If you follow any of the mainstream media about LinkedIn you’ve probably been hounded to “remove these overused words from your profile!”
Please allow me to set your mind at easy – there’s no reason to worry.
I’d be happy if any one of you tells me you’ve spent time on your profile and used half of those words!
Overused
Says who?
I mean if you’re creative, why shouldn’t the word creative appear in your profile?
It appears that LinkedIn published a similar list last December – it looks like they might get into an annual sort of mode with this. Well – you can read last year’s post about The Hubub About LinkedIn Profile Language too… (And because it appears to generate some sort of Buzz, I’ll have to publish an annual “who cares!” rebuttal as well…)
The average LinkedIn user has not spent nearly enough time on his or her profile, and now someone’s going to say that just because more people use the word “effective” than “firstborn”, anyone who does should be looked at suspiciously?
But why?
I mean, if you want to give advice to users to help them stand out, why not take on the fact that 2.45 million people use the word “software” in their title?
Let’s look at some other word counts – and this is a search from my account, so it’s certainly some subset of the 135+ million users…
- First – 1,478,466
- One – 1,527,048
- Have – 2,127,712
- Time – 2,227,537
- That – 3,237,135
- New – 5,339,381
So what if 317,619 people use the word “motivated” in their profile – if more than ten times as many use the word “New”!
Stand out
You can stand out from the crowd by simply taking the time to add to your profile, review it for errors, and use the space to develop your personal brand.
And don’t worry about what anybody else says…
Bigger fish to fry
Ok, If you pressed me at the holiday party I’d admit that perhaps some people overdo cliches – but for everyone who does that, there are ten others that need to add to their profile. And that’s a more significant issue to tackle.
Happy holidays, and to your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock