LinkedIn just introduced a new tool to help users improve their profiles. Subtlety named:
“Improve your Profile”
Well – who can resist such a thing…
The old tool
Early on, LinkedIn introduced the concept of “profile completeness”.
This graded your profile on different factors and showed that you were “85% complete”. I dealt with this in The LinkedIn Personal Trainer, and have continued to answer questions about it at nearly every event.
LinkedIn figured out that people who filled out more details, connected to more people (that they knew and trusted), and reached out through introductions – had a better experience. So – they created an arbitrary completeness factor and communicated that to users.
If getting “more complete” helped your experience – great!
But it didn’t – and doesn’t – mean anything.
The new tool
The new tool will “analyze” your profile and suggest ways to improve it.
You’ll find it on the right hand side of the “Profile” screen:
Notice that there’s a whole bunch of other ways one can go – recommendations (almost always a good thing), multi-language, and completeness.
Add skills
When I select the tool, it suggests I add skills. That’s not a feature I’m planning to use, so it isn’t of much use to me.
But – anything that gets users to enhance their profile is a good thing.
Long time readers will recall my earlier articles where I comment on how empty many profiles are…
So yes…
If you need a nag to get moving on updating your profile, try it out.
Don’t expect it to be the same thing as having a personal coach that will guide you in filling out the profile. And if you’re not prepared to spend some time writing and editing, don’t bother – it won’t do that for you either;-)
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock