For better or worse, social media has changed the way business happens. One of its biggest effects has been on how we judge credibility in others. In the past, we would extend provisional trust to new connections. When we met someone, for example through a referral or at a professional event, our starting point would be to trust them. We would then build a relationship and a foundation of credibility underneath it. These days, because information is so easy to access, that process has inverted. It's easy to research someone before we decide to do business with them. We're giving more and more credibility to the information we find … [Read more...]
How to Share Your Experience (and NOT your Resume) on LinkedIn
How do you talk about your past on LinkedIn? It's easy to look at the Experience and Education sections on your LinkedIn profile as the "resume" part of the profile. There's a slight problem, though. No one wants to read your resume. Even corporate recruiters and headhunters don't want to read a resume. But then how are you supposed to talk about your past work life? Your Profile Isn't Your Resume Much of this confusion stems from the fact that the LinkedIn Profile did start as a kind of online resume. In its early days, LinkedIn was a way for professionals in Silicon Valley to keep track of each other because it was an environment … [Read more...]
Don’t Worry about Keywords on Your LinkedIn Profile
I'm always looking for a few good tips on improving the LinkedIn profile (and I want to keep tabs on what everyone else is talking about). So I read a lot of articles that are some variation of "X number of ways to make your LinkedIn profile work for you". Most give solid foundational tips for the profile. But I see one idea over and over again that I have to say something about. It seems like basic advice but I think it's actually counter-productive. I cringe every time I see it because it's horrible advice to give someone who is reading an article on the basics of writing a LinkedIn profile: Create a keyword-rich summary and … [Read more...]