Here’s another LinkedIn Profile Critique.  If you want one I charge $100.  Just let me know if you want it. (the LinkedIn Profile Critique I do is more complete than what you see below)

I work with Jeff.  He has been selling one of my systems into university career centers for the last few months.  We communicate quite often… so this critique is a bit different… I know Jeff more than the other people I’ve critiqued on the blog.

Here we go!

1. I like the picture… it’s perfect.  What do I look for here?  How close-up the headshot is.

2. Name: perfect.  I would prefer to see “Jeff” instead of “Jeffrey,” because I think that’s what he always goes by, but simple firstname lastname is perfect.

3. I am not in love with his professional headline for a few reasons.  I want a simple sentence… his isn’t.  There is jargon, cliche, and almost all words are first letter uppercase…

4. Below his picture, the quote/status is okay, and on-brand with who he is and how he helps organizations.

5. The current title doesn’t do it for me.  Jeff is a professional in the university space.  Who is going to search for a “founder” or “principal?”  He should have key words or key phrases of what he wants to do (marketing manager, marketing director, etc.) in his title.  Same issue with past titles.

6. Why does he only have 4 recommendations, but over 500 connections?  Seems kind of low to me…

7. Websites: he needs to have three, AND he needs to have better descriptions.  For example, instead of “About Me,” it should say something like “More about me,” “What I’m about,” or better, “My Marketing Manager Profile” or something like that.

8. Two Twitter accounts… cool stuff, but both accounts seem to be inactive.  Here’s the hard part – figure out a Twitter strategy to get more content up. Scratch that… when I right-clicked on the Twitter buttons to see what he had, it showed the last two tweets… making me think his account was inactive…

9. Public Profile:  good job getting the vanity URL

I like what he wrote in his Summary, but I know him, and I’ve talked to him enough to know what he’s talking about.  If this was from someone else, I would question what much of this summary means.

Also, much of what he writes seems cliche… I would like to read stories, or get examples of how he thrives, builds, sparks energy, etc.  I know Jeff has a lot of people who would validate what he’s saying… I’d like to see quotes from them in his Summary, about him.

Without reading anything he wrote, this seems to be too busy.  I don’t like the uppercase (which I’m guessing is compensating for not being able to bold the text), and I don’t like the *****… this part looks to busy, and not easy to read.

Personally, I would not show all of these Groups. I would hide any Group that is not on-brand, or supportive of how I can bring value to YOU (my target audience).

Well, with one exception. I think the Make A Wish foundation is awesome…. keep it there

Deb Dib, a JibberJobber Partner, pointed me to this post on Mashable about the importance of social tools…

Wondering about the importance of LinkedIn, and other social tools, for your business, career management or job search?  Read this article: What Job Seekers Need to Know in Today’s Digital Market

Some highlights:

“36% of companies surveyed are using social media for recruiting. In today’s competitive market, recruiters look for the most current information on candidates, which is readily and easily available on social networks.”

Are you making this information readily and easily available?

“Social media enables us to stand out, to be more noticeable, to differentiate ourselves from the masses and to tell the whole story behind and beyond a one-page resume.”

If everyone does it, how is it differentiating?  I’ll tell you: not many do it well  I’ve done enough LinkedIn Critiques to know that there is a lot of room for improvement!

“Additionally, every field has its own industry thought leaders broadcasting on Twitter.”

I wouldn’t say every industry, but you can certainly find people to connect with and follow and network with in many industries… probably even your industry!

“More companies than ever are cutting their job advertising budgets, opting to channel their recruiting efforts through referral hiring.”

Is the hidden job market becoming less hidden?  Interesting…

Here is a collection of questions I got from Cleo Parker… I’m seeing the question quite a bit more, which is something I expect since LinkedIn has seen growth, especially around the world. Her comments in bold…

>> As a more perpetual job seeker than I’d really like to be and a long time advertising/marketing professional, I’ve developed a pretty large Linkedin network – 600+ (which I really should prune a bit.)

Careful pruning it… I’ll talk about that in tomorrow’s blog post.

>> In addition to my professional life, I have a number of hobbies, the one I’m most passionate about being showing purebred dogs. In the past few months, I’ve noticed an accelerating trend of more and more people I know through dogs joining Linkedin, I used to just be connected to a few “dog people” mostly people with white collar jobs which I stumbled across or were recommended to me because their emails were in my gmail or yahoo accounts. Now, it’s getting to be everyone – including groomers, kennel owners, professional handlers, retired people, and folks in all sorts of jobs not typically associated with Linkedin. I’m happy to connect with them, after all these people are my friends and I know if I asked, they could write wonderful recommendations on my performance on such things as club officer, special awards chair, show secretary and (name the dog topic) seminar presenter.

I’d say this is indicative of LinkedIn’s growth… as it becomes more popular.  I’d wonder how many of these people join, but then find it boring and go back to Facebook where they can share videos and pictures and stories about the dog showing world much easier.

>>  I’m wondering if this is indicative of a trend that you’re also seeing – it was when these folks joined Facebook that it really took off and there was enough going on of interest that I started visiting on a regular basis. But I can’t see Linkedin taking off in such a social direction, despite groups such as “Dog Lovers” that really have very little professional content, even about dog related occupations.

I’m not really close to the data to know trends like this… I can’t say with enough authority about what is happening, but again, if LinkedIn doesn’t provide the social tools that FB does, I’m guessing this will be short-lived.  Whether they should or not, or whether that would be good for current LinkedIn users, is another issue :p

>> Also, do you see any down side in connecting to these folks from a professional standpoint?

Not off the top of my head… but if I connected with someone in my hobby, and they turned out to be spammy, or overly noisy, I would likely disconnect from them.

>> I think anyone who’d browse my connections would just note the ones that seemed interesting to them, such as “she knows the CEO of agency X” rather than looking at someone they wouldn’t be interested in, such as “what’s up with this friend who grooms dogs?”

There’s this idea that we have to be careful who we connect with, as that could change our brand. I really think something like this will be positive, or neutral…. I can’t imagine this being a negative (even to cat lovers :p).

>> Now that I’m over that 500+ threshold I’m not so worried about adding more, but I still feel like more connections is a Good Thing, and of course, some of these people actually do work in fields similar to my own and have connections that may be of interest.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing – especially since they are initiating the request… I wouldn’t necessarily advice LOOKING for those relationships on LinkedIn, but if they find you, I’d say start there and see where the relationship could go.  Who knows, perhaps you might land your next gig because of one of those relationships

People are funny, aren’t they?  They want to find a posted job, then apply for it, then interview for it, then, accept an awesome job offer, and then move out of “job mode.”

If there is anything you learn from this past recession I hope that it is that you need to take control of your career (hence the JibberJobber tagline: Career Management!).

That means that you use certain tools as they should be used.  For example, let’s say you are looking for marketing jobs in your area.  Here’s one path (of many) I would recommend:

1. Go to a job board to find the openings,
2. Armed with information from a posting (contact name or company name), go to LinkedIn to do research,
3. Figure out how to network into a decision maker or hiring manager at that company,
4. COMMUNICATE WITH THEM.  Ideally, ask for informational interviews… develop a real, professional relationship with them.
5. Put all this information (contact, companies) into JibberJobber, and log your communication with them.  You already know JibberJobber is a job search tool to help you organize your job search… this is the type of information you would put in your JibberJobber account!

Pretty simple, right?  It’s quite different than how most people use a job board.  In that example I show you how to optimize:

1. a job board,
2. LinkedIn,
3. JibberJobber.

Try it out!

Here’s an important post to read about LinkedIn’s job seeker upgrade option (I get asked about this pretty much every time I present): How LinkedIn’s Job Seeker Package May Actually HURT Your Chances of Getting a Job

What do you think about it?

I’ve received emails from my first degree connections for a while. I am always curious to know how people do this.  In the early days I had a note in my Summary that said something like “If you connect with me, I’m going to put you on my newsletter.” I’d then export my contacts and import to iContact or ConstantContact.

Then, I got smart and changed it to say “click here to sign up for my newsletter,” which made it “opt-in.”

Then, I got tired of paying for the newsletter services, and changed it again to say “join my LinkedIn Group, and I’ll send you periodic newsletter-like emails.”  This is where I’m at now.

But you can do something more direct to your first degree Contacts.  Check out this post: How to Use LinkedIn Mail to Connect With Your Contacts. Linda Coles breaks down the process, and some pros/cons, of using this tool.  The biggest con is that you can only do 50 at a time.  If you have 1,000 contacts, you will have to do this 20 times to reach all of them.  Yuck.

At the same time, if that limit wasn’t in place, your contacts might be overly eager to spam you all the time.

The easier it is, the more it might be abused.

So it’s not easy, but it works.

Have you ever tried it?

Many say they are

Check out this question on LinkedIn Answers: Has anyone else noticed that endorser names on LinkedIn recommendations have disappeared?

This could have been about a dozen different features that have disappeared.

I wonder where LinkedIn is headed – if they keep taking away functionality from free users they will either drive their users to other networks (Facebook and Google+), or they will increase their upgrades and make more money.

Perhaps they’ll accomplish both: make more money from people who use the tool while getting rid of (dare I say?) freeloaders who just use the resources.

It’s an interesting crossroads to be at…!

Here’s a quick change I just made on my Profile.

I switched from Constant Contact to iContact (because a friend worked there – he doesn’t anymore), and finally just moved my “newsletter” to my LinkedIn Group (where I can send an “announcement” every 8 days).

So, I had to update the link that I had let sit there for TOO LONG to the new Group URL:

Why am I sharing this?  Because every little tiny thing that we neglect, like changing the URL in my Summary, affects our communication and brand and effectiveness.

What are you neglecting?

This took me all of 50 seconds to fix.

I saw an interesting title on my LinkedIn Group and clicked over to learn more.   Check out this biting title:

LinkedIn Pulled A Facebook And Messed With Your Info — Here’s How To Fix It

Wow. That is a strong accusation. Facebook has become notorious for screwing (there’s not really a nice way to say what FB does, with regard to our privacy!) users by making all kinds of weird changes to privacy.

So what did they do?  Read the article to see how to OPT OUT… here’s what it is in a nutshell:

LinkedIn has volunteered your name and photograph to be used for advertising if it feels like it wants to use them.

I hadn’t heard of this before, so I followed the simple steps to opt out and found that yes, I indeed am in their list of people who can be used for LinkedIn’s advertising. In a nutshell, you opt out by going into the Settings page, then in this order:

I haven’t seen or heard this anywhere else… maybe all the hype over Google+ is keeping the LinkedIn bloggers busy?

Nick Corcodilos, Mr. Ask the Headhunter, wrote a long post about this button.  He starts with:

I don’t know who I feel more sorry for: Job hunters or employers. LinkedIn has introduced a new button that lets you instantly apply for a job — no resume, no cover letter, no effort. It’s instantly dumber for everyone concerned.

What’s the problem with this idea?

We can now sit in our skivvies and thoughtlessly, tirelessly, effortlessly throw our hat in the ring.

Why not?

That’s the problem.

Candidates will get lazy (hey, I applied to 1,000 jobs today.  I don’t have time to network, or pick up the phone for anyone!).

Employers will get even more overwhelmed with unqualified mismatches for a posting.

Nick’s post is long, so I’ll make mine short.  Read his.  Then, read the comments.  Especially from Sherry Lynn, who disagrees, and then read the comments after hers.  Great stuff!