15 LinkedIn Mistakes to Avoid
On April 18, 2014, LinkedIn announced that it had passed over 300 million members. Thus, it’s important to avoid these mistakes in order to look professional and to succeed on LinkedIn:
- Do not leave your profile incomplete. Fill out each section and complete LinkedIn recommendations;
- Do not post random thoughts, quotes or happenings, i.e. buying a Coca Cola at the convenience store. Make sure the posts are professional updates;
- Don’t lie about your skills, experience and education – or anything else;
- Do not show inappropriate photos of yourself. Your profile photo should be professional in appearance;
- Do not post “for hire” or other advertisement / spam posts in groups;
- Don’t send people you don’t know messages advertising a product, service or asking them to like or follow you on your social media accounts;
- Do not send a new connection the standard connection message. Customize it for them and tell them why you should connect;
- Do not criticize or be rude when responding to someone in a group discussion;
- Do not connect with someone just because you want to “beef-up” your connection count;
- Do not ask and use recommendations from people you do not know;
- When connecting your social media account to your LinkedIn profile, do not allow your social media account to over post or post irrelevant content to your LinkedIn profile;
- Do not overload what you did for each job and education. Use point form, three (3) to four (4) notes, that gets right to the point of what you did and accomplished. Make sure your accomplishments and highlights are stated first;
- Do not forget to fill out your contact information, which includes your website – if you have one;
- Do not use informal language when communicating with someone via a message. Make sure it’s in proper, professional format;
- Do not add skills to your profile “just because.” Make sure skills you add could be endorsed by someone and related to your career or career goals.
