7 LinkedIn fatal mistakes

If you are a job seeker or career changer who is not using LinkedIn, you missed one of the most powerful tools ever created.

What are LinkedIn fatal mistakes?

The first decision you need to make is whether you seriously want to use this tool. You can’t go in half-hearted and then expect results.

7 LinkedIn fatal mistakes – What is a half-hearted LinkedIn strategy?

1. No photo because you don’t think you look good or you never liked having your picture taken. Time to change that. Studies show without a photo, your LinkedIn profile will get up to 21% less views or rapidly get dismissed.
2. You set your LinkedIn settings to private because you don’t want someone to see you. Then don’t expect hiring managers or recruiters to find you either. To show up in the search results, people need to find you.
3. No LinkedIn summary. You didn’t even know there was a reason to have one and you don’t know what to write.
4. Little content in your job roles. While many experts suggest you shouldn’t replicate your resume content, I believe it is worse to have nothing or just your job title.
5. Your experience doesn’t use accomplishments. The whole idea of asking yourself to expand on your duties with a Challenge, Action, Result type of mindset will yield better content whether in your resume or on LinkedIn. It is work to seriously think through what you have done and what value it brought but well worth your time.
6. Didn’t incorporate skills matching your goals. Keywords and the right skills are huge today. Human eyes and computer eyes are both looking for the same thing. Skills and keywords that match their needs. If you don’t take time to figure those out, you will fail.
7. No one can contact you. Make sure you are letting LinkedIn emails reach you and have an email that you check regularly in your profile. I also recommend your cell phone to my active job seekers. It is easier to reach you and recruiters are always moving on to the next candidate.

What else can I do to maximize LinkedIn?

Connect! If you have less than 100 LinkedIn connections, you aren’t connecting or using the power of LinkedIn. Your network will continue to grow organically after you work to get a strong base.

Share content via LinkedIn. Update your status with articles that align with your goals and areas of expertise. Use #hashtags to draw people to you with keywords fitting your goals. Small blurbs of content especially if they educate, speak to the heart, or intrigue others help to bring readers to you.

Publish! You can publish (write your own articles) on LinkedIn, take advantage of it. In my LinkedIn training, the career industry emphasized you get different benefits from publishing on LinkedIn even if you are writing a blog like this one. Personally, my blog (you are reading it) is critical to my success as a resume writer. But if I also publish on LinkedIn, I will draw in readers who might not read my content elsewhere.

Participate in LinkedIn groups. This form of online networking with like-minded people can often open the door to stronger contacts that lead to a job.

Network! Take LinkedIn relationships offline. I have done this with all of my social media networks. I talk on the phone, have lunch, and otherwise meet with people who initially were online only relationships. Networking is the key to job search and entrepreneurial success and it is fun too.

Need help? While job search is sometimes painful, I can take the pain out of writing your resume and even make it fun with a personalized, interactive process. Hire me, Julie Walraven, Certified Master Resume Writer.  Click Here.