Marketing trends in the latest times have become more and more innovative. One trendy way of getting attention of companies and building connections with the prospective employers is through LinkedIn. Being in the marketing job for quite long, I keep on visiting LinkedIn profiles of different companies and individuals to get updated on the latest marketing trends in the market. During the whole networking process, I sent invitations to different people related to the marketing career and people related to Human resource department. Similarly, I get many invitations from people across the fields with the mutual interest. I accept some of them and decline few unimpressive profiles too. That made me feel what makes our profile more attractive and what‘s in our profile tempt people to reject our invitation. Few things which made people reject your profile invitations could be among one or more of them.
- Unlike other social networking sites, LinkedIn is a site for serious professionals. Having no picture on your profile can make you lose the member’s attention. Professionals prefer to connect with people with real identities and not worth animated pictures or mere company logos. You may have a special affection of any animated figure, but spare them to your Facebook profile. Company logos will look good on company section and not on individuals. If you put a proper face to your name it will build more trust on your profile and you will get more acceptance and even few invitations.
- Unfinished profile: your complete profile helps you to understand your educational background and other professional details and skills. Prospective employer takes interest in those skills and educational information as they help them to understand who you are and what are your talents. For example, if you are doing an accountant job, list all the accountancy skills you are proud to have. If you kept such details incomplete, your prospective employer will think if they don’t bother to tell me who they are, then how would they serve any of my interests or why should I do anything for them.
- Small number of connections and recommendations on your profile: profiles with few connections seem like a fake profile. When an individual sets out on his professional career and makes his LinkedIn profile. They will first prefer to connect their friends and academia. Your profile should get recommendations from your teachers, supervisors etc. If they have not recommended you then why an unknown employer would will do so.
- Invite message: normally LinkedIn offers a message as “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”. Be a bit innovative in this line when you are inviting other professionals in your network.
- Be honest: while connecting to someone pertinent in our career, we are asked about how we know the other person. Some of us fib in that message which imparts a very negative impact of ours to the other person. For example, if you are doing an accountant job or a marketing job and you saw someone from your field, you invite them to your profile and you lied about how you know them. For instance, you wrongly say you have gone to a same school or worked in the same organization. This hauls your image in the other’s opinion. It is not a wise approach to start a new professional conversation with a lie, so avoid that.
Final Words: LinkedIn has become a very important source to build new connections and building up a strong network. Mistakes mentioned in the article are not allowing you to expand your network and getting connected with the right people at the right time.
