Executive Resume Branding™

Differentiate and strategically position your unique ROI for today's executive job search.

By

The 20 Most Common LinkedIn Mistakes

You probably know by now that LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool for personal branding and executive job search.

In case you don’t, get busy immediately building your branded profile, connecting with people, expressing your executive brand, and leveraging LinkedIn to full advantage.

But don’t make these 20 mistakes:

 

BUILDING YOUR PROFILE

1.  Not personalizing your LinkedIn public profile URL.

Many people leave the default mess of letters and numbers at the end of the URL. Change that to “yourname” or as close to it as you can come, as I did with mine – http://www.linkedin.com/in/megguiseppi

2.  Not including a photo.

Branding and career marketing are about creating emotional connections. People believe content more when it’s accompanied by the author’s photo. An online profile with no photo is a missed opportunity to reinforce your brand and engage people.

3.  Not adding links to websites or web pages.

Include links to your website, blog, VisualCV, Twitter or other online profiles, so people can get more on-brand information about you and see what else you’re up to.

4.  Not having a searchable professional headline that brands your unique promise of value and resonates with your target audience.

Make sure your relevant key word phrases show up in your headline so that recruiters and hiring decision makers sourcing top candidates by searching LinkedIn will find you.

5.  Having no (or only 1 or 2) recommendations.

Solicit recommendations that reinforce your brand and the best you have to offer.

6.  Not immediately generating chemistry in the Summary section with value proposition and differentiating positioning statements.

Capture attention above the fold and convince people to continue reading down through your entire profile. Include big numbers and brand names of your companies and customers.

7.  Not including your “Interests” in the Additional Information section at the bottom of your profile.

Talk briefly about your passions here and further generate chemistry to help hiring professionals get a feel for what kind of person you are. Writing a brief bit about your favorite hobbies may attract those who share the same ones.

8.  Not reinforcing your executive brand throughout your profile.

9.  Not proofreading and re-proofreading and having someone else proofread your profile for typos and grammatical errors.

10.  Not having a 100% complete profile.

LinkedIn suggests that when your profile is 100% complete, your chances of rising toward the top of LinkedIn searches greatly improves.

Here’s what you need to be 100% complete:

A current position
Two past positions
Education
Profile summary
A profile photo
Specialties
At least three recommendations

 

WORKING YOUR LINKEDIN MEMBERSHIP

11.  Not updating your profile regularly.

Refresh the “What are you working on?” network update as one way to stay top of mind with your network and let them know what you’re up to.

12.  Neglecting LinkedIn Groups.

Join appropriate groups, participate in discussions, and start your own conversations. Post articles and information that will be helpful to members.

13.  Inviting people you don’t know at all to join your LinkedIn network.

You run the risk of them clicking on the “I don’t know” button or “Report as Spam”.

14.  Automatically accepting invitations to join someone’s LinkedIn network.

Look at their profiles first and make sure you should connect with them.

15.  Not personalizing the default invitation to connect message.

Change the “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” message when you send out invitations.

16.  Not including a link to your LinkedIn profile within your email signature.

17.  Promoting yourself (or product) too heavily in LinkedIn Groups.

You can easily turn people off and make them want to ignore you.

18.  Not checking out LinkedIn company profiles.

See if your current and former companies have one and if companies of interest to you have one. Find out which co-workers on your company’s profile are busy on LinkedIn and connect with the ones you know. Research other companies’ profiles for market intelligence and due diligence.

19.  Overlooking the LinkedIn Jobs tab.

LinkedIn brings together many job postings, some of which are exclusive listings.

20.  Not diving into LinkedIn Answers.

Ask questions and provide answers within your areas of expertise. Position yourself as a subject matter expert.
 

And a bonus mistake to avoid:

21.  Not using the new LinkedIn and Twitter interface, updating your LinkedIn profile with all or select tweets.

For that matter, don’t neglect the other ever-growing LinkedIn applications.

 

 Related posts:

My Free e-Book: Executive Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile

My Best of LinkedIn Tips and Resources

LinkedIn Tips for Executive Job Search and Research

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tushar says

    Am I alone in thinking that the malaise of too many twitter and facebook and whatnot updates are really clogging up linkedin and putting people off? To know where you are stuck in traffic, what you had for breakfast and how your morning run went may be fine for your twitter followers but not for your linkedin business contacts – often your clients! Turn the auto-link to twitter off if you are going to tweet non-business stuff! I have removed many a connection because of this.

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Thanks for commenting, Tushar.

      I’m right with you on this one! Although I don’t chit chat much on Twitter, some of my tweets are uninteresting — “Thanks for the retweet”, “I appreciate the #FF support”, etc. I quickly learned that it wasn’t a good idea to auto-link my Twitter feed to my LinkedIn profile.

      You’re so right. The two don’t blend well in my opinion. You’re much better off spending time keeping up with relevant, on-brand LinkedIn status updates.

      Best,
      Meg

  2. Leila Sadi says

    Hi Meg,

    A very interesting article with useful suggestions that opened my eyes on mistakes I made on my profile and should correct them now. Thanks so much!

    Leila

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Thanks so much for commenting, Ed. Glad you found this post of value.

      Best,
      Meg

  4. Gerhard Terblanche says

    Meg Guiseppi
    General Comment

    We are marketing our vessel for charter to the international shipping industry.

    Linkedin is our least expensive marketing effort and we obviously did not expect fireworks.

    To our surprise our best leads were generated from Linkedin

    Thanks!

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Thanks for commenting, Gerhard.

      Great idea to leverage LinkedIn to market your business. I, too, get quality business leads through LinkedIn.

      I hope my post was helpful.

      Best,
      Meg

  5. Kelly Welch says

    Meg, what a great list! I agree wholeheartedly and I also want to include the fact that savvy recruiters and decision makers can tell alot about a person by the recommendations that they make. LinkedIn operates on the ‘pay it forward’ mentality, both from the introductions and recommendations standpoint. If there is someone in your life who has made a difference, shout it out in a reco! Thanks again for this terrific encapsulation in list format!

    Warmest regards,
    Kelly

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Thanks, Kelly, for your kind words.

      You’ve added a really important tip to my list. Paying it forward by giving insightful recommendations will greatly support your brand and position you as a valued colleague. Great point!

      Best,
      Meg

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Doug, I appreciate your kind comments. Glad my advice and resources have helped. And thanks for your re-tweet support, too.

      Best,
      Meg

  7. Meg Guiseppi says

    Sam, thanks for commenting and adding your important suggestion. Bringing your blog stream into your LI profile is a powerful branding tool.

    -Meg

  8. Sean Kelly says

    Very good list – great checklist, actually.

    One possible addition: If you are not sharing your contacts or have them marked as private, I would consider adding a notice to that effect. I think that it’s a negative when someone invites me (or vice versa), I accept, only to learn that I cannot see their connections while they have full access to mine.

    I understand the need for some to protect their connections (such as corporate headhunters), but it does feel a bit like cheating. Meg, what do you (and others) think?

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Thanks so much for your kind comments, Sean.

      You bring up a very good point. Obviously, it’s not fair to find out after you connect with someone that you can’t access their contacts. It would be nice if people made their sharing policy clear.

      -Meg

  9. Tony Gates says

    Meg –
    Thanks for putting this out there. I enjoyed reading it. It’s a great checklist to make sure you have everything in order.

    I would second your update mentioning the new Twitter interface. I would also second Marci’s comment about being unemployed. People won’t come to you asking if you want a job when they see it, so it serves no purpose. Create an effective brand, and doors will open.

    I’m passing this on to friends who are looking.

    Regards,
    – Tony

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Thank you kindly for your comments, Tony.

      I agree with you and Marci to avoid mentioning that you’re unemployed, especially in your professional headline. Better to use the limited space to pump up your value proposition message with relevant keywords.

      -Meg

  12. Dorothy Beach says

    Great post and comments as well. I would add to have a line devoted to the misspellings of your name and title within the top of the profile. Also, the “branding” part of this requires a repeat of keywords especially in the title, work experience description and summary. Note that recommendations enhance the search algorithm to place you higher in page rank.

  13. Marci Reynolds says

    Meg.. what a great list of 20 most common LinkedIn mistakes! I agree 100% with the advice.

    Here are a few LinkedIn mistake additions:

    * Avoid using slashes between critical keywords: example sales/marketing. Instead use commas with spaces. ex. sales, marketing. This will help to ensure your keywords & profile get picked up through the LinkedIn search technology.

    * Avoid promoting that you are unemployed or looking for a new opportunity in the status updates.. This is not just my opinion- this comes from an army of recruiters who are sourcing candidates. You want your brand to be something like “Global, VP Marketing and Social Media Expert” not “unemployed”.

    Thanks again for the great post!

    Marci Reynolds
    J2B Marketing

    • Meg Guiseppi says

      Thanks so much for commenting, Marci, and for your kind words.

      I hope my readers make note of your two important additions to the list.

      Best,
      Meg