One of my very brilliant colleagues, Louise Fletcher (@louise_fletcher), just tweeted about a great article she penned on seven common mistakes made in creating a Linked In profile. I’ll add two more.
–Not having recommendations
Some recruiters will pass you by, not matter how great you are, simply because you do not have any third party endorsements attached to your Linked In profile. Not only “having” recommendations, but “how many” recommendations.
Another equally brilliant colleague, @CareerPro, tweeted this a few days ago …
A client just told me that for a VP of Finance interview the interviewer wanted xx amount of Linked In endorsements just to get past the screen. [emphasis mine]
A sub-mistake of not having recommendations is to, upon reading this post, send an email out to everyone in your Linked In network asking for a recommendation. Please don’t. If I don’t know about your work, your attitude, your contributions – I sure can’t write a recommendation about it.
–Not being branded
If you aren’t unique and different, you are just … a commodity. I’m sure you know that commodities don’t hold much value these days. They are not only cheaper, but we will often hold out for a coupon or discount before making a commodity purchase, further devaluing it.
Branding touts what’s distinctive about the way you contribute. Rare – now that’s valuable!