I’m constantly surprised by how many executive job seekers still haven’t fully embraced LinkedIn. I’m surprised by how many make this big LinkedIn mistake.
Sure, they all at least have a presence on LinkedIn. However they usually have only a minimal profile.
Too many of them have very little content in the many profile sections LinkedIn provides. And the content that IS there, tends to be generic and doesn’t distinguish them from their competitors.
3 Reasons a Sparse, Anemic Profile Is a Deadly LinkedIn Mistake
1. Personal Branding
Your LinkedIn Profile is an ideal place to build and communicate your personal brand. You’ll need plenty of brand-reinforcing content to accomplish that. Therefore, neglecting personal branding is a big LinkedIn mistake. It’s also a big missed opportunity.
Do you really need personal branding in your LinkedIn profile?
If you think you don’t need it, you probably don’t understand what personal branding is.
It’s the best way to differentiate the unique value you offer the employers you’re targeting, by syncing your hard skills (or areas of expertise) with your “softer” skills (or personality).
It’s how you help people assessing you as a candidate get a feel for how you operate on the job, communicate and lead people, and how you get things done that benefit your employer.
Branding helps them see you as a good hiring choice.
So, yes, you definitely need personal branding in your LinkedIn profile and all of your other personal marketing materials (executive resume, biography, cover letters, etc.)
The LinkedIn About section and other longer, narrative sections are the best places on the profile to get your personal brand in there, using storytelling.
2. Obsolescence and Age Discrimination
If you’re not active on social media or social networking sites, your status online may be invisible, or close to it. People assessing you won’t find enough information about you to reinforce your viability as a candidate.
Just as important, a lack of social media activity makes you look obsolete in today’s digitally-driven world.
Age discrimination is a major challenge for executive job seekers. If you’re an executive over 50, you may come up against it. You could be out of the running, before you’ve even been considered.
It isn’t fair and the reasons are largely unfounded, but it definitely exists.
Don’t compound the problem by fitting the unfair stereotype of older workers.
That is, appearing to be the kind of older person employers tend to discriminate against: those who haven’t kept up with the new ways of work.
Since LinkedIn is considered THE professional social networking site, an incomplete profile and lack of activity on LinkedIn can mark you as out-of-date and not social media-savvy enough to perform well and represent the company well.
If hiring professionals land on your LinkedIn profile when they search for candidates, they may quickly click over to someone else’s profile if they see the following:
- Very little there beyond your career history in the Experience section, which contains only your job titles, company names and dates.
- No LinkedIn recommendations or only 1 or 2, dated years ago.
- No LinkedIn activity (posts, articles, comments and reactions on other’s posts)
In other words, if it looks like you put up this minimal profile years ago and promptly forgot about LinkedIn, you’ll look like a dinosaur to them.
3. Findability
Above all, plenty of keyword-rich content in your profile is critical. This is what drives LinkedIn’s search engine to move your profile up in results. Searching relevant keywords is how executive recruiters and hiring professionals find candidates.
More Content = More Relevant Keywords = Greater Chance of Being Found
Many of your job seeking competitors know this. Therefore, they’ve worked hard to fully develop their profiles.
Just to keep pace with them, you need to do the same. You’ll benefit even if you do no more with LinkedIn than passively sit there with a robust profile.
LinkedIn’s Profile Strength meter helps you measure how robust your profile is. As you add more relevant content, the strength increases. To view your Profile Strength meter:
- Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
- Select View Profile.
- Your Profile level will be displayed under the Suggested for you section.
- Follow the prompts below the meter to move to the next level by adding recommended sections to your profile.
Once all the recommended sections are added, you’ll receive an All-star profile rating, and the profile level meter will no longer be displayed on your profile.
Additionally, LinkedIn suggests doing these things to improve discoverability of your profile:
- Make sure you have a profile photo – it will help get you recognized and connect to potential opportunities. Members with a profile photo receive up to 21x more profile views and 9x more connection requests.
- Those with current positions are discovered up to 16x more in recruiter searches
- Members with more than 5 skills are 27x more likely to be discovered in searches by recruiters
- Including the city where you are based makes you stand out up to 23x in searches
(If you’re reading this post much after it was published, these criteria may have changed, so check LinkedIn Help for the latest. Like all social media, LinkedIn constantly updates and upgrades functionality and features.)
More About LinkedIn and Executive Job Search
How to Write a Dazzling LinkedIn About Section
5 Toxic Beliefs That Can Derail Your Executive Job Search
Thank you for explaining what makes an effective Linkedin profile. It’s a learned skill we all have to do to succeed.
Beth, I’m so glad my post was helpful. You’ve made an important point. We all do need to get busy on LinkedIn, whether or not we’re actively job-hunting. Thanks for commenting!