Limbering up with LinkedIn

Thanks to Dale Smith (2012) I received Tim Tyrell-Smith's (2012) guide against being lazy on LinkedIn.

On pondering Tim's advice, I wonder whether there are some people (like me perhaps) for whom such sites are not the best place to promote oneself. For example: suppose one is aiming for a career change - where they have worked in the past could be a distraction; Or suppose one has been out of the workforce raising children for many years? Or working at positions below one's ability during those child-free years because they are the only ones with child-friendly hours?

If I were to convert Tim's warning signs into a to-do list, re-ordering for the limited position LinkedIn has in my humble ambitions:

1. Keep profile updated:
   Thankfully, LinkedIn sends out notices fairly regularly, so when someone else updated their profile recently I let it prompt me into updating mine.
2. Come up with an appealing headline
   Particularly difficult for humble people - could you point to some good ones?
   (Update August 8: Michael Keleman recommends precise (unpuffy) clarity)
3. Improve summary without just copying resume
   
4. Find a few more connections.
   Eek, I'm not keen on quantifying my connections, so I'll not let Tim's "at least 100" factor in at all. (Except cousins: I still take childish pleasure in having lots of cousins (>50)).
5. Complete profile
   If I did, I would run out of things to update it with?
6. Keep personalising connection requests
   - yes, of course, would anyone send a generic request except to someone they know very, very well?
7. Keep seeking constructive groups
   Two of the ones I joined are more often spammed than constructive
8. Find new ways to contribute constructively to groups
9. Provide true, specific recommendations for others
   It is the only kind I would, but for whom would my recommendation be desirable?
10. Recommendations? Does anyone take them seriously?
    Even Tim admits they don't carry a lot of weight. Maybe he just wanted to round out his "10" signs? How useful are they if you're not sure what kind of work you're seeking? Might they be counter-productive the more generic they are, or if they are more relevant to past than future ambitions?

What would you advise?

Image credit: Tamayo, T. (2008). Monkey swing. CC:BY-NC/2.0 from Flickr

References

Keleman, M. (2010, January). LinkedIn Taglines. Retrieved August 9, 2012, from http://recruitinganimal.typepad.com/ch/2010/01/linkedin-taglines.html

Smith, D. (2012, July 28). RT @WayneMansfield: 10 Signs You Are Being Lazy On LinkedIn [...] #inf2506. @das013. microblog. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/das013/status/229111276884865024

Tyrell-Smith, T. (2012, July 26). 10 Signs you are being lazy on LinkedIn. Retrieved from http://fixbuildanddrive.com/10-signs-you-are-being-lazy-on-linkedin

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post transferred Jan-Feb 2021 in republication of my 29 July 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress.

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The original post resulted in 1 conversation of 3 comments:

Tim Tyrell-Smith said:
06 August 2012 at 4:10 pm

Hi Mica –

Thanks for sharing that post and I love the way you broke it down and put your own views to it. The truth is that we need to manage our online profiles – if nothing else to be found in a positive light.

Regarding a few of your comments:

#2 – Appealing headlines help people find you, are full of relevant keywords (not just your current job title) and describe your larger value for people who are learning about you for the first time. And if you are out of work, “looking for work” is not an appropriate headline.

#6 – 9 of 10 connection requests I get are from complete strangers and almost all are generic (not personalized) :-(

#10 – As I said, better to have them then not have them. It shows at least a minor commitment from your network to stand up for you – and the more specific the better!

Cheers and thanks again!

In response to which I replied:
09 August 2012 at 3:55 pm

Thanks Tim,
#2 – I will personally need to think a lot more about a headline/tagline. It might not just be humility – my inbetween status makes it difficult to make clear headline statements… and clarity is the recommendation of recruiter Michael Keleman.

To which Tim replied:
09 August 2012 at 6:22 pm

@animal knows his stuff for sure. :-

I, Closing the chapter | Mica Meerbach, later Pinged this post
07 October 2012 at 5:07 pm

[…] student, (Smith, 2012). Similarly, I take Tim Tyrell-Smith’s (2012) thoughtful appreciation of my own take on his advice as validation of my conversational […]