LinkedIn Profiles Are Worthless, If People Can’t Find You

I firmly believe that most LinkedIn profiles are worthless, even the really good ones. I even teach a webinar on building a compelling LinkedIn profile. This is not to say that profiles on LinkedIn are not important. They are definitely important. Most are just worthless not only because they leave out valuable information, but also because they are not optimized so you show up during a LinkedIn search.

I know this because recently for a search I’m doing I spent hours using LinkedIn to search for potential candidates. Then I received a resume from a person and looked him up on LinkedIn. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t find him during my search process. He was on LinkedIn but his profile was poor and clearly not optimized for someone searching on LinkedIn.

He lacked key words in his profile.
He didn’t have the right key words that people will search on.
The information was not placed in the right locations on the profile.
He had not done any research or even thought about optimizing his profile.
His profile lacked or completely missed how LinkedIn prioritizes profiles results from a search.
He wasn’t optimizing his connections and groups so as to leverage his profile for a person searching for his profile type.

As a result of these and other issues I missed him. This almost cost him a job lead, an interview and potentially a job. He is still in the hiring process so don’t know whether or not he will get the job. Yet, all this stuff is easy to fix. It doesn’t require a lot of time, but it does require understanding how to optimize your profile and how LinkedIn works when conducting a search for people.

Even a great profile that can’t be found is like having a great website that nobody visits. Not a lot of value.

Is your profile optimized? If not think seriously about doing it. I would recommend doing two things.

First develop a great profile. Make it compelling, identify the key words, have it complete including your work history, groups, education, interests, specialties and contact information. This has to be done first so you can optimize it for a LinkedIn profile search. Plus when someone views your profile, you want them to call you.
Only after you complete and compelling profile is it time to optimize it. I say after because it is almost impossible to optimize your profile if it isn’t complete. Identify key words, include them in the right locations, test your profile by searching for yourself and ask others to search for you. What page do you show up on? Keep playing with it until you are at least on the first 5 pages. Change the words, move the locations, add more words, re-test and have others re-test. It may take a little time but it is worth it.

Taking a little extra time to optimize your profile will pay off. I’m glad this person found me through his network, but I wonder how many other opportunities he might have missed because he wasn’t findable on LinkedIn. I believe this is one of the most overlooked aspects to LinkedIn. Candidates just assume they will put up a profile and people will come. Not true. You must bring them to you.

To help you create a complete and compelling profile download our free 8 Point LinkedIn Profile Assessment. It will help guide you with the first step. CLICK HERE to get your free copy.

Check out our audio library. There are many recordings there about using LinkedIn and they are all free to download. CLICK HERE to review the audio files.

Join our LinkedIn Job Search Networking Group. Over 5400 members with active discussion, news and information to help you in your job search and your LinkedIn profile. CLICK HERE to join it is free on LinkedIn to join groups.

WARNING: Those and many other resources on our website are 100% free. I’m conducting a webinar on Thursday, July 21, on ADVANCED LINKEDIN – MAKING YOURSELF FINDABLE. This webinar will show you exactly how step-by-step to get your profile on page one when people are searching for you.This is not theoretical it will show exactly how to do it. If you are interested in getting your profile on page one then CLICK HERE to learn more.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Tags: key word searches, Key words, Linkedin Job Search Expert, LinkedIn Profile, Networking Mistakes

Job Search Mistakes, Networking, On-line Social Networking | bradremillard July 20, 2010

About the Author

Brad Remillard is a founding Partner of IMPACT Hiring Solutions, co-author of "You're NOT the Person I Hired", and "This is NOT the Position I Accepted". Brad is an award-winning international speaker, retained executive recruiter, and expert on hiring and retaining top talent, and executive job search.

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5 Comments

By Donna Nettis, July 20, 2010 @ 2:00 pm

You have the webinar listed as being on Thursday, the 21st. Thursday is the 22nd. Is it on Wednesday or Thursday? Thanks, it sounds like it will be extremely helpful.
By bradremillard, July 20, 2010 @ 2:13 pm

You are very observant. It is Wednesday, the 21st.
By Ed Han, July 26, 2010 @ 5:17 am

Brad, some very good, really needed advice here.
By Barry, July 26, 2010 @ 5:45 pm

Great article, can you give me the names of a few people that you think have great profiles so I can see what they have done and I can use their examples to strengthen mine.

Thanks
By bradremillard, July 27, 2010 @ 6:31 pm

Barry unfortunately I don’t know of any. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, I just don’t know of any off the top.
Every person’s profile I have reviewed I usually have between 7 and 10 recommendations.

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