Don't Be A LinkedIn Loser - 8 Ways To Lose Credibility

By Carmen Jeffery

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It's too bad LinkedIn doesn’t have spell check. I've seen it all - "Chef Executive Officer ", "Prsident", "Busness Analyst", Humnan Resources `you know the drill.

It doesn’t stop me from working with someone, heck I'm human, and I make typos. Sometimes I send a friendly inmail, “hey you need an i in Chief". That said, it looks bad and shows poor attention to detail and a weak command of the written word.

People can really goof up on LinkedIn. Here are 8 ways to lose credibility, especially if you're looking for work.

1) Forwarding Spam about new apps, products or services to your network, if you're sending it chances are half the recipient's network is too.

2) Sending default invites to potential hiring managers or recruiters, “I’d like to invite you to my network" tells me you've just done a high volume blast and no research.

3) Endorsing people you've never worked with. It looks desperate, even though it`s a nice way to be seen by their network and land on their profile page.

4) Badly managed Privacy Settings. They can broadcast too much to your network, a.k.a showing every person you connect to and every edit you make to your profile. If you're job seeking while employed you don't want your colleagues or boss to see a flurry of this kind of activity. Under your Account and Settings field, directly below your photo, you'll see Privacy Controls. That's where you can set yourself up to be a little more discreet.

5) Looking like a lurker - hide your identity in Privacy Controls if your activity requires frequent visits to a particular person or group of people. People get creeped-out when they see you on their page every day...not everyone reacts by sending a note to say “how can I help?"

6) Looking bad - please post a professional looking photograph of yourself, not you and your dog or spouse ( unless you're a vet, animal psychic or work in tandem with your significant other ) . I once saw a guy whose profile was a close up of his face and half of his girlfriend’s hair; I couldn't tell if he was wearing blonde curly extensions or what?

7) Looking Young – come on, don’t post old pictures from 5-10 years ago, if you’ve acquired a significant amount of grey hair, weight or wrinkles, you’ll shock people when you meet them in person.

8) Make sure your recommendations are related to what you do for a living. I blush when I see people I'm researching with recommendations from their brothers, aunts and mothers as testimonials to their great personalities - OUCH!
 

Author Info

Check out my website to learn more about me and the work I do:
www.i-identify.ca

You'll see my Blog, my approach to recruitment and what I've been up to on Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

I'm a freelance recruiter and job search coach based in Toronto, Canada. I have a passion for working with growth companies and sourcing their interim or full-time executives. My 15 years in recruitment encompasses work with technology start-ups as well as companies who are going through transformation and change. I thrive when I'm working with dynamic teams who achieve great things with the ground moving beneth their feet.

 

Image credit: Nan Palmero

 

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