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 my profile. This is what was wrong with my original profile:

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One of her strong suggestions was to ask a question at LinkedIn Answers to activate my network. Please click here to answer it.

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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.

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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. :-)

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Comments

[foobar]

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

[Scott Allen]

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.

[Josh Nankivel]

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

[George Sudarkoff]

I don't like LinkedIn because the very same features that eliminate spam, also inhibit interesting uses of LinkedIn data.

[LinkedOut]

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.

[Paul]

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.

[Ben Fulton]

Why exactly do you have to ask a question at LinkedIn Answers to activate your network?

[Stijn Vogels]

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!

[Alex]

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

[Patrick Havens]

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.

[soreng]

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.

[engtech]

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)

[Marty]

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...

[Andy Beard]

I actually had to cut down what I wanted to say on my profile because LinkedIn has a very small character limit

[Thomas R. Clifford]

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

[Artashes]

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

[dennison]

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.

[Mike Johnston]

I have been using LinkedIn for sometime and love it. Nice job once again. ;)

[Vincent]

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!!

[Alan]

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

[Tony Chung]

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

[pablo]

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....

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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

[Frank Bascio]

LinkedIn has been a great tool for me in staying in touch with former colleagues and business partners and watching as their careers and relationships evolve over time. While I have personally used it to research individuals interviewing for my team, I wonder about the industry relevancy of a LinkedIn profile and recommendations you receive on it.

Will we see a time when job seekers list their LinkedIn URL on their resume or perhaps even respond to a job posting with just a link to their profile and be judged on how connected or recommended they are? Will sites like Emurse.com evolve to be a complimentary or competing service?

[Blue]

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

[Maki]

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 =)