It appears I might have inadvertently offended a recently re-connected co-worker.
I could use some feedback here – tell me what you’d want me to do if we re-connected…
My personal connections
So yes – I maintain my own connections with the same philosophy that I talk about.
I have to know you, and I have to trust you.
(If your first interaction with me is to send a connection request, I’m pretty much guaranteed to ignore it…)
And I’m quite happy when people I’ve enjoyed working with find me and send an invitation.
Checking connections out
One of my first actions on receiving a connection request is to look at the other person’s profile.
I’m always interested in seeing where they’ve gone, and what they’ve done.
And that of course is when it happens – because I’m a writer/editor now…
Typos
And knowing LinkedIn as well as I do, I know it’s hardly ever a “good thing” to have typos on your profile.
(And if your profession includes the phrase “Six Sigma”, you better not have any!)
Well – If I really know and trust Mary Brown, and think highly of her, can I not say something?
Artfully telling someone they’ve done something embarrassing…
Maybe I’m not as artful as I think I am, or maybe I’m making too much out of it – I guess I’m not sure.
These well-meaning gestures mostly go unmentioned, and I often don’t hear from that individual for quite a while.
And not knowing is perhaps today’s issue.
If people don’t want to hear, I don’t want to be telling them.
But I’m thinking it’s like having a zipper undone…
Would you want me to say something?
So here’s my question – if a guy you know who’s written a book about LinkedIn visited your profile, would you want him to mention it if your summary said something like “Peter exshells with application software”?
Please – I really do want to know;-)
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
Yes, I would certainly want to know if you spotted a typo on my page! It seems to me that someone who doesn’t want to know only reinforces the conclusion that I would draw as a potential employer reviewing the profile – this person does not think that mastery of basic writing skills and attention to detail are important.
Thanks Juli!
Perhaps it’s all in my head and they have nothing to add;-)
steve
Yes, I’d want to know.
If you haven’t heard anything, perhaps go to the profile again to see if the misspellings you mentioned have been corrected. It would give you a hint as to how your suggestions were received.
I’ve been known to suggest to new contacts that they should sign their e-mails with a full name and include a signature block. Sometimes I get an appreciative response, but once I got a very testy reply. The initially strained exchange turned into a friendship with referred jobs back and forth, so you never know.
Paula,
Thanks for commenting – and for the suggestion!-) The contact has made the correction.
And I like your counter example. It’s one thing to have a huge-signature, another to have none. And in my time, I’ve sent at least a couple notes – saying something to the effect: really, 14 lines for a signature? In my defense, those 14 lines took about three minutes to transfer across the modem;-) I’ve stopped caring so much about it.
The day I want to stop taking advice is – well – I hope not to imagine that day arriving.
steve