Why Linkedin is stuck in the 20th century

By Neil Patrick

Yes I know. It’s a provocative headline. Sorry LinkedIn. But note I didn’t call this “Why I hate LinkedIn” (which I don’t) or “Why you should quit LinkedIn” (which I don’t think we should). But paradoxically, I do think LinkedIn is saddled with a 20th century take on the careers world. And this is why.

It all goes back to how LinkedIn was originally conceived. And that was largely as a tool for recruiters and headhunters to find people with particular skills and experience. Founders Jeff Weiner and Reid Hoffman recognized 11 years ago that the internet had yet to make much impact in the vast global business of recruitment and networking. And that the potential for an online platform that could assist this industry was immense.

It was launched in May 2003, three months before Myspace, one year before Facebook and three years before Twitter. And it reflected the world as it was then. Not as it is now.

In this post here I talked about the zero marginal cost society and the things we need to do to have a chance of career survival in it. The pace of technological progress is outstripping the abilities of humans and society to develop fast enough to keep up. And that’s a problem.

But let’s get back to why I think Linkedin is stuck in the 20th century.

It’s simple really. Linkedin mandates that we can only be one thing in our professional lives. We can only have one career and can only be specialists in one field. Of course I know that we can display all sorts of competencies on our LinkedIn profile. And sometimes this solves the problem. But not always.

Let’s say for example you are both a copywriter AND a chef. Not an unlikely possibility in this age when neither of these occupations pay especially well for most people. You can put both things on your profile. But you are immediately forced into a compromise. Are your a chef or a copywriter? Your networks for these two areas of your life are virtually completely separate. The skills for both have few overlaps. And the result is that you are forced into a compromised profile, in which you cannot shine neither as a writer, nor as a chef.

Linkedin only allows any of us to have one profile. That’s it. We cannot be more than one thing at one time. It’s like the old Russian proverb which says, ‘If you chase two rabbits, you’ll catch neither”.

This may be a constraint for us, but it suits LinkedIn’s business model and their main customers (recruiters). It also is a throwback to what I called the "world of ones" which I described here. In essence, the world of ones is a 20th century hangover in which everyone was expected to serve one career, one employer, one partner, one monarch and one God. And today, Linkedin wants us all to be just one thing at a time in our careers.

The zero marginal cost society, the second machine age, or the third industrial revolution, call it what you will. But the 21st century world requires adaptation,flexibility and rapid skills acquisition from its people. This means that overlaps in our career activities will become more and more of a necessity.

Not the one label, one specialism box that LinkedIn wants us all to fit neatly into. That’s a 20th century viewpoint and one which I think is passing its sell by date fast.

I suspect that one reason that LinkedIn wants things this way is to try and keep its network clean of imposters and fake profiles. That’s good for the whole community.

But it’s not helping the increasing numbers of us who are trying to succeed in more than one field simultaneously. Those of us who have more than one competency. And those of us who are attempting to build a wider and more diverse skill set to try and have a chance of becoming flexible and multi-skilled enough to survive in the 21st century.

And that's why I think LinkedIn is out of date already, just ten years or so after it's creation...

Ironic isn't it?

If you have any thoughts about this topic, do please share them in the comments below.

What’s the best way to write your LinkedIn Profile?

By Neil Patrick

The web is full of opinions about the best way to write your LinkedIn profile. And they mostly make one big mistake. They assume that there is a single ‘correct’ way…

Last night I enjoyed a great debate with two friends who I think are well qualified to give an expert view about the best way to write a LinkedIn profile.

One has over 10,000 connections on LinkedIn, so you might call him a power user. The other is a full time professional resume writer and LinkedIn profile writer.

Our discussion was all about the best way to present a LinkedIn profile. Is there a single best way, or does it depend on the individual, i.e. different strokes for different folks?

Should it be written in the first or third person?

Of course we’ve all read and written a good deal about the best way to write a LinkedIn profile. We also have between us many years' experience of helping others with their profiles. So we compared notes and experiences and set out to debate some of these ideas and hopefully arrive at some fresh conclusions.

The debate started with the question, ‘What’s best, writing a LinkedIn profile in the first person, i.e. I am..., or the third person, i.e. he/she is...?

We focused not on the mechanics of content as an SEO-orientated writer might, but rather the impression a profile makes on its readers. At the core of this question is a dilemma:

How can we show off our accomplishments and expertise without sounding conceited and frankly like a bit of a jerk?

The first opinion that tumbled out was that if someone is making great claims about their successes, and uses the first person, then the reader is given one of two impressions. Either, if they have reason to trust the profile, they believe it and think “Wow, this person is a real high flyer”. However, if they are a more skeptical reader, they are inclined to think, “What an arrogant show off…I don’t believe half this stuff!”

But if we have genuinely achieved some amazing things in our careers, then it’s only right that we should present them on our LinkedIn profile. So how can we do this without appearing conceited?

Using the third person dissolves skepticism

We felt that in this case, using the third person is a better tactic. Whilst we still may never satisfy the biggest skeptics, at least our profile reads as if it were written by someone other than ourselves. So that’s a way to appear less conceited. The downside however is that it makes us appear less approachable and somewhat aloof. But if you have a great many outstanding achievements in your career, this may be the best compromise.

Facts are facts, adjectives are merely opinions

The second idea we debated was the issue of fact vs. opinion. I happen to believe that a fact-based profile is a good choice for those who have significant career accomplishments.

So what’s a fact-based profile? Well it contains nothing but simple facts of course. It doesn't have hyped-up meaningless adjectives like ‘driven, results-focused, inspiring, dynamic’. As I wrote about here, I think these words are really dangerous, unless they can be backed up by independent evidence.

If you say you are dynamic, what is your metric for measuring that? Compared to whom are you dynamic? Might it just be a lazy way of trying to spin the fact that, “I get bored easily, rush about and neglect details?" So the best way to turn this weakness into a strength is to say I’m ‘dynamic’? Sorry I’m not convinced!

So the second point is that adjectives are really risky. Careless use of ones which are simply there to puff up the impression you create can very easily do the exact opposite and just make you look arrogant and/or sloppy.

But I really am an authority and expert…

But let’s say you are a genuinely highly respected expert in your field and people think very highly of you. Well don’t say it yourself, use what others have said instead. Eg. ‘Described by xyz magazine as one of the foremost thinkers on renewable energies’. Doesn't that sound a whole lot better than, ‘I’m a leading authority and expert on renewable energies.’?

You might be thinking, "that’s fine, but no-one has written anything favorable about me ever." Really? I think you are deceiving yourself. Think back to your appraisals when you were given positive feedback. Remind yourself about how you were introduced last time you spoke at a big meeting or conference. Think hard enough and you’ll find plenty of true and relevant material.

It's a fact. Most people just don’t give enough thought to their profiles. They rush through them, eager to get on to the next task in their to do list. Don’t. Give it quality time and care. But don’t worry you have to get it perfect from the start. Make it as good as you can. And come back to it to refine it when you next have some downtime.

Early stage career people can still have content rich profiles

The third point was that for those people who are early on in their careers, they’ve simply not had enough time to rack up extensive accomplishments. But even so, there’s still plenty of keyword rich material you can use in your profiles. Like the name of the software you used on your final year college project; the name of the business you worked for in your summer vacation, the cities you spent time in during your gap year.

The bottom line we concluded is that there is no ‘correct’ one size fits all answer. And then because we all had beers in hand, our discussion turned to other subjects not so relevant to this blog!

So next time you read a load of tips about the best LinkedIn profile, I hope these points help give you some perspective. If you agree or disagree with anything in the post, do please post your thoughts in the comments below.

The easiest LinkedIn search rank tune up …ever!

By Neil Patrick

Want to improve your LinkedIn search rank without spending a heap of time? Here’s the best tip I know…

Most professionals I work with want to have a high ranking on LinkedIn search against the keywords that are relevant to what they do.

That’s a good goal and one that is worthy of pursuit.

The trouble is as I have talked about elsewhere on this blog, there are not too many shortcuts to achieving this. You need to build a sizeable quality network. You need to share content. You need to engage. All this takes time.

And because time is at a premium for almost everyone these days, this goal gets little or no attention dedicated to it. And the result is that most people’s profiles stay stuck on page 9 or whatever of a search.

But there’s a simple and powerful way to increase your search rank position on LinkedIn, which takes no time at all.

Whilst I cannot tell you the precise workings of the LinkedIn search algorithm (and outside of the LinkedIn organisation, neither can anyone else), most search algorithms include components which count and appraise the number of links from elsewhere on the web that a page has.

And your LinkedIn profile page is no different.

Now you say, “Ah yes, but I’m not famous or high profile enough to have such attention”.

Well neither am I!

But my name appears all over this blog. And a few other people have been kind enough to mention me on their blogs and websites.

All I do is try and make sure that everytime my name appears elsewhere on the web, it appears as a link to my LinkedIn profile page.

That’s it!

It’s not a spammy SEO trick. It’s not deceitful; it’s even helpful to anyone who might want to know a little more about me for any reason.

So everytime your name is about to appear online in the context of you as a professional, just take a couple of extra seconds to convert it to a link to your LinkedIn profile page.

If you do this as matter of routine, over time the links will mount up. And unless your Linkedin peers also know this, your search rank will be on a steady upward trajectory!

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

How recruiters use LinkedIn to headhunt

By Neil Patrick

What goes on inside the head of a headhunter?

Last week I met up with a recruiter who is an old friend of mine. He’s been a recruiter for over ten years and for once we had time to just chat. That’s a rare situation, so I took the opportunity to quiz him about how he and his colleagues use LinkedIn to search for job candidates.

Here’s what I found out:

Recruiters use LinkedIn all the time to find the candidates they seek

If you want to be recruited, you need to be on LinkedIn. But that’s simply not enough. You need to be an active rather than a passive user.

According to a survey carried out by Bullhorn, 48% of recruiters ONLY use LinkedIn for candidate searching vs. 1% that use Twitter and Facebook.

So it’s clear which social media platform job seekers should prioritise.

What’s more, on average, recruiters add 18.5 new LinkedIn connections every week. And you want to be one of them.

ACTION: If you’re not already on LinkedIn, set it up now. If you already have a LinkedIn profile, the following tips will tell you what to do to become more visible and impressive to recruiters.

So how do you go about this?

LinkedIn isn't everything, but it is more or less universally used by recruiters. Recruiters often have several thousand first degree connections, which expands to an immense network of people at the second and third degree.

ACTION: You need to have your relevant recruiters in your LinkedIn network. I know that’s harder to do than say, so I have provided a cunning strategy to help you do this here.

Recruiters use keyword searching by geographic location

Recruiters use LinkedIn's Advanced People Search function to find people within a certain geographic radius who possess the skills, education or experiences they are seeking for their clients’ roles.

Now if you perform a search yourself using keywords, your results will be different to a recruiter’s because the LinkedIn Search algorithm customizes your search results to you based on your network.

A partial solution to this is find a friend that doesn't have your in their LinkedIn network, but is a member of LinkedIn and ask them to search the keywords relevant to your area and find out where you come in their search results.

Next look at the top half a dozen results and see what their profiles, group membership and postings look like. These will give you a template to apply to your own profile and activities.

What matters is that within a radius of say 50 miles, you rank on the first page of Linkedin results when someone carries out a search for your key skills.

ACTION: Don’t just fill your profile with keywords. Instead, incorporate them into the bullet points that describe who you are, what you've done and how you have achieved it. Monitor your rank position, and aim to get to page one. If you are on page one, already aim to get as close to top as you can.

Recruiters join industry and skill-based LinkedIn Groups, and monitor the discussions

They use this tactic to quietly observe what leaders are talking about, and who else contributes to the discussion. This way they can see who really has the knowledge and the skills that they seek. Moreover, they can see who is actively sharing it.

ACTION: Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your skill set and industry to keep up with what is going on, and make constructive contributions to the discussions.

Recruiters follow thought leaders and key influencers

A significant part of a headhunter's value is knowing "who's who" in a particular field.

My friend freely admitted that his biggest personal asset was his huge network of contacts. But he doesn’t just build contacts randomly. He targets people that he can see are the thought leaders and biggest contributors to specialist insights.

So recruiters collect contacts and this is a key reason that you should always aim to nurture your relationship with a recruiter, even if you have an experience which doesn’t initially result in you getting hired.

ACTION: Follow the people whose status and specialism will reflect well on you. Don’t worry if you are not a thought-leader yourself…yet. Your association with those that are will build your profile and make you more visible to recruiters.

Recruiters follow their connections' LinkedIn behavior

Part of the headhunter’s art is understanding the timing of what is going on in people's lives, and the signals they give off which demonstrate that they are open to an approach.

Recruiters are alert to people's LinkedIn behavior patterns to determine when someone is about to begin a job search. Sometimes, a tip-off is obvious, like when a person checks out a recruiter’s profile… or, when someone who has been quiet suddenly starts making frequent status updates.

ACTION: Often people are nervous about letting their current employer or others know that they are in the market for a new job, for good reason. Get smart. You don’t have to proclaim “ I am looking for a new job” to put the right signals out to just the people that matter.

Not all recruiters ignore those who are currently unemployed

Yes it’s true that many recruiters are only interested in those that currently have jobs. It’s unfair and it’s not the best decision in my view. But it’s a fact.

But not all recruiters think like this, especially in the wake of the recession, when so many talented people found themselves unemployed through no fault of their own.

ACTION: Whatever your situation might be, focus on the positive. Demonstrate your knowledge, and your leadership. Capitalize on the fact that you probably now have more time than usual to invest in some powerful personal brand building. 

You can use the latest features of Linkedn to upload presentations and videos that showcase your skills and insight. These can really set you apart, so use them.

Present yourself as a professional (who happens to be currently unemployed), rather than as a person who used to be whatever and is now out of work.

Recruiters don't want to guess

Don't make recruiters have to guess about who you are and what you have to offer. You know exactly who you are but they don’t. And they don’t have time to solve riddles. But avoid the temptation to try and present yourself as someone you are not. Sooner or later you will get found out and you’ll be wasting everyone’s time including your own.

ACTION: Be completely clear about who you are and even more clear about what value you can deliver in your LinkedIn profile. Keep your profile up to date and build long-lasting relationships with quality recruiters.

I have written a post which reveals some secret strategies for using social media to build valuable relationships with recruiters here. Just remember that everything you do online is key to building better professional relationships in the real world.

See it as nurturing your career asset rather than just solving today’s problem and you’ll not only land your next job faster, you’ll be creating a long term career asset which will pay you back over the long term too.

How to get your social media working for you in your job search

By Neil Patrick and Marcia LaReau

What does your online profile tell people about you?

I think by now, everyone knows that when you are job hunting, you need to make sure that your social media profiles contain nothing that might show you in an unfavourable light.

That’s the trouble with social media. Because it’s in the public domain, what you post there can and most likely will be examined by the recruiters and HR people you come into contact with.

Don’t let it ruin your chances of securing that job!

In case you have any doubts about why this is vital, the stark facts are that today, 92% of companies use social media for recruiting and 3 out of 4 recruiters check candidates’ social media profiles at some stage in the recruitment process.

So this isn’t optional anymore. It’s mandatory.

If you want some tips on cleaning things up, this post by David Hunt contains some useful (and amusing) tips on what to do.

But that’s just the first step. You also need to make sure not just that your social media doesn’t embarrass you, but that it works hard for you to make you stand head and shoulders above your competitors.

This means you must understand what recruiters are looking for when they search your social media profiles.

And it’s not what you might think.

Misunderstanding this is what tempts many people into either telling lies on their profiles (especially LinkedIn), or trying too hard to turn their profiles into advertising copy which is full of overblown adjectives about how great they are.

Both of these tactics are a bad idea. Do not fall into the trap!

A commonly overused adjective is the word ‘passionate’. You’ll see it all the time on Linkedin profiles which are trying too hard.

My good friend Marcia LaReau at Forward Motion US explains how this backfires:

“I have a passion for project management.”

Hiring professional thinks:

“Really? Is that the message I’ll find when I check you out online? Is that what you talk about to your FaceBook friends? Is that the kind of books you are reading? Do you go to the PMI chapter meetings? (PMI=Project Management Institute) No? Well … as a hiring professional, I thought you said it was your passion. Hmm … I’m not seeing it so that raises questions for me. I’d better take a closer look.”

So what ARE they looking for?

Simple: hiring professionals are looking for a consistent message. When inconsistent messages are found, it brings up questions that beg for answers.

For fun: Check out some of the FaceBook timeline covers and see if that content matches what the owner indicates they want to do next in their career … be prepared for a shock.

So the good news is that you don’t need to come up with some fancy sales copy, or try and inflate your achievements and status.

Back to Marcia, who provides this great step by step process anyone can follow:

First, answer these questions: 

• What kind of job do you want? Teacher, Marketing, Theatre Technician, Retail Operations, Medical Office Manager, Finance, Engineering, Business Analyst, Writer? 

• In what kind of a setting? Large corporation, non-profit, small business, manufacturing? 

• Do you have specifics about how you work best? Work-at-home, small team, large division, lots of direction, minimal direction? 

• What is most important to the companies that you want to hire you? Make a list. Don’t be tempted to think you can skip this step. 

Next: 

Check your cover letter and résumé.Do they both send a message that you are right for the jobs for which you are applying?

Now:

 

• Find three LinkedIn profiles of people in your industry that are doing what you want to do. The closer the match, the better. Take time with this step. Find people who have been careful with their profile. They should be profiles that make you think, “Wow. I’d like to look like that! I’d hire that person in a second.” Use what you learn to create your profile. 

• Be completely honest in your content. And remember that hiring professionals look first from 5,000 feet and then focus on what’s most important to them with regard to skills, experience, and cultural fit. 

Finally: 

Positively expand your online image: 

• What books are you reading about your industry/expertise, career? Not reading – why not? Post on LinkedIn (look at what others in your interest groups are reading.) 

• What kind of postings are you making on LinkedIn? Stop sharing pictures of animals, brain teasers and other valueless content. Start sharing the insightful content you read about your professional area of interest. 

• What industry-related meetings do you attend? How about classes you are taking. Share your activities on FaceBook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter. Can’t find a meeting – create one. Get 4 or 5 job-seekers who have your “passion” and meet weekly to keep current in your industry. Check your local Meet-up Groups. 

• Check your LinkedIn Groups – are they the groups that relate to your career goals? Are you active in your groups? If not …that’s not good. It sends a mixed message: “I like this stuff, but I’m not really doing much with it.” So much for your “passion”… 

• Check out your timeline image – what is it saying? It’s a huge first-impression-smack-me-in-the-face message. What’s yours look like? Here’s mine…while you’re there, if you found this information helpful, consider clicking on “Like”. 

• Do an Internet search on your name and derivatives of your name. If you find unwanted publicity, check out the article on Digital Dirt. 

• Check your cover letter and resume again to confirm that your online image is consistent with what you send to hiring professionals. 

This is the right way to develop your online image. It doesn’t involve lying, bragging or cheating. Leave that to your competitors, who will get found out.

In the words of a well-known vitamin ad…it’s ’You, but on a good day’.

Your Linkedin profile – why you should tell the truth

By Neil Patrick

Last week, my good friend Axel Kőster at the Manhattan Group and I were chatting about the impact of social media on the recruitment industry.

At one point, Axel mentioned that many of the job applicants’ LinkedIn profiles he sees turn out to contain inaccuracies. Usually they are small, like exaggerating the importance of a project the person worked on. But sometimes they are huge, like alleging a qualification which the person hasn’t actually completed.

He also sees profiles where the person doesn’t list their full employment history. Others add time to show a longer length of stay in their appointment and remove positions which didn’t work out. And one of the most common exaggerations is a more senior title than the person actually held.

And Axel’s experience is verified by research. A study by recruitment firm Employment Office of 300 employers, found 82% of respondents believed candidates lied or exaggerated their skills and experience on their LinkedIn profiles.

The reasons this is happening are many, but most fall under these headings:

• The jobs market remains fiercely competitive and people will try to squeeze any advantage they can even if that means exaggerating a bit on LinkedIn 

• Many LinkedIn users approach LinkedIn primarily as a networking tool. Their profiles reflect this approach and if they are not actually job hunting, merely seeking to connect with others, they see no foul in being ‘liberal’ in how they present themselves on LinkedIn. 

• There are no direct penalties for anyone who chooses to tell lies on their profile. 

This is counter-productive for both applicants AND employers.

How can this be?

Over at the Marketing Eye blog, Mellissah Smith tells this story:

A current employee brought to my attention a previous unpaid intern, who then became a one to two day per week marketing assistant during her University holidays. She was only a casual employee, yet stated the following on LinkedIn: 

I Managed up to 30 clients (the portfolio in that particular office didn’t have 30 clients, she had no management duties whatsoever and was given tasks from time to time, but was strictly a marketing coordinator who at times had the opportunity to put together the first draft of marketing copy, that then went to an in-house writer and marketing manager) 

I Managed up to 8 staff (the office didn’t have 8 staff and certainly as a marketing coordinator, with senior managers and the owner in the office, it is impossible she managed any staff at all). From time to time she gave unpaid interns work to do like following people on Twitter, search engine optimization or even having a go at writing the basis of a marketing strategy, but certainly NEVER did she manage any staff.

Since she left in January, she wrote that she worked fulltime as a marketing coordinator for 1.1 years at Marketing Eye. She has had two jobs since leaving in January – possibly the lies caught up with her but her equally impressive resume continues on LinkedIn. She had fulltime hours for 8 weeks only and that was broken up with 3 weeks holidays which she was not paid for because she was a casual.

So where’s the damage?

If the applicant gets away with their deception, then surely it is the employer’s own fault for not being sufficiently rigorous in their due diligence to verify the accuracy of the claims made? But this isn’t the point. The damage caused goes way beyond the costs of hiring a person whose abilities are not as great as you thought.

How come?

Here’s another case from Mellissah at Marketing Eye:

Last year I hired a person who on paper had exceptional qualifications and upon ringing her last supposed supervisor, received a glowing report.

We employed her, and within days, realised that she had never written a marketing strategy, engaged in any public relations activities, organised the booking of an advertisement, done any social media, direct marketing or any marketing other than working on a trade booth and coordinating companies who put their brands on Coles’ shelves.

Clearly, her reference was a friend and she did not have any experience in marketing. She later admitted to this confirming she took the job because she wanted to gain experience.

At a high-salary level and due to the fact she had worked with big brands, we let her loose after training her on the administrative side of consultancy and helping her get up-to-date with client work. She also took over from an exceptional marketing manager who excelled in every area of marketing and was completely thorough in every aspect of working with clients and in her hand-over – which made the issue even bigger.

The result: We lost clients, our reputation was in tatters with the clients she was let loose on and with some people, we will never be able to buy back that perception of our brand.

Inaccurate LinkedIn profiles do untold damage to employers and their reputations. 

The stakes are clearly high for employers. It is imperative that they do not place too much faith in a LinkedIn profile and must carry out thorough verification of the facts before hiring a candidate, even if their references are glowing.

But it goes beyond merely the hiring process. Your former employees haver the potential to do damage to your reputation AFTER they have left your organisation. So there’s a good argument for keeping on tabs on what your previous employees say on LinkedIn they did whilst they worked for you.

But what are the risks for employees of lying? 

There are no obvious downsides are there? I’d argue to the contrary:

Unlike your resume, everyone can see your LinkedIn profile … whereas the only people who see your resume are the people you choose to send it to. So if you are lying on LinkedIn you are much more likely to be found out.

Your LinkedIn profile must be treated with care and attention. Just as a sloppy profile suggests poor attention to detail, an incorrect one brings your trustworthiness into question. You are declaring to the world that this is who I am, this is my experience and these are my accomplishments.

Once you have been exposed as being careless with how you present yourself, your status as a diligent professional is at once brought into question. And that’s not helpful if you make your living based on your skills and credibility…

Finally, make no mistake that employers and recruiters are both getting wise to such tricks. LinkedIn lies might get you onto a short list, or even an interview… but you are more and more likely to get found out as recruitment processes adjust to close down this weakness. Don’t waste your time and other people’s…it will do you no good in the long run.

As for employers, it is clear that:

It’s your reputation that your former employees are representing on their LinkedIn profile. When they move to their next employer, it’s your brand that they are ambassadors of. Do you really wish to be seen as a business that for whatever reason hires untrustworthy individuals?

In this increasingly connected world, it makes sense to think not just about your own business, but the wider business community you are a part of. It pays to be a responsible citizen. By taking the time to do thorough reference checks, you are not only protecting yourself, you are also doing your bit to expose those who try to cheat and make them think twice about continuing with their deceptions.

Last, but not least, the internet is as good or as bad as the behaviours of the people that use it. See yourself as part of the solution, not a perpetuator of the problem. So, next time you are considering giving someone an endorsement on LinkedIn, ask yourself, ‘Do I really know this person deserves this?’

If you have experience of or opinions about this topic, do please share them below.

Secrets of a killer Linkedin profile for business owners

By Neil Patrick

Business owners and entrepreneurs need a different style of LinkedIn profile to employees.

Here’s how to master this art without falling into the traps of bragging and exaggeration, which turn people off before they even read your profile.

Anton Volney explains here how he does LinkedIn profile makeovers and provides examples of things that work and things that don’t.

He adopts a well proven approach which marketers call AIDA.

It’s highly effective and I’ve used it for decades to design and implement hundreds of effective marketing campaigns.

What does it mean?

Simple. We must take the reader through four stages to achieve engagement:

1. Create Awareness - the first thing is to make it clear who and what we are all about

2. Generate Interest - to do this, we must offer something which matches what our audience wants

3. Ignite Desire - we have to present a proposition which no-one in their right mind would wish to turn down

4. Initiate Action - the final step is to make it fast and easy for your audience to take up your offer

There’s a wealth of tips and insights here for any business owner who is wondering just how they can get their personal profile on Linkedin working harder for them.

Thanks again to Anton Volney for sharing these tips.

How to grow your LinkedIn network without going to jail

By Neil Patrick

Building your network on social media and especially LinkedIn is a great way to increase your career opportunities as I described here. But if you send out invitations to connect without enough care, you’ll not see much return on the investment. In fact, if you are really careless, you could even end up in LinkedIn jail!

The ever insightful Stacy Donovan Zapar has provided some very helpful pointers here into the various types of LinkedIn jail and how to get out.

But I am sure you’d much rather never go to jail in the first place, so here are my tips on one key aspect.

How can you make new connections without risking the dreaded IDK (I don’t know this person) response?

The current assessment is that gaining just 5 IDK responses to your invitations to connect will result in your LinkedIn account being ‘restricted’, meaning that for all future invitations you send, you’ll have to include the person’s email address.

So here are my thoughts on how to send invitations to connect safely.

I get an increasing number of invitations to connect. That’s great, but there are a few that I pass over. I never hit the IDK button, but not everyone can be trusted to do that.

Like anyone would, when I receive an invitation to connect from someone I don’t already know, I make judgements about them based on what I can see on their LinkedIn profile.

Reading various other posts about how to set up a great LinkedIn profile, in practice I apply some different criteria to who I connect with.

Here’re the things I don’t worry about:

Some profiles are so packed with information that it would take me too long to read it all. But that’s not a reason to decline an invitation in my view. It just means I simply skim read it. And too much info is better than too little. Once we get more engaged, this stuff will all be dealt with as needed.

Some don’t have a personal photograph - just the bubble head or a company logo. Not best practice agreed but neither is it a reason to decline. I have quite a few great contacts who usually through shyness don’t include a personal photo.

Some people are at an early stage in their careers. So they don’t have a lot of accomplishments yet and I understand that. So that’s not a reason to decline them either. In fact, I interpret this as a great opportunity to be of help to that person and build our relationship.

So what are the reasons I do decline invitations to connect?

There’s never a single reason, but almost always, it’s a combination of some or all of the following:

No recommendations

I don’t care if you’ve got 20,000 Linkedin connections. I care what they think about you. And if only one or two people think enough of you to provide a recommendation, I only have what you say about yourself to go on when I make that judgement. And some people are let’s say extremely “creative” with the descriptions they apply to themselves.

More often than not, such connections immediately bombard me with spammy updates which just fill my homepage with junk. No thanks.

In my view, someone who boasts about thousands of connections, but has no recommendations, is just collecting connections at a frantic pace in the belief that this will give them status and kudos on LinkedIn. If they are not engaged with the community, neither are they likely to engage with me.

On the other hand, if a dozen or more people who are clearly professionals say some good things about you, I will take you much more seriously. 

You say you are a LION

In case you’re not yet familiar with this acronym, it stands for LinkedIn Open Networker. This is a tricky one. I consider myself an open networker. In other words, I am happy to connect with MOST people even if I’ve never met them before.

And this includes LIONS.

But even so, I still apply some filtering. If someone's headline shouts, “I’m a LION and I’ve got 50,000 connections”, I am likely to look much more closely at them before deciding whether to accept or move on. Especially if they have very little on their profile to suggest why they deserve and are engaged with so many connections.

 
They don’t include a personal message as to why they wish to connect with me

This doesn’t have to be much. Just including my name in the message and an explanation as to how you found me would suffice. But still at least half the invitations I receive show no such courtesy or interest. How can I be expected to think you are someone who is likely to engage with me or anyone else if you can’t even invest the effort to write a single sentence? 

We have no shared interests at all

I apply very generous criteria to this. I think one of the great things about LinkedIn is how it can broaden our network beyond our normal sphere of influence. So if someone has a different industry background, that’s great. If they are at a different career stage, no problem.

On the other hand, if we appear to have nothing in common and no shared interests, then I wonder why the invitation was sent? Especially if any of points 1,2 or 3 above also apply.


So these are the criteria I apply in accepting or declining invitations to connect on Linkedin with people I’ve never met or engaged with on other social media platforms.

And I am sure that I’m not alone in applying such criteria. If that is the case, then it is really very simple to build a great network with new connections on LinkedIn.

Just avoid the traps above.

So: 

Make sure you've got some recommendations on your profile

These don’t have to be amazing or long. Just someone else’s positive comments about you. And you’ll find most people you already know will be happy to provide you with a recommendation if you help them out by providing a draft of the sort of thing you’d like them to say. This makes it easy and quick for them to just do any editing they’d like and post it. So a big task is reduced to a couple of minutes. 

Don’ t assume that someone will choose to connect with you just because lots of others have

I think if the most interesting thing about you is how many connections you’ve got, then something’s adrift somewhere.

I also have a feeling that as the number of LIONS grows and we all get bit tired of the game, the folk who just build huge numbers of connections and do nothing else will become more and more sidelined. We'll see...

Show everyone you invite to connect the courtesy of telling them why you’d like to connect

It doesn’t have to be anything world changing. Just be open and honest about why you'd like to connect, show that you know a little about them and compliment them a bit. Flattery works wonders with most of us! 

Especially if the person has a different area of professional interests to yourself, then the reason for the invitation really does need some justification. So this point is especially important in such cases. 

Finally avoid overt self promotion on LinkedIn

Networking and marketing are not the same thing and in an understandable drive to control spamming, the Linkedin police are getting more and more sensitive to promotional posts. So save your marketing and promotional efforts for discussions one to one with your contacts not on LinkedIn.

Do you agree with my criteria? Or do you apply different ones? I’d love to hear what criteria you apply and will be happy to post them here. Please share your thoughts below!

The secret benefit of posting status updates on LinkedIn

By Neil Patrick

Yesterday I was grumbling about how some people spoil the LinkedIn experience for the rest of us.

So to restore some balance, today I thought I’d post about a positive practice on LinkedIn which seems to be overlooked by many normal users.

It’s the status update. And I’ll share a secret with you about why this is so powerful if you stick with me.

Linkedin updates are important for several reasons whether you are job searching or not. Career management is a lot like marketing. It’s just that the product we are selling is ourselves.

And which products get the biggest sales in any sector? Of course it’s the ones which are most well recognised and seen as offering the greatest value.

That’s why big brands spend billions every year on advertising. And with social media like Linkedin, we have the opportunity to advertise ourselves virtually for free.

These are the basic benefits of status updates:

Stay top of mind

Think of posting on LinkedIn like this. No-one has enough hours in the day to touch base with everyone they’d like to. I often have an intention to contact people I’ve neglected, but if it’s not on my top priorities and/or scheduled, the phone call or email doesn’t happen, sometimes for weeks.

I may not have anything specific I wish to discuss with them, I’d just like to keep in contact and stay on their radar.

Posting to Linkedin isn’t a perfect remedy for our lack of time, but it is an easy way to stay visible to your network, so that they are more likely to think of you when they discover something they think you’d like to know about.

If you don’t have time to post a link or blog update, then at least comment on someone else’s. Life happens in between emails and phone calls, and your commentary reminds your connections you are still around - especially those you don’t see or talk to often. Stay in front of them, and you’ll be the first person they think of when opportunities arise.

Your network is an asset – so manage it as such

Even if some people still prefer other communication channels, LinkedIn continues to grow - there are now over 270 million registered users. Your network is your personal microcosm of that audience – and it’s your gateway to hundreds and thousands of others.

Don’t worry too much about annoying people

Many of us have a reservation about making too big a noise. But provided you are following the simple mantra of always trying to add real value, your inputs however frequent, will be appreciated by people.

Things only get annoying when you are frequently posting content of low value.

It’s either you or the competition

Make a choice - be part of the conversation or get forgotten about.

Everyone is busy these days, so you have to be more visible and more memorable (for good reasons) than your competition. Even if you don’t yet know who they are, this is an opportunity to come to the attention of people who want what you have to offer.

Build credibility and trust

People do business with people they know, like and trust. The more inputs you provide, the greater will be your exposure. The better the content, the more trust you will build. Just remember that it’s not about you - post things that your network will be genuinely interested in.

Create goodwill and valuable new connections

Give people more opportunity to interact with you - liking, commenting upon and sharing content increases people’s recognition of you and your reputation will grow across the platform. So, don’t be selfish - share things. This has a hidden benefit too which is that the original poster will appreciate your help in them getting their content out to more people. So this is an investment in the goodwill that others have towards you.

If it's routine, it's easier

It may seem like a challenge to post regularly to Linkedin, especially considering all of your other priorities. But once you see it as a regular part of your routine and an investment rather than a chore, it gets a great deal easier to make the commitment. And you are investing in your number one personal asset – yourself and your future.

Finally, the secret benefit is…

I promised to let you in on a secret at the start of this post. And here it is. And it might just be the thing that persuades you more than any of the other reasons I’ve cited above that posting updates is a good idea.

Over the last few months, I have been closely tracking my search ranking on LinkedIn. At the same time I have been posting updates twice a week and making a couple of comments on LinkedIn Groups I am a member of. Total time investment – about 30 minutes – roughly the same as one brief work meeting or phone call.

What I have observed is that my search ranking has risen steadily as I have done this. I do not (and outside the LinkedIn organisation, no-one else) knows the exact workings of the LinkedIn search algorithm. But I strongly suspect that somewhere within the algorithm is a component which improves the search rankings of those who are more active on the platform.

So I have now reached the top of page one of LinkedIn search for many of the key search terms I wish to be found under. And this is often placing me top of many thousands of matches.

I’d say that’s a pretty fantastic return on the investment of half an hour a week.

The top 10 trust-melters on your social media

By Neil Patrick

The importance of trust in your personal brand and social media is something which often gets overlooked in an age where clever techniques are assumed to trump everything else.

If people like you, they’ll talk to you. If they trust you, they’ll do business with you. - Zig Ziglar

I have plenty of tips on this blog for better social media management to help build your personal brand. The thing I have never talked about until now is trust and how we can enhance or reduce it in terms of our social media activities.

We all know trust is difficult to win and easy to lose.

The question is how should we present ourselves and behave on social media to enhance this aspect of our online reputation and not diminish it?

Based on what I see day in day out on social media, here’s a list of some of the basic things I think we should all pay attention to.

1. High intensity recirculation

Digital media is designed to make sharing easy. One click and you can share almost anything you like. But this characteristic of social media risks creating digital overload for your network. I see plenty of people who churn out shared content at a frantic rate. They do it because it’s easy, and in the misguided belief that that the more you do, the more you’ll benefit.

I don’t agree. It’s the equivalent of social media spamming. It’s not big and it’s not clever. And it does your personal brand no good at all. Everything we share should be for a reason and it should have a value to its recipients – even if that value is just entertainment or amusement. 

Think before you click!

2. Buy me now! 

I quickly lose interest in professional profiles which try too hard to sell. Your personal profile on Linkedin especially isn’t the place to be shouting at people ‘buy this’. It’s the place to tell people who you are, what you have accomplished and why you might be of value to them. They’ll decide later, possibly much later if they want to buy you or from you.

And remember, that time isn’t when they first encounter you on social media. People, love to buy but hate to be sold to. Isn't that why no-one in their right mind will follow someone on Twitter whose profile says something like – ‘I got thousands of followers free – let me show you how you can too’?  (did you ever notice how none of these people actually have more than a few dozen followers?)

3. Engage on old world media too 

Social media is great for finding new people and starting to build a relationship with them. But it’s absolutely no substitute for meeting face to face, a Skype chat, talking on the phone or even emailing each other. Every single one of my most valuable social media relationships may have started with Twitter or LinkedIn, but the real value is created away from social media, not within it.

Social media is the start point for building valuable relationships not the destination.

4. Your profile picture says more about you than you ever can 

This is such a basic point that it seems almost too obvious to mention, but it is hardwired into humans to make split second evaluations of each other based on what the other person looks like. So invest in a professional headshot, with a professional photographer. 

Not only will you look better, the difference between a mobile phone snap against a blank wall and a professional headshot sends a powerful subconscious message…I should be taken seriously, because I care about being professional in every detail of my work.

And use this same picture for all your social media platforms. This is an exercise in brand presentation and consistency, not personal vanity. 

5. Be human 

Showing a little of your unique personality on your profile and social media interactions is a good thing. You are not a machine, so why try and present yourself as one? 

People form relationships with other humans, so show your personality a little. It’s not a substitute for being professional first and foremost, but it’s our individual quirks that people respond to and remember, much more than the dry matter of our professional accomplishments. If something about you is unusual amongst your peers, then use this. I happen to love heavy metal, so I drop small references to it here and there which shows I am just a little bit different.

6. Be likeable 

I am constantly amazed at how some social media interactions are so hostile. Perhaps these interactions should be called ‘anti-social media’. Just because someone has an opinion that is different to yours, it isn’t a reason to attack them. Respect others’ opinions, be courteous, even if they are not courteous to you. 

On Twitter for example, I think sometimes people forget that our tweets are public. If someone follows me and their tweets don’t show respect and courtesy to others, I am unlikely to follow them back. 

7. Pay it forward 

Helping others before we help ourselves is perhaps the best way I know of showing who we are and building goodwill towards ourselves. Help others, ask for nothing back. This might be something as simple as clicking the like or share buttons on their content regularly (provided of course you do actually like it).

It gets you noticed, it shows that you care about others and most importantly, it shows that you understand the power and value of collaboration.

8. Choose your friends carefully 

Rightly or wrongly, we are judged by the company we keep. I’m not saying avoid the people who for whatever reason are not superstars. On the contrary, helping those perhaps less experienced than yourself is a very positive and laudable thing. But we should also work hard to build relationships with the high profile people in our professional space. And more than ever before, social media allows us to reach out to people that in the analogue world would be hard to reach.

Having connections with these people isn't just valuable because of potential opportunities. Even if you never actually progress your relationship with them further than a Twitter connection and the odd retweet, their connection with you carries weight and influence within the social media platforms which see that you are connected and respond accordingly. 

9. Create your own unique value 

Sharing the work of others is great, assuming you are selective and discerning. But the most powerful way to build your standing is through the creation of your own unique material. It could be as simple as adding insightful comments to the work of others.

It doesn’t have to be a full blown blog either – images are always popular and if writing isn’t your thing, it’s easy to build your profile and content with interesting pictures. Smart phones make this easier than ever.

10. Be consistent 

We are all multidimensional as people. But in the world of professional networking through social media, it gets confusing if your content and activities are really diverse. In the purely social space, we can indulge our whims and fancies. 

With professional social media we need to stay focused. If you have multiple interests and activities, then at least with Twitter, you can have separate Twitter accounts for them. Sadly the same isn't possible with LinkedIn.

So decide what you are about within your professional social media space and stay on topic. Everyone will appreciate it.

I am sure this isn’t the last word on the subject, it’s more a simple checklist of what seem to me to be sensible best practices. So if you’d like to add points to the list, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

Words thou shalt not use on thy LinkedIn profile - but then again...

By Neil Patrick

LinkedIn tells us there are certain words we shouldn't include in our profiles, but I disagree and here's why.

Linkedin sent me an email a few days ago informing me that I had used the word ‘strategic’ in my Linkedin profile and because many hundreds of thousands of others had too, I might want to remove it - especially since it was in their top 10 most overused buzzwords list.

I didn’t.

The reason I didn’t was that during my career, I’ve held executive board responsibility for strategic planning in three businesses - two of which were plcs. Rightly or wrongly I think this means I can and must use the word. How else could I describe it? Author of non-tactical business plans? Hah!

In fact I replied to Linkedin to explain to them why I thought they were wrong in making this recommendation to me. So far I've had no response.

Anyway, the whole notion that some words should be blacklisted through overuse seems nonsensical to me.

For the record, the top 10 must overused words according to Linkedin were:

1. Responsible

2. Strategic

3. Creative

4. Effective

5. Patient

6. Expert

7. Organizational

8. Driven

9. Innovative

10. Analytical

This got me thinking that typically it’s not the words themselves which are wrong but their application. There shouldn’t be a ‘blacklist’ of banned words which we cannot use just because loads of other people have abused or misappropriated them.

In my opinion, every single one of these words is absolutely fine provided we use them with thought, justification and most importantly, evidence.

Here’s my list of words I think we must be careful with, but not automatically reject, just because others misuse them. I also provide my thoughts as to why they are risky and how you should use them to ensure you don’t risk a backlash.


Clichés

These are just tired and worn out buzzwords which make you look like you’ve given no thought to what you are really trying to communicate. Using them actually suggests you are lazy and unimaginative (unless you provide clear evidence that demonstrates why you are using them):

• Passionate 
• Driven 
• Strategic 

For example, I think it's fine to say something like, ‘Author of strategic plan to take business into 14 new markets between 2010 and 2012, resulting in increased global market share of 32%.’

Pretentious

These words should be used with extreme caution. If others chose to apply them to you  (for example in their recommendations) that’s wonderful, but if you attribute them to yourself, you just sound like a bit of a jerk: 

• Thought Leader 
• Inspirational 
• Innovative 

If you are lucky enough to have had anyone else actually write these words about you by all means include them, providing them in the form of a quote, such as ‘Described by XYZ magazine in September 2013 as one of the top 10 thought leaders on sustainable energies’. 

Hollow

These are words which carry no real weight – they mean nothing unless they are backed up by quantified outcomes or benchmarks: 

• Responsible 
• High Impact 
• Dynamic 

Saying you were responsible for this, responsible for that, tells the reader nothing about what you actually accomplished, merely the things that were on your job description. Much better to talk instead about what you achieved and to give quantified results.

If you say you are dynamic, what measure are you using to arrive at this conclusion? Compared to whom are you dynamic? If you've got a benchmark for dynamism, I'd love to know what it is!


Unsubstantiable

These are words which must in my opinion be supported by hard evidence if we are to use them: 

• Expert 
• Motivated 
• Successful 

For example, I think to say, ‘I was motivated by a desire to prove that small businesses could take significant market share from larger multinationals’ is just fine. Or to say, ‘I was successful at increasing revenues by an average 22% each year between 2007 and 2011’, is also great.

However, I think to describe oneself as a 'successful business expert, passionate and energetic'…well I think you know what I’m getting at…

These are my thoughts for what they are worth. I do hope you find them useful and if you have any other pet hates you’d like to share here, do please drop them into the comments below.