With over 425 million members, LinkedIn is a major resource for job hunters, but it is often underutilized by members. Instead of wasting the opportunities the network offers, aim to stand out and build your personal brand on LinkedIn. This resource has the power to help you stay connected to your network, meet new people, research companies, identify college alumni, get answers to work-related questions and much more.
Read on for eight common mistakes on LinkedIn that annoy contacts and turn off recruiters.
[See: 16 Things You’re Doing All Wrong on LinkedIn.]
No photo — or a really bad photo. There’s no excuse. You need a headshot, not a whole-body shot, of you looking at the camera and smiling. If you can’t smile, at least look friendly. And the shot should be only you. No cut-off arms or torsos. LinkedIn research found that profiles with a picture are 13 times more likely to be viewed.
Not personalizing LinkedIn invites. When sending an invitation to connect, you should always tell the person you are inviting to connect how you know them and why you want to connect. If you don’t know the person, you must give a good reason to want to connect. LinkedIn can sometimes send the canned invite when you click on the blue connect button. To avoid this, only click on the connect button when you are on the person’s profile, and avoid using your mobile device to send invitations to connect unless you know about the three dots on the profile’s upper right-hand corner.
A profile with fewer than 100 contacts. You know more than 100 people. Are you being ultra-selective, or do you lack the skills on LinkedIn to invite people to connect? If you can’t find and connect with people on LinkedIn, you won’t reap the benefits of having access to second-level connections. Look on LinkedIn for past colleagues or even college classmates, but don’t go crazy and invite people you do not know to connect. The quality of your network what matters most.
[See: 10 Ways Social Media Can Help You Land a Job.]
Your profile and your resume are identical. If a recruiter or potential employer has your resume and views your LinkedIn profile, it should provide more information or answer common recruiter questions. Recruiters are looking for information beyond what they can find on your resume, like why you last job was important or what you learned during the time you were in the role. Your future employer wants to see your motivation, your interests, your track record and what people say about you. It is up to you to craft a profile that answers employers’ questions and concerns. What’s worse is having a LinkedIn profile with less information than what appears on your resume.
Typos in your profile. This is your online reputation, so no typos allowed. To catch misspelled words, consider writing parts of your profile in Microsoft Word so you can check for spelling mistakes. Then copy and paste your work into your LinkedIn profile.
Using your LinkedIn status updates like Twitter. Sharing one good post on LinkedIn a day is enough. Some people share post after post all day long, clogging the news feed of everyone in their network. Twitter is Twitter, and your LinkedIn status is different.
You look helpless. “Does anyone know someone who works at ABC Company?” is not a good group discussion question. Instead, you should look up the company and find a connection. This is another reason having more than 100 connections is important.
[See: 8 Things That Are More Productive Than Staring at a Job Board.]
Your headline is a bust. Often, job seekers will put “seeking new opportunity” in the headline. This isn’t helpful since most recruiters do not care if you are employed or unemployed. What they care about is that you have the right skills and background for the job they are trying to fill. Remove this wording from your headline and replace it with skills, talents or experience you know companies are looking for. By default, LinkedIn makes your most recent job title your headline. Be sure you edit this to promote your valuable skills or experience.
Some of these errors happen by mistake or out of ignorance. The purpose of this post is the help educate LinkedIn users so the experience is better for everyone using it. One final word about LinkedIn: Users have different ideas or self-implemented “rules” they use on LinkedIn. Since there are few absolute rules, learn about the varying opinions and perceptions and make your own decisions.
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8 Mistakes You’re Making on LinkedIn originally appeared on usnews.com
