also one of the most heavily weighted sections in LinkedIn's search algorithm. Profiles with keyword-rich headlines get roughly three times more recruiter views than those with generic titles.
Most salespeople just use their job title and company name. "BDM at ABC Building Products." That's fine but it's a missed opportunity.
A better headline tells people what you do, what you sell, and where you operate. All in one line.
Instead of: "Business Development Manager at Smith Roofing"
Try: "Building Products Sales. Roofing, Cladding, Insulation. Melbourne and Regional VIC."
Or: "BDM. Architectural Lighting. Specification Sales to Architects and Designers. Sydney."
The goal is that when a recruiter, hiring manager, or potential customer reads your headline, they immediately know three things. What you sell. Who you sell to. Where you are.
What your About section should do
Over 50% of LinkedIn profiles are incomplete, and the About section is one of the most commonly skipped. That's a problem because it's one of the first things a recruiter reads after the headline.
Your About section shouldn't read like a cover letter. It shouldn't start with "I am a results-driven professional with a track record of..." Nobody reads past that line.
Instead, answer these questions clearly.
What do you sell? Be specific. Not "building products" but "architectural cladding systems, facade solutions, and external wall systems." Keywords matter here because LinkedIn's search uses them to surface your profile.
Who do you sell to? Architects, builders, developers, specification consultants, electrical engineers? Name the buyer groups.
What problem do you solve for them? This is the bit most people skip. If you help architects find compliant cladding solutions for multi-residential projects, say that. If you help builders source competitively priced roofing for volume housing, say that.
What impact have you had? Revenue growth, territory expansion, market share gains, key project wins. Numbers make it real.
The best About sections speak to both audiences at the same time. A hiring manager reads it and thinks "this person knows what they're doing." A customer reads it and thinks "this person understands my world."
Your experience section is where most people lose
The experience section is where the real damage happens. Most profiles I see have a company name, a job title, a date range, and nothing else. Or worse, a paragraph of generic responsibilities copied from a position description.
Here's what actually works.
One clear line under each company explaining what you sold and who you sold it to. Example: "Specification sales of commercial lighting products to architects, interior designers, and electrical engineers across Melbourne and regional Victoria."
Then the wins. Not responsibilities. Not "managed key accounts" or "developed new business opportunities." Those are expected. They're the minimum. What actually made you good at the job?
Think about it in terms of: what you sold, the problem you solved, who you solved it for, your impact with numbers, and specific project examples.
Examples that work:
"Grew territory revenue from $1.2M to $1.8M in 18 months by converting three major commercial builders from competitor products."
"Specified cladding systems on 14 multi-residential projects worth a combined $22M in the 2023 financial year."
"Rebuilt lapsed account base in regional NSW. Reactivated 40+ dormant accounts, delivering $380K in new revenue within 12 months."
Compare that to: "Responsible for managing existing accounts and developing new business in the territory." One tells me what you did. The other tells me what anyone in the role was supposed to do.
Use AI to do the heavy lifting
Here's where it gets practical. You don't need to stare at a blank screen trying to write the perfect About section or experience bullets. AI can do the hard part for you.
Over 50% of long-form content on LinkedIn is now likely AI-generated. That's not a reason to avoid it. It's a reason to use it better than everyone else. The trick is to use AI as a tool to sharpen what's real, not to invent a version of you that doesn't exist.
Here are prompts you can copy and paste straight into Claude, ChatGPT, or whichever tool you use.
For your headline:
I'm a [your role] selling [your products] to [your customers] in [your location].
Write me 5 LinkedIn headline options that include what I sell, who I sell to, and where I operate. Keep each under 120 characters. No corporate jargon. No buzzwords. Plain English.For your About section:
Here's my current LinkedIn About section:
[paste your current About section]
Here's my CV:
[paste your CV or a summary of your career]
Rewrite my About section for LinkedIn. It needs to speak to two audiences: potential employers (recruiters and hiring managers) and my current market (customers, specifiers, and industry contacts).
Include: what I sell, who I sell to, the problem I solve, my impact with numbers, and my career background. Keep it under 300 words. Write in first person. Australian English. No corporate jargon. No "results-driven" or "passionate." Direct and clear.For your experience bullets:
I worked as a [role] at [company] from [dates].
I sold [products] to [customer types] across [territory/region].
Here are my key achievements:
[list anything you can remember: revenue figures, project wins, territory growth, new accounts won, accounts retained, market share gains]
Turn these into 3-5 LinkedIn experience bullets. Lead with the achievement, not the responsibility. Include numbers where possible. Short sentences. No fluff.For a full profile review:
Here's my full LinkedIn profile:
[paste everything]
Review it as if you were a recruiter specialising in building products sales in Australia. Tell me:
1. What's working
2. What's missing
3. What would make you skip this profile
4. Rewrite the sections that need improvement
Keep the tone direct. Australian English. No corporate speak.The key with all of these: feed in real information. Your actual achievements, your actual numbers, your actual products and customers. AI is good at structuring and polishing. It's not good at inventing your career for you. And if the output sounds too slick or generic, edit it. Swap out words that don't sound like you. The goal is clarity, not perfection.
The featured section and other quick wins
A few more things worth doing while you're in there.
Featured section. Pin your best LinkedIn posts, any articles you've written, or links to case studies and project examples. If you've got nothing to pin yet, that's fine. Come back to this after you've been posting for a month.
Skills. Make sure the skills listed on your profile match the keywords recruiters actually search for. If you sell cladding, "cladding" should be a skill. If you work with architects, "specification sales" should be there. Think about what a recruiter would type into the search bar and make sure those words appear on your profile somewhere.
Banner image. Your banner is prime real estate that most people leave as the default LinkedIn blue. Use it. It could be your company branding, a photo from a project site, or a simple graphic with your contact details and what you do. It doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to not be blank.
Quick action checklist
If you want to sort your profile this week, here's where to start.
1. Update your headline. Include what you sell, who you sell to, and where you operate.
2. Rewrite your About section using the AI prompt above. Feed in your real career details.
3. Add achievement bullets under every role in your experience section. Numbers, projects, wins.
4. Check your timelines. Make sure start and end dates are correct and you're not listed at an old company.
5. Update your photo if it's more than two years old.
6. Search your own name on LinkedIn and check for duplicate profiles.
7. Add relevant skills that match what recruiters search for in your sector.
8. Use your banner. Put your contact details or a clear statement of what you do.
Complete profiles receive up to 40 times more opportunities than incomplete ones. That's not a vague claim about "visibility." That's the difference between showing up in searches and being invisible.
Here's something most people don't know. Your LinkedIn profile can be downloaded as a PDF. It comes out surprisingly well formatted. Clean layout, clear sections, easy to read. I've personally used downloaded LinkedIn profiles to put candidates forward for roles instead of waiting for them to send me an updated resume. It speeds up the process significantly.
Think about what that means. If your profile is detailed, accurate, and up to date, a recruiter can present you to a hiring manager before you've even opened Microsoft Word.
And here's the other side of that. When you do eventually send your resume, if the quality doesn't match your LinkedIn profile, it shows. I see it all the time. Someone has a great LinkedIn profile but their resume is a mess. Different formatting for each role because they've been adding sections over the years without cleaning up the old ones. Different writing styles where the recent roles are polished and the older ones look like they were written by a different person. It's obvious and it creates doubt.
A well-maintained LinkedIn profile solves both problems. It can stand in for your resume at short notice, and it forces you to keep your career history clean and consistent in one place.
Your profile is working for you 24 hours a day. Make sure it's saying the right things.
I'm a specialist recruiter for the building products industry. James Bowesman runs Specified Select, a boutique recruitment consultancy based in Melbourne.
If you're a sales professional in building products thinking about your next move, or a hiring manager looking to build your team, get in touch at james@specifiedselect.com
If you want a profile review from someone who actually knows the building products market, get in touch at james@specifiedselect.com
This is Part 2 of a 7-part series on LinkedIn for Building Products Sales Professionals. Part 1: Clean Up Your Network | Part 2: Your Profile Should Sell You Twice | Part 3: What to Post and What to Stop Posting | Part 4: The Phone Still Wins | Part 5: Stop Broadcasting, Start Engaging | Part 6: When to Take It Offline | Part 7: LinkedIn for Job Seekers | Part 8: After You Accept a New Sales Role