7 Critical Issues Regarding LinkedIn (Part 4 of 7)

Issue #4: If members aren’t careful, their LinkedIn activity could cost them their job

So, you just had a meeting with your boss.  The tone of the meeting was rather cold and you left the meeting questioning if you should remain with your current employer – or have the opportunity to remain.  The terminology he used was not direct, but you got the feeling your time was limited and you should start considering new career opportunities.

Fortunately, you have a LinkedIn account.  You haven’t used it much – you’ve been very happy with your job and saw no reason to keep it up to date, or build your network.  Since you haven’t used it much you are also unfamiliar with how it works – what information gets shared, and with whom.

You shrug your shoulders and say to yourself, “I need to update my profile, join groups and grow my network”. 

You start sending invitations to all sorts of people you know and you think to yourself “why didn’t I do this before – my network would have already been built?”

You also join some groups on LinkedIn.  One of the groups you decide to join is all about finding a job, so you decide to hide that group from your profile.  You are glad you remembered to hide it.

You have taken action on LinkedIn and you congratulate yourself.  You already have an interview set up and more people are reaching out to you.  This LinkedIn thing is working well for you!

The next week your boss calls and says he’d like to meet with you to discuss some things that are happening at the company.  Since you have other companies expressing interest in you, and you think you are doing a good job in your current role, you approach the meeting with confidence.

As you meet with your boss, your stomach turns, and your facial expressions become blank.  It turns out that you are directly connected to your boss on LinkedIn.  The last meeting you had was a test to see how committed you were to the organization.  He noticed your activity on LinkedIn. as you went from 25 connections to 271 in the matter of one week. 

Since your Activity Feed and Activity Broadcasts are turned on, your boss has been notified that you recently connected with a number of recruiters.  

He even knows you joined a group that is all about finding a new job – since you are connected to him and he belongs to the same group (for spying purposes) you weren’t able to hide it from him.

Unfortunately, you didn’t know that cuts were coming and your boss was looking for loyalty.  You are the first one out the door.

Hopefully, the situation I just described hasn’t happened to you, but similar situations have happened to others – many times.

LinkedIn is a great tool for advancing ones career.  Unfortunately, it is complex and very, very public. 

Like most things, the strength of LinkedIn is also its weakness.  The very public nature of LinkedIn, and other social media outlets, gives you exposure that wasn’t dreamed of 10 years ago.  Like we have seen in the example above, with that exposure there can be danger. 

You have to understand the dangers of LinkedIn to use it effectively.

What are the solutions?

Using LinkedIn you have to accept a certain level of risk - risk that is worth the reward if you are aware of the dangers and address them properly.

LinkedIn is what LinkedIn is.  The only way members can benefit from LinkedIn is if it remains a very public website.  LinkedIn currently provides some features that help minimize the risk – the ability to turn off Activity and Broadcast feeds, hide connections and hide groups.  Let’s not expect anything more out of LinkedIn to help keep your job search private.

What can an individual member do?

1. First of all, don’t connect directly with your boss.  For some, it is tempting to send an invitation to connect to your possible future employer or current boss.  If you aren’t connected to your boss, don’t; If you are connected to your boss, take the precautions discussed below AND consider discussing with your boss why it might be better for both of you to not be connected, and drop the connection.

2. Take advantage of the features Linkedin offers to minimize your activity footprint:

·         Turn off Activity and Broadcast feeds;

·         Hide your connections;

·         Hide certain group memberships; 

3. If you have a Premium account with LinkedIn, do not display any of the badges – especially the Job-Seeker Premium badge.

4. Reaching 500+ connections as soon as possible is key to hiding your activity.  As in the example above, aggressively adding connections can signal your interest in other opportunities.  Until you reach 501 connections anyone in your network can find out exactly how many connections you have, and can track the growth. 
   
   

Once you reach 501 connections, LinkedIn no longer displays the exact number of connections you have and simply shows “500+”.  If you have hidden your connections, no one knows how many connections you have, so you can freely add connections without drawing attention.

Of course, if you decide to not aggressively add connections you may be hurting yourself by possibly     being “out-of-network” to the very person who may have a career-advancing opportunity.

The four safest times to aggressively add connections to exceed 500 connections are:

·         When you are unemployed;

·         When you have resigned from your current position, but have not started your new position;

·         If you are lucky enough to still be in college, build it now and have it for your entire career!

·         Almost anytime, if you can quickly exceed 500 direct connections;

What can MaxOut LI do?

We provide a solution that takes LinkedIn members far beyond 500 connections – quickly.  PowerNetwork^TM 1000 guarantees you will have over 700,000 2^nd-level connections within 14 days!  It’s a 100% money-back guarantee and no one has requested a refund. 

You will be “in-network” to virtually every U.S.-based recruiter who uses LinkedIn.  Don’t wait and you can take advantage of our current 50% discount using the promo code “EXPLODE” when you checkout.

Hopefully by employing these common sense tactics you can make a successful career transition without signaling your current employer that you are entertaining other offers!

Please share your stories!

7 Critical Issues Regarding LinkedIn (Part 3 of 7) - Functionality

Issue #3: Functionality can be dramatically improved

Utilizing LinkedIn every day and watching it evolve; I get the impression that when LinkedIn creates an aspect of their application, they get it up and running, and walk away from it.  Years later they have done nothing to improve its functionality.  By doing this, its users miss out on many opportunities. 

Several examples where functionality can be improved in the existing app, are: Industry, Location, ZIP/Postal Code, and Function.

Industry

Why are the members of LinkedIn limited to selecting one industry to use on their profile?  Recruiters are torn between choosing “Staffing and Recruiting” and at least one other industry they may recruit in.  Others may be just as limited.

If you work for LinkedIn what is THE industry you are in?  Apparently LinkedIn employees have a difficult time selecting THE industry, as well.  Running a search for current LinkedIn employees in the San Francisco Bay area, the 3,938 profiles are associated with no less than 15 industries!  Here is the list:

Clearly, LinkedIn is aware of the problem.

It is understandable for there to be a limit on the number of industries a person can select for their profile.  Without a limit, some members would list numerous industries and diminish the value of the Industry selection for everyone, but one is not enough.  Job-hunters, especially, need more flexibility.

Location

Similar to “Industry”, each profile is limited to one “Location”.  For many people, perhaps the majority of LinkedIn members, this is adequate.  But what if you just lost your job in St. Louis and are open to opportunities in St. Louis, or moving back to your hometown, Nashville, TN.  The way LinkedIn is structured, you have to pick one location, or the other – or create a duplicate profile.  Neither of these options is good for LinkedIn members.

ZIP/Postal Codes

Trusting that LinkedIn search results are geographically accurate is basic to using LinkedIn.  If you request “Engineers” in the “Automotive Industry” within “25 miles of ZIP Code 48231”, you expect to get all profiles matching your selections.  In general, I trust that LinkedIn will return profiles within a certain radius of a given ZIP/Postal Code.  But when it doesn’t recognize legitimate ZIP Codes that I stumble across, I wonder what else is wrong with LinkedIn’s search capabilities – and you should, too!

Case in point: ZIP Code 33473 in Boynton Beach, FL.  ZIP Code 33473 exists.  33473 is not a new ZIP Code, it has been in use for several years.  LinkedIn members live in ZIP Code 33473.  You can find it on Mapquest.com, maps.google.com, even homedepot.com.  It seems ZIP Code 33473 exists everywhere but on LinkedIn.com. 

This is one example of search issues on LinkedIn.  What none of us know is how many ZIP Codes LinkedIn is not recognizing, or calculating properly.  We don’t know what we are missing!

Functions

Yes, Functions.  Functions are used by recruiters to quickly search for people who perform a specific function in their job.  To the best of my knowledge the list of Job Functions has not changed in the past several years.  I don’t know which Functions LinkedIn launched with, but today they are woefully inadequate.  For a website that is largely a career site, it is embarrassing.

Most LinkedIn members have never seen the complete list of Job Functions since it is only available with premium memberships, so here it is (ignore the numbers to the right of the functions):

That’s it - 26 “Functions”.  The U.S. Department of Labor lists hundreds of occupations on its website: Dept of Labor Occupations.  The DOL “occupations” are similar to LinkedIn’s “Functions” and help show the inadequacy of LinkedIn’s categorization of “what we do”.

Within the Function structure on LinkedIn:

• A night watchman is the same as a Four-Star General;
• A home health delivery man is the same as a Neurosurgeon, and;
• A legal assistant is the same as the Attorney General;

LinkedIn can do better.

The Solutions

Members need to make sure their profile appears in search results using a 10-mile radius of the ZIP/Postal Code they use for their profile.  If their profile doesn’t appear, they should contact LinkedIn and explain the issue.  Beyond making sure their profile appears properly in search results, individual members need to do the best they can within the limits offered by LinkedIn – which is not much of a solution. 

One thing should not be overlooked – LinkedIn would be nothing without its members.  The more noise members make about these functionality issues, the more likely LinkedIn is to do something about the problems.  If you feel the issues that have been raised in this blog are things that you would like to see addressed by LinkedIn, let them know about it.  Just click on the “Send Feedback” link on the bottom of most LinkedIn pages and let them know your thoughts on their services.

What can LinkedIn do?

The first three issues should be fairly simple to fix for LinkedIn: 

• Add another selection for “Industry” and “Location” and make them searchable. 
• Thoroughly investigate the ZIP/Postal Code issue and straighten it out.  If Home Depot can, LinkedIn can.    

The fourth issue – having only 26 Job Functions, is much more of a challenge as they would have to determine which functions to add, then adjust their algorithm to properly identify and assign the functions to member profiles.  This would be a massive undertaking, but the end result would make LinkedIn a much more functional app – which would be great for LinkedIn members and ultimately great for LinkedIn.

Please add your comments in the form below.

LinkedIn Job Title: "Blacksmith" or "Equine Accessories Professional"?

On your LinkedIn profile, let your Job Function be your Job Title. Or at least your Function should be a part of the overall Title you should use on your LinkedIn profile.

Why is it important?  Today, companies seem to create titles on a whim.  A Sales Representative becomes a Client Executive, or Area Business Manager, or Manager of New Business Development, or Regional Account Manager, or Account Manager, etc.

Titles used to be more straight-forward: Blacksmiths were “Blacksmiths”, not “Equine Accessories Professionals”.

Why the titles are getting so complex and confusing isn’t important.  What is important to Job-Seekers on LinkedIn is that recruiters are searching for people who do what they do - their Function – not their company-issued Title.

Ask yourself, if you were searching for a “Sales Representative”, would your search criteria be “Area Business Manager”?  That’s not too likely.  Therefore you may not find the perfect person whose Function is “Sales Representative”, if their Title is “Area Business Manager”. 

If you are the perfect person for a position do you want your title to help you “be found”, or “be ignored”?

Let your Function be your Title, or at least a part of the overall Title. 

In LinkedIn the field length for Title is 100 characters for each position you have listed.  I don’t recommend using all 100 characters, but use what you need to increase your chances of “being found”.

Here are two examples of Title revision that would help an Area Business Manager “be found”:

Function                    Title                               Revised Title for LinkedIn Profile

Sales Representative  Area Business Manager   Area Business Manager–Sales Representative

Sales Representative  Area Business Manager  Sales Representative/Area Business Manager

A profile using either of the revised Titles will appear in “Title” searches using either “Area Business Manager”, or “Sales Representative”.

After you add your new revised Title to your LinkedIn profile, be sure to test it to make sure you are appearing in search results for both components of your new “Title”.

Evaluate all the titles you have for all of the positions you have listed on your profile, and make the necessary revisions. 

If you “let your Function be your Title” you will dramatically improve your chances of “being found”.

There is one more reason why it is important to “let your Function be your Title” - it will be covered in a later post.

I do have one request of my readers.  My blog is new, and my web site will be up next week.  If you feel like you receive value from my blog, tweets, LinkedIn tips, etc., please "Like" it, follow it, tweet it, and help spread the word.

Thank you, Dan Stiffler

MaxOut LI™, LLC is not affiliated with LinkedIn®.  We are committed to providing services, tools, training and insight for LinkedIn members to advance their careers - obtaining Maximum Results with Minimum Effort – while removing the enigma of LinkedIn.  Be sure to visit our web site: www.MaxOutLI.com, follow us on twitter: @MaxOutLI.

 

LinkedIn Job-Seekers: Which location should you display – local or major market?

Today, I spoke with a candidate who had a small town in Michigan - Oxford - displayed on his profile as his "location".  Since Michigan is a market I heavily recruit in, I know where Oxford, MI is located.  Unfortunately, most people would have no idea where Oxford, MI is in relationship to Detroit, and that could hurt this person's chances of "being found" on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn gives many members the option of choosing to display their profile location as a local market (i.e. “Oxford, Michigan”), or a major market (i.e. “Greater Detroit Area”).

VERY IMPORTANT: From my testing, the location displayed has nothing to do with appearing in search results.  In searches, geographic selections are determined by a member’s ZIP/Postal code – not the location they have chosen to display.

As this blog is intended to benefit job-seekers, the location displayed on a member’s profile is used primarily by the recruiter or hiring authority who is viewing the profile to evaluate whether or not the person lives in a suitable location for a specific career opportunity.  This is done AFTER the profile has appeared in search results.

The location displayed is an important part of the selection process.

With that in mind, members should select their location based on their target audience.  If they are trying to attract interest from local employers it may be best to use the local market location. If they believe an opportunity could come from someone distant to them, most likely they should display the major market on their profile. 

Most people couldn’t point out Oxford, MI on a map, but could easily locate Detroit.

However, if the local market location is a well-recognized market with a positive reputation for your target audience, displaying the local market may be advisable, even if your target audience is not local.

For example, if your ZIP code is 90210, you have the option of displaying “Beverly Hills, California”, or “Greater Los Angeles Area”.  Since most people know that Beverly Hills is near Los Angeles, displaying “Beverly Hills, California” may be a sound choice.

To view/edit your “location” options follow these steps: Log into LinkedIn -> Hover over your miniature picture in the top right corner -> Privacy & Settings -> Edit your name, location, and industry (In the "Profile" section);

You will be taken to a page where you can select your ZIP/Postal code and the location name:

Make your selections and “Save Changes”.

The most important points to get out of this blog are:

1. Your profile needs to be designed with your target audience in mind;
2. The location displayed on your profile is an important part of the selection process – use it to your advantage;

This is the first of what we hope will be many blog posts intended to benefit people who utilize LinkedIn to advance their careers.  The goal of MaxOut LI, and this blog, is to help them gain Maximum Results with Minimum Effort!