Including an error that nine out of ten make!
It’s ok if you’ve made these same errors, but find out what to do about it here!
The process
It’s still the case that many LinkedIn users have left their profile alone for much too long. I was interested in seeing how prevalent some issues were. To make things fair, I searched for LinkedIn users that had the keywords “superstar” and “leader” in their profile – I figure that if they’re tagging themselves with these words, I ought to be able to take a look at their profiles.
This resulted in nearly a thousand profiles, and I had a closer look at the top ten results – who all happened to be 2nd degree connections.
1 – Missing a summary and specialty section
This is perhaps the most offensive error one could make – not taking the time to describe yourself in the summary, or failing to include specialties. I talked about this in “Build a Summary for your Profile” in 2008.
One user had what I have to call an inadequate summary and specialties section, just a two-line phrase about themselves.
But at least it wasn’t empty…
2 – Not grabbing a custom web page for your profile
LinkedIn is loved by all search engines, and your public web page is out there in the world.
Why would you want to be “www.linkedin.com/pub/john-smith/26/a95/791” when you could be “http://www.linkedin.com/in/SteveTylock”?
(Ok – the first is a fake, so don’t try to bother John Smith, and the second is me, so you can’t have it either – but you get my point, right?)
One of these ten LinkedIn superstar leaders still had the default…
3 – Not having any recommendations
The TLPT Recomendations archive has more than a dozen articles talking about them, but two of our superstars don’t have any…
That’s not your situation right? You understand how these help you turn skeptics into believers – especially if you’re trying to land a new job.
4 – Web link errors
Would you believe it if I said 30% of them didn’t have any websites listed on their profile? Or that 40% used the generic “Company Website” label?
Well it’s true! Seven out of ten superstar leaders came up short in this respect.
I told everyone how to display their blog’s name on their LinkedIn profile back in 2008, and it’s still valid.
And you should too.
(and yes, you ought to have at least one web site on your profile)
5 – Empty position descriptions
Nine one of the ten made this error – they left the description field of at least one position empty.
You know – where you get to describe why you were valuable, include keywords, and help people find you.
It’s part of the general process I outline in “The LinkedIn Personal Trainer“, and I’ll cover it with this statement: You have the opportunity to describe your own personal brand through your profile, don’t ignore it.
Making corrections
As I started with – it doesn’t matter if you’re in the same boat as these leaders, because you’ve got the means to correct it. And if you’re a friend, you’ll pass this advice along to those that also need it;-)
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
Hello, and thanks for any help in advance.
I have a very simple question re LinkedIn.
I used to have a short summary and short specialties section. I’m recreating my profile, so I emptied both out and entered a 1,999 character summary (just within the 2000 character limit).
But now I don’t see any specialties section listed separately as it was before I emptied it out. Do the specialties now have to be within the 2000 character summary? Is there no longer a separate section for them?
Thanks again,
A
A,
I don’t know – try an experiment and put a 1000 character summary in and see what you can do in the specialties. My suspicion is that the specialties has a smaller separate limit.
Because you shared your name with me, I looked up your profile and see both a summary and specialties section, so perhaps that was a temporary issue.
I do note that you could use a few recommendations – go ahead and ask a few key people;-)
steve