My source at LinkedIn, Kay Luo, tells me that my profile is in the 99.99th percentile of profiles viewed. She insisted that I should make it good—or at least suck less. So I enlisted her and LinkedIn’s designer, Mike Lin, to do an “extreme makeover” of my profile.
This is what was wrong with my original profile:
One of her strong suggestions was to ask a question at LinkedIn Answers to activate my network. Please click here to answer it.
My New Profile
This is my new profile now that I’ve seen the light: If you’re going to use LinkedIn, you should put some effort into your profile. My original one reflected a minimal amount of effort. For example, many of my current and past affiliations were missing, and I did not craft good descriptions of what I stand for. This incompleteness made my profile ineffective for networking. Hopefully, my makeover will provide some ideas to help you.
While we’re on the topic of networking and linking, my buddy Gayle Hallgren-Rezac told me about an entrepreneur in Ottawa offers a hockey ticket to Senators games to people he’d like to meet. Here’s the
story. Something like this would work on me. :-)
I don’t really use LinkedIN but those were some great suggestions! I’ll be sure to put them into practice when I get on the network.
BTW, the new profile looks extremely impressive =)
My problem w/ LinkedIn is that unscrupulous recruiters do not respect my wishes and manage to lookup the telephone number to my firm and cold calls me.
There really isn’t much that LinkedIn could do so I’ve removed some critical info from my profile to prevent being constantly harassed at work.
**************
Blue,
My logic would be that as long as headhunters are calling, it’s a good thing. It’s when they stop that you should get worried.
Guy
Guy, could you ask your friends at Linkedin how to make your most relevant position (managing Director at garage.com) appear first in your list of Current Jobs?
As you can see they do order them chronologically so you see your Garage position in between several advisor positions…..
Hence, any time i add a Board member position I get asked if I left my VC….
*****************
Believe me, I did. It’s a flaw in their system that they are addressing. I should be able to pick the order.
Thanks,
Guy
Hey Guy, thanks for the great suggestions. I think you missed one job description:
LinkedIn Evangelist :)
I followed your advice from your last post and “suped up” my LinkedIn profile.
It now shows up on the first page of Google results for my name. Awesome!
Grazie :)
*************
Tony,
Other than HIM and Bowman which are NFPs,, I only listed paid positions. Thus, LinkedIn isn’t in there. :-)
Guy
Where’s the recommendation from your former employer “Steve”?
***********
When I called him, he was on the line with Cingular trying to straighten out his bill.
Guy
Guy,
I think this is precisely the type of demonstration Linkedin has needed to share with a broader audience.
So, thanks for modeling for us! :-)
Incidentally: This part of your “suck less” Linkedin profile is PRICELESS: “As a good Asian-American, I went to law school to make my parents happy. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I couldn’t stand it and quit after two weeks. It’s one of the best things that I’ve ever done.”
Guidance from Linkedin: Gratis.
Sharing it with the public: Fantastic!
Humor on a world-class entrepreneur’s business profile. PRICELESS!!
I have been using LinkedIn for sometime and love it. Nice job once again. ;)
in your new profile, you say you lead a “schizophrenic” existence: this is a terrible use of that word.
first of all, it’s incorrect, implying a different mental illness (which most people would call a “multiple personality disorder”, or a “dissociative identity disorder”). schizophrenia is something different.
second of all, it’s insensitive. if you worked sitting down all day, would you say you led a “paraplegic” existence? basically, you’ve said, “i lead a schizophrenic existence: i blog AND invest!” come ON. seeing that actually typed out in any networking context would immediately make me write off that person as insensitive and (even worse, in my opinion,) imprecise.
Hello Guy,
LinkedIn might just be the best thing that happened to business networking. No wonder Mr. Hoffman chose to personally overlook its day-to-day stuff.
While you were (I’m guessing) somewhat easy to convince to update your profile, it took me weeks of A+ convincing, personal threats and foul language before I forced a buddy of mine to update his… A week later he received an offer for his dream job. *smile*
Personally I’ve been using LinkedIn for quite some time and its been terrific. I think that it is more beneficial if you keep distance from building up multi-thousand connection accounts. Since one cannot vouch, or even know, everyone, the credibility of one’s connection becomes meaningless (at least the way I see it).
Best,
Artashes
Thanks, Guy, for the LinkedIn update.
I signed up over the holidays and I’m hooked!
Met some great folks, re-connected with colleagues I forgot about, made some new connections and best of all…
the new Q &A section is really cool. Great way to ignite conversations, activate your network and generate ideas if you need them.
—Director Tom
I actually had to cut down what I wanted to say on my profile because LinkedIn has a very small character limit
LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover
My source at LinkedIn, Kay Luo, tells me that my profile is in the 99.99th percentile of profiles viewed. She insisted that I should make it good—or at least suck less. So I enlisted her and LinkedIn’s designer, Mike Lin, to do an “extreme makeover” of…
I like the guy from Ottawa’s idea about the tickets to a Senator’s game. One catch, you have to sit through a Sens game.
Guy, you missed a helluva series last year when the Sharks played the Oilers. Maybe this year…
The Senators games are a great place for wheeling and dealing. Quite a few consulting/marketing companies get boxes there to bring customers.
One of the better perks about living in Ottawa (there isn’t a lot else to do here)
Agreed that this is a better profile. But it begs the question: Do you really want to be contacted more by people, Guy? Maybe. I have so far been a casual visitor to Linked-in, but it may be worth more time.
Thanks for for the writeup on Linkin. I got invited to join a while ago… but haven’t really done much with my profile, but I understand the marketing possibilities. But as one who was never the largest into marketing (there is only so much I can stand before I suggest a person buy me some waders first) the fact that you can easily broaden your contacts is nice. Currently though I’ll consider it like my orkut account. Nice idea but most my contacts don’t/won’t use it so yes I can make new contacts but towards what main use. These sites are great for ones in the “Web 2.0” business but my claim to fame is a graphic artist which is less creating a worldwide contact list, and more locals needing my abilities.
I’d love to see local editions of these type of things. More of a online BNI, Service Group thing.
Guy, thank you for touching upon this subject. I totally agree with you that bringing some life to your profile is extremely important. Practicalities of putting this or that changes really depend on what you’re using LinkedIn for, but generally your pieces of advice would work for anyone.
All I have to add is that you might want to put all your contact information into Contact Settings because getting connected through your 1st and 2nd degree network can be too long or people can have no access to InMail.
I would also emphasize that connecting to everyone on LI makes little sense. The value of your network is being connected to the “right” people, in a quite narrow market, so to say.
Best,
Alex – http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander
Thanks for sharing, Guy. I had been postponing a much needed update of my profile at LinkedIn. Your revamped profile served as a good inspiration, and now I’m at 90% “Profile Completeness”. Let’s hope it generates some results. Cheers!
Why exactly do you have to ask a question at LinkedIn Answers to activate your network?
Don’t forget your websites & your blog and I recommend that you don’t put your email address in your name; it comes across as though you are just trying to build a big network and dilutes your value as a trusted peer.
LinkedIN is useless, really. It’s a great concept, not too original, but well executed, as far as development goes. As far as it being ‘useless’, I say that because it has not caught-on enough to make it a site worth using to find a job, although it may be better for recruiters to find candidates, than for candidates to find jobs.
I don’t like LinkedIn because the very same features that eliminate spam, also inhibit interesting uses of LinkedIn data.
Guy,
On the book, write a book about passion. You have it. Tell the executives out there how to hire and lead teams passionate about their brand, who feel it in their souls. Help their sales and marketing people to not suck. Or at least, suck less.
Great LinkedIn tips, thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Josh Nankivel
Guy — this is a terrific guide. Love the visual. I thought some more explanatory text might be a useful expansion, so I’ve provided an expanded profile makeover guide on my blog.
Guy,
Do you own part of linked in? This is the second very pro linked in post in the past month! Just curious…
********************
Nope, not a single share. I have no financial conflict.
Guy
Good afternoon sir, i m a management student pursuing degree of MBA in pune.Our college has announced a two months company project in may.Sir i want go for finance as my specialization so kindly tell me in which company i should do the project.thank you sir i will wait for your reply.Good day
So much about nothing..
Just the sort of refresher need for a tool I’ve come to rely on for maintaining my network. Some great tips – thanks for the polishing.
Nice profile!
This is Not Your Kid’s Social Network: Leveraging LinkedIn
This is Not Your Kid’s Social Network: Leveraging LinkedIn
Guy-
Linkedin is a great tool when used correctly. You hit hard on step 1…Have a solid profile. Well done.
My opinion is that Step 2 needs to be “let others know how they can help you”. While relationships are important, timing and involving others are paramount. We all have a big job to do and a little help at the right time can go along way. Your thoughts?
I was compelled to write to tell you how impressed I am that you obviously read these and act accordingly (regarding a post by Dennison).
Thanks-
Terry
great advice.. i continuously update my profile, keywords and interest when new ones come and old ones fade.. I think of it as profile optimization, which has led to several new introductions for various opportunities… Great Blog by the way…
dirk
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkshaw
Spicing up LinkedIn
Im a big LinkedIn fan. Ive used it to hire people. Ive used it to get work. Ive used it to reconnect with people. Ive used it to help make introductions. With the small exception of some privacy concerns, it…
Nice post, thanks.
For someone like me, who is reading your profile mostly out of curiosity, the updated one is much more interesting. However, I don’t see that it provides much for you (other than an interesting blog post, of course). Has updating your profile improved your business in any way?
I like the profile tips! My profile has changed several times since I’ve been LinkedIn. For me, it’s a great way to introduce myself without being intrusive to those I’d like to meet and to keep in touch with friends and former clients as they move around or change jobs.
To get from LinkedIn what we want our profile has to let others know why we joined or what we are looking for on there. And for it to be an effective networking tool, our profile has to really say something about us. Who wants to network with a mystery person? I’m too busy for that.
BTW, my LinkedIn profile served as my initial resume for my last job. Find people who use it and they respect it!
Hi Guy
Nice post, as the mantra says, “right thing, right way”. Do you still say that? I still quote it.
Patrick
Thats really cool Stuff u made there.Found your blog through blogg-buzz.Now you got one more reader.
Guy Kawasaki’s love affair with LinkedIn
Guy Kawasaki is an A-lister by anyone’s book… marketers, bloggers, evangelists, you name it. It took him less than a year to get his How to Change The World blog to make the Technorati Top 100. As with other famous folks, it’s not immediately obvious…
Guy
I must say that I had not updated my LinkedIn profile in a while but did so yesterday since I had to change my main e-mail.
I gave a try at ‘LinkedIn Answers’ and got 3 or 4 replies so far.
My question was ‘Looking for contributors to a new blog besides ‘Serge the Concierge’ on ‘Food, Wine, Travel’ where tips and suggestions will be made from the perspective of the local person not the tourist.
Serge
Biz:
http://www.njconcierges.com
Blog:
http://www.sergetheconcierge.com
Very interesting!
Thanks for the ‘makeover’
Steven Burda, MBA
www.linkedin.com/in/burda
(feel free to connect to me; e-mail provided)
LinkedIn has helped me create new business relationships and strike new business deals and make greater profits.
People who say that LinkedIn is useless remind me of people who once said that the black stuff flowing out of the ground was useless.
You’ve done a geat job of your make-over Guy, and of spreading the advice you got from LinkedIn.
Rob
http://www.successful-consultants.com
Does LinkedIn actually matter?
Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has just reported that LinkedIn has raised another $12.8 million, raising their total take in recent financing to around $26 million.
When LinkedIn went public in December 2006, they were valued at around $200 million, …
Am i linkedIn?
There is a push on within the python cloud of users to link everyone in via the social networking site LinkedIn. I just read Guy Kawasakis LinkedIn Primer, all about how to improve your linked in profile. I can see…
The problem with LinkedIn is that if you want to ask someone you find listed if they are the person you think knew they ask you to upgrade.
To send a short message they want 15 bucks????
Their business model is flawed limiting their potential growth and it is possible that Craigslist will kill them if they wanted to.
Plus, too much Web 2.0 but too little backend 1.0, their service is slooooow.
social networking galore
Yesterday, at the suggestion of a former colleague, Ive opened an account on linkedin. I used to have one on Orkut, but I closed it a while ago (after months of not using it at all) just so that it would stop bothering me with mail alerts tellin…
This post has several great lessons, primarily that it’s all too easy to forget that “first impressions last” when taking advantage of offers to “create your profile in less than 5-minutes.”
LinkedIn Profile ExtremeMakeover
Guy Kawasaki has an interesting post about his LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover. There is an image of his profile before with great comments on what ought to be changed and added. Many of us (me included) can learn from this and make our networking pr…
Guy, do you have any privacy concerns about disclosing too much information?
It seems to me that sites like Linkedin, although potentially useful, are ripe for abuse and identity fraud.
Now dont get me wrong, i’m an optimist and try to see the good in people, but as history has shown it only takes a few to ruin it for everyone else…
Mr guy, i confess your idea seemed like something there is no reason someone would pay for… but taking a closer look it is just ingenious this small poetic pocket otdoor – soul qick-remminders… in my view you make ‘visual hi-kai’. Congratulations!
Linkensoep: Linked In, zakenreisseks en pakkenbullshit
Met als ingredienten een paar lezenswaardige posts van de afgelopen twee weken:
Seks tijdens business-trips, de getrouwde vrouw Penelope Trunk schrijft er een eerlijke post over op haar blog Brazen Careerist. Ze zegt daarin dat business trips en gedac…
Profil Linkedin, quelques pistes pour l’am
Les profils sur les sites de social networking sont bien souvent très ressemblants les uns les autres. Vous pourrez lire sur le blog de Guy Kawasaki quelques trucs pour mieux mettre en valeur votre profil et ressortir dans les résultats de requêtes. Li…
Your LinkedInProfile
When you join LinkedIn you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients and partners so be sure to fill out your profile with your full employment and…
I was invited to join LinkedIn by a vendor company recruiter in early 2006. That invitation included this caution: “We recommend that you only connect with professionals you know well and who you are generally willing to recommend to your other business contacts.”
Another invitation stated, “I’ll only pass requests on to you from people I trust, and I hope you’ll do the same for me.”
I also received an invitation from a total stranger with a gmail e-mail address-
I took a pass on such invitations, since I already receive enough vendor recruiter *SPAM* (as in 99% calls/e-mails for 100% mismatch positions).
In addition, I just visited the site and there is a way to have it “Find Friends” from your MS Outlook address book or your webmail address book. I would never use such a feature to voluntarily give another entity access to my e-mail address books! Why should I trust LinkedIn at all? Should I create a new e-mail address just for LinkedIn?
Your reply, “My logic would be that as long as headhunters are calling, it’s a good thing. It’s when they stop that you should get worried” does not address the fact that foreign “recruiting sourcers” (as in minimum wage people in telephone bank rooms calling anyone *during primetime cell phone minutes* who meets “loose” keyword search parameters) are already abusing job search boards, such as Monster, Dice, and CareerBuilder.
The last thing I need is the same SPAMMER companies (over 200 seem to use *automated keyword search-to-e-mail* programs) finding another source/e-mail address to use for me!
Someone (or more) is even reselling resume contact information from job boards, so that I receive illegal money laundering schemes! I proved it by using a new e-mail address for a single job board-
Also, when I attempted to use LinkedIn to find former business associates, it required “employer” . Since I have been an independent consultant/contractor for over 25 years, that requirement was totally inappropriate and I reported that to LinkedIn. Interesting to note that now there is an option of “Consultant” to join:)
Another issue that I reported was “I *don’t* want automated e-mails “from me” sent out just because I add a name to my contacts list to see if they are already members”. That makes me a spammer, as well-
I think MySpace is less risky-
How do you use LinkedIn?
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hearing some great questions on LinkedIn usage (subscribe to questions on Using LinkedIn) with the most recent thoughts coming from Valeria Maltoni (via Phil Gerbyshak). I am sure you have stumbled upon a
Guy,
I found your page because I ended up Googling “Linked In” since the site was down and I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t www.linked-in.com. I was pretty sure there’s no dash in there. Your links came up second and I recognized your name from The Macintosh Way that I read many years ago. So far Linked In is a GOOD thing. I’m able to keep that more up to date than my resume and the recommendations don’t hurt either. I will definitely look at your site more to see how I can improve my LinkedIn site. Thanks for blogging!!
Guy, since this post, I’ve been working on my LinkedIn profile. You motivated me and wanted to share the results. Let me know what you think.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jer979
Appreciate the catalyst for change that you are. Keep up the great work!
Profile Update…what do you think?
Inspired by Guy Kawasaki’s post on the value of LinkedIn (and a good looking profile ), I updaded mine.
Thanks for the make-over tips; however, I would be interested in finding out if the make-over had any positive results for you.
I’ve had a Linkedin profile for a number of years but had very a few real opportunities come to fruition as a result of it.
I’m still on the fence about the real value of having a Linkedin profile [used for networking] beyond the fact that the profiles give individuals a voice to say what they are all about, in their own words, and get listed in a Google search.
Very nice makeover, i love what youve done, keep up the good work.
Ok, so I have a linked in account, but I wonder if it will continue to be more popular or will fizzle?
Comments?
Time to revamp your LinkedIn profile?
I was an ‘early adopter’ of LinkedIn, and my profile – as you’d expect – has been through several revisions. Nevertheless, there’s always more that can be done to improve these things, so I was intrigued to find an old post by Guy Kawasaki based on adv…