8 Embarrassing Mistakes on LinkedIn You Should Avoid

LinkedIn is a professional channel connecting the World’s professionals to make them more productive, help in headhunting, hiring targets and successful. People update their profiles with their updated skills and resumes to enhance their professional connections and contacts.T he helps them to reach out a number of people and also to get better job opportunities for themselves and fulfill their dream jobs and happy workplaces to work for.

LinkedIn started in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003. It was founded by  Reid Hoffman and his team members, the great team from Paypal and in collaboration with Social.net.In late 2003, later investments were made by Sequoia Capital which is an investment company. Later in June 2008, it was purchased by Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms, they purchased 5 % stake for 53 $ million. The idea behind this was a professional site to help people headhunting and search and recruit best talents from across the world.

Being Professional is the word! Professionalism defines your attitude, etiquettes towards work. The work you put up defines the type of person you are. It defines you and your character. Be Alert! Sometimes while updating and upgrading our profiles we ourselves make some very generic mistakes which can mislead us. Being a social networking site for professionals, it predefines some basic set of etiquette one must follow.

Here we list down some embarrassing mistakes one should avoid on such a professional networking site which might mislead you:

1. We sometimes do not accept requests of people who we might just have known in a meeting or might be a stranger: this can be a situation when we do not respond to a stranger’s request to connect, just because of lack of clarity. Be humble, take out some time, visit his profile, recollect and maybe just drop out a message can we know each other better before connecting professionally…This might be a humble feedback to someone who was willing to connect with you, might be he was in utter need of a job!! Be humble…might be the person was just seeking your help in earning a living. Maybe he was in need of some earning…If you can help someone; there is no better deed in life than it!!
2. Avoid treating the networking site as a dating site: Sending generic connection requests can be a big mistake. Sending default connection requests to people you do not know or have known just at a meeting might seem very unprofessional. One must properly specify how you both are better connected and why you would like to connect with him to exceed your professional network. It’s thus, not a dating site. It’s a professional network. It helps employees to reach out to their dream jobs. It can help you also sometime in future!!
3. Asking for recommendations from least known contacts: Asking people to recommend you, people who just know you or some might even wonder whether they even know you…. As recommendations emphasize on your skills, on the skills of even the one referring you, asking such favors might turn out to be childish on a professional network. Once you’ve worked with your colleague, you can then ask him/her to recommend you to some job he is well known or has got his contacts up to.

4. Overusing endorsements feature: People generate endorsements for their friends, this might be fake. Friends endorse each other without realizing whether the skills sets are present in their contacts or not. Endorsements should speak out for your colleagues, it will help HR professionals to identify the best talent globally and recruit them the best payable jobs in the market.
5. Using unprofessional photo: People or students sometimes put photos on the beach, posing with friends, in restaurants /hotels which look very unprofessional. Remember Linkedin is a professional social networking site.be professional-put up photos at an office, at work, in a library, solo passport size photos look much simpler and define you better as an individual…
6. Exaggerating your resume: Many people exaggerate their resume, over-boost their skills when they actually lack many skills and mislead the hiring folk. This doesn’t much serve the purpose of the HR who use LinkedIn as a major recruitment tool for various job profiles across locations.
7. Subject to self-assessments and self-given titles: Sometimes exaggerating oneself with self-given titles may seem childish on LinkedIn. It can lead to an image of over self-exaggerating and over expectations from the job profile. This can be misleading.

These minute mistakes must be taken care of because it sometimes becomes very embarrassing for others connected to you. It might leave a negative impact on your HR if you’re looking out for a job.

8. Over-exaggerating or Inflating your experience. It’s bad enough to inflate your experience, strengths, achievements, skills, and accomplishments on your resume. But when you do it on LinkedIn or any professional network, people who know the truth will see it. If your co-workers or former co-workers or your colleagues happen to look at your profile and see you reporting accomplishments or responsibilities that they know you didn’t have much of or you were not actually good at, they will know that you’re lying, misleading and faking others on such a reliable professional networking site. Next time people might hesitate to trust you……

How to avoid such mistakes on Linkedin profile and make sure you do not mislead others:

• STEP 1: Put up a professional profile pic. Make sure it’s professional; you’re not posing or taking selfies, or munching up in restaurants and hotels or sitting up with friends on a beach. Students shall not put very glary profile pics –it’s not a friendship website or a dating site –after all, it’s a professional network!
• STEP 2: Make a profile true to yourself. Write down your real life true achievements. Do not exaggerate. Do not write up skills which you do not have. Be true to yourself; do not fake. Your work should speak up for yourself. If possible you can also upload papers; publications published by you on your LinkedIn profile.
• STEP 3: Do not ask for endorsements when you do not have the requisite skills. Do not ask friends to endorse you and recommend you. Put only those skills which you possess as your skills. If you do not possess a skill, do not ask your friends to endorse you. This is a professional site –‘’it’s not your Facebook account’’….
• STEP 4: Do not ask just acquaintances to write reviews for you, this might seem fake and misleading. This is a professional sit Reviews should be written only by colleagues who know how good you are at a particular skill. Those who know you are weak at a skill might see you as a faker if you put up false reviews by friends and relatives. Try to help out all and make tasks easier for all. To outreach the best talents across boundaries.
• STEP 5: Have clarity in your search. Make sure your heading is clear to what you are doing or what you are currently working on. This helps your profile to have an advanced or expert level of completion. If you are searching for the internship –redefine your LinkedIn status; if it’s a job show clarity in your search. Clear thoughts show up clarity in work and define best professionals.

These simple steps and believe me it can help you to complete a truly professional profile and connect with the best professionals across the globe. Best uses of a Linkedin profile and a professional networking site can be used when used truly to its use without any cheating….This platform helps to communicate to industry leaders, you can get and find yourself a job from any remote location irrespective of any geographical barriers. By practicing these simple professional tips, it can definitely help to build on a strong professional profile and a strong professional networking site. It can help you to enhance your connections.

Here are some definitions to get you well acquainted with some terms of LinkedIn:

• Connections – Connections are other registered users whom you invite and send requests to connect to on a free accessible LinkedIn site.
• Second-degree connections – Friends of your connections are your second-degree connections.
• Third-degree connection –Connections of your second-degree connections are your third-degree connections.
• Profile page – This is your personal page on LinkedIn. All registered users on your LinkedIn account, with LinkedIn, can view it (unless you set it to be a private page). Your profile page can list your experiences, projects, training, internships, education, past work history, current and past projects, groups and associations, and more. Users can also forward your profile page to contacts on their lists. You can also make your profile page “public”- i.e allows anyone to use it or customize it so that only people whom you want can use it. so that anyone (even people not on LinkedIn) can view it.
• Recommendations – Your connections can write recommendations, or testimonials, reviews, for your profile. These can be a powerful way you can be recommended to good jobs in the market.
• Introductions – Introductions are when a third party introduces two people who weren’t currently connected, but will hereby get connected after the introduction. For instance, your colleague Sue and your client Dan don’t know each other. Introduction to each other can help either way to solve both work-related and personal problems.

FEW TIPS FOR YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE:

• Tip 1: Remember that your boss, people you work with, your colleagues, your known contacts, and others at your organization, will be able to see your LinkedIn profile. Do not regularly post updates or update your profile, it might give a bad picture that you are in search of other jobs!

• Tip 2: It’s an obvious point, but it’s one that people forget: information. Make sure that you respect confidentiality, business should be confidential. It’s not your personal information; it’s the company’s property! And don’t give away information that could harm your organization or leak or damage any other data of its client or for its future use.

Remember these guidelines when using LinkedIn:

• Use introductions usefully; remember it’s professional way of introducing someone – Success on LinkedIn relies heavily on reputation and the way you address and put up yourself… Be careful when you ask for an introduction, recommend or introduce yourself to others. It defines you completely and does so only if you truly think everyone can benefit.
• Always tell the truth to be it your profile or your achievements – When discussing where you’ve worked, your projects, your work anything… and what you’ve accomplished, be honest, and don’t oversell yourself but speak the work you did.
• Be professional – LinkedIn is used mainly for professional networking, hiring and headhunting. So, stay professional and maintain the true etiquette’s anytime and at all times. Use other sites like Facebook for personal posts. No personal posts on LinkedIn.

This article was just a way to help you connect better, and also help you build up a professional network where the impression be it personal or professional, that you put up helps you to find a better job, a better professional environment and a happy and empowered workplace to work at. Remember –‘WORK IS WORSHIP’!!So be etiquette and maintain a professional behavior even on a social network.