What Does Your LinkedIn Profile Picture Say About You?

Your Linkedin Profile Picture tells the world two things. 1) You exist, and you look like that.

2) Other stuff - real, and implied. That's the one you've got to think about.

Shall we take a look at some of the types of LinkedIn Profile pictures.

 "The Duck Lip / Kissy Face"

Ducky

Description: It's you, making Duck Lips. Or a Kissy Face.

What it says about you: You're worried about wrinkle lines, and you think this is the best way to show off your great skin. It also says that you don't take professionalism seriously. And, that, you are very proud of your lips.

"The Car Selfie"

Car Selfie

Description: I'm amazed how many of these I see on LinkedIn.  Taken in the car, behind the wheel, potentially in the midst of traffic. Often also shows a portion of your arm.

What it says about you: You believe you're having a good hair day (doesn't what I have left look great?). And that, often, you neglect to buckle your seat belt in the name of beauty, so you're okay with incurring two points against your driver's license. Besides, a ten car pileup behind you is okay so long as you look goooooooood.

"The Glamour Shot / Showing off the Goods"

Dusty 4

(Note: Thank you to Dusty Showers for graciously sharing this photo of himself!  Dusty has a charity called the 2nd Basemen - http://the2ndbasemen.org/, which provides financial support to victims of breast cancer. The look is his trademark. It's a great cause, please provide Dusty your support!)

Description: A photo that shows lots of cleavage. Or is otherwise kinda sexy.

What it says about you: Showing off your assets is important to you.  And it's giving potential employers something more to look at than just your work history.

"Out and About"

Game Photo

Description: Picture that has nothing to do with work.  It could be taken at the ballgame. Or at a corporate party. Or drinking mojitos on South Beach. Often, it's not even in focus.

What it says about you: More than you'd like. It's usually a candid shot of some sort, where you're not at your best.  Often there are parts of mystery bystanders in the shot (arms / heads / etc.).

Final thoughts: Your picture on LinkedIn can tell people you are a consummate professional - or something else.  Try to avoid the "something else".  Spring for a professional portrait for your LinkedIn Profile picture.  If that's out of your budget, and your company took a portrait of you, ask if you can download that one, and stick it in your LinkedIn profile.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

Reasons to Accept those LinkedIn Invites (and Some Reasons Not To)

We all get lots of LinkedIn invites to join peoples' networks.  Friends, family, total strangers, it's a lot to process.  How do you decide whether to accept invites? It's not an easy question to answer, and I don't think there's any universal answers. Everybody on LinkedIn has an agenda - to get a job, to fill a job, to sell snake oil, what have you.

Here's my thoughts on whether it's useful to accept those LinkedIn invites to connect.

ACCEPT ALL THOSE LINKEDIN INVITES IF:

• You're looking for a job and you want to be found. People are connected to people who are connected to you.  And not all recruiters have a premium subscription, so they have to find you the old fashioned way - hunting for you.
• You're a recruiter.  You need to build your network as large as you can. See last bullet point. The more people you have in your network, the more potential candidates will seek you out. In addition, if you have a staffing firm, it can't hurt your rep. See next bullet point.
• You're selling something. I mean this in the larger sense, not necessarily in the sense of selling widgets. Are you a business consultant? Are you a marketing a product? Selling insurance? Are you a Venture Capitalist looking to build your reputation? This will enable you to increase your visibility and simultaneously access more potential leads.
• You're buying something. For example, an Accounting Controller might be looking to start an RFP for an ERP. Or you're a Corporate Recruiter who needs candidates from staffing firms. If you'd like to make it easier for vendors to find you, this helps. But you will need to figure out a strategy to deal with the contacts you don't want.

SELECTIVELY ACCEPT INVITES IF:

• You're a passive job candidate.  Meaning, you're not actively looking for a job, but you wouldn't mind being found.  Recruiters will try to connect with you to build their pipeline network, but there's a decent chance they have a premium subscription that will enable them to find you even if they don't have you as a connection. But make sure your LinkedIn profile looks like your resume, so that they can search you by keyword.
• It's useful for your profession. Let's say you're in Public Relations with a focus on technology, and you need access to technology journalists.  It can't hurt to build a network with these folks, especially if they reach out to you. On the flip side, if you're a technology journalist, being connected to tech PR professionals will enable them to reach you to pitch stories.
• You know the people and want to be connected.  It's within your rights to keep your network small and limited to people you know.
• If you want the connections and it's generally helpful. If you've never been to Lagos, and Nigerian bankers are trying to connect, what value can you get from this? They probably aren't connected to folks you'd want to to find anyway.

DECLINE ALL INVITES IF:

• You don't care about finding a job.
• You hate people. I'm not sure why you have a LinkedIn account in this instance, but what the hell. Rock on.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

How do Recruiters use LinkedIn to find Candidates? And How do I get noticed?

LinkedIn has become the most prolific tool in the recruiter's arsenal.  There's something like 300 million users now, and if you're a professional anything, it's likely you have a LinkedIn profile. Other than just putting up job postings, how do Recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates for jobs?

• Companies pay for it. With real money. Your subscription as an individual is free unless you opt to upgrade it. You may think that your visibility is limited to just those individuals to whom you're connected - wrong, Bubba. Companies pay some serious coin to buy a Corporate Subscription seat that allows them to find almost anybody with a LinkedIn page.

• The Corporate seat gives the company the ability to perform complex searches, for things on your page, including:

  • Keywords

  • Job Title

  • Geography within x miles of a zip code

  • Level of Individual (Manager, Director, Vice President, etc.)

  • And many, many other things

  • The Recruiter then searches through the results and builds a list of people to contact about a job. They then can create a form letter to send to the people on the list to gauge interest in a position and to request a resume. LinkedIn users can turn off the ability to receive messages, but most people don't.

  • The Corporate LinkedIn seat system then tracks any communications that they may have made with you through LinkedIn. Recruiters within a company can share their seat, so that the other recruiters can see what's shaking with your candidacy. I should note, this is confidential only to the company who has the seat, and can't be seen by other companies.

The bad news is that there isn't much privacy out there.  The good news is, if you are a passive candidate, and you've got a marketable background, it's not too difficult for recruiters to find you.  Here's some tips for getting noticed by Recruiters using LinkedIn.

• Take the text from your resume and copy the details into your LinkedIn profile. It will make you more searchable through keywords. It's a socially acceptable way to put your resume out on the internet without making your current employer panic (too much).

• Approach your LinkedIn profile as you would your resume:

  • Highlight accomplishments, not just duties

  • Front-load the most important information, including a compelling "Summary" section with a clear summary of who you are professionally

  • You can solicit professional recommendations for each job from peers and managers.  If people are willing to give them, ask for them. You can always decide whether or not to make the recommendation public.  This helps lend some credibility.

  • Make sure your skill keywords are reflected in your profile somewhere.  Are you an expert in Microsoft Project?  Include it.  Have experience in Compensation and Benefits? Include it.

  • How many connections you have doesn't matter to companies who buy a Corporate subscription. They can still find you. But there are some companies out there who don't pay for it, but still want to find you. In this case, the more connections you have increases your visibility.  Definitely an incentive to keep building your LinkedIn network.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.