You might think you know all there is to know about LinkedIn, but that’s your first mistake. Today we’ll go over 10 LinkedIn mistakes you might be making and 5 features you might not know about.

LinkedIn Mistakes (In No Particular Order)

LinkedIn mistakes

Mistake #1: Not having a LinkedIn Profile.

Mistake #2: Not including a profile photo.

  • Do you have something to hide? A potential employer might think so.

Fixing this mistake takes seconds. Need help? Adding or Changing Your Profile Photo

Mistake #3: Not understanding the difference between a LinkedIn Company Page and a LinkedIn Profile.

  • A Company Page is where you communicate as your business and your Profile is where you communicate as an individual.

Seems like a no-brainer, but it’s worth mentioning.

Mistake #4: Cutting and pasting in your resume instead of writing it out.

  • This is your chance to go into a little more detail about your experience as well as highlight your best accomplishments.

Just remember that you want a potential employer to actually READ it so don’t go overboard.

Mistake #5: Not updating your contact information.

  • If you want people to be able to find you, it would be in your best interest to update your information when it changes.

It would be a bummer to miss out on your dream job because they couldn’t find you to offer you an interview.

Mistake #6: Leaving the summary section blank.

  • Your summary AKA “elevator pitch” section is where you put who you are, what you’ve done, and what you hope to achieve as a professional.

You want the reader to continue scrolling down your profile page so use your 2,000 characters well.

Mistake #7: Not letting people know you’re on LinkedIn.

  • Those you’ve already connected with in other places would most likely want to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Send out an email letting them know you’re on there.

Mistake #8: Lying about your skills or accomplishments.

  • It’s never a good idea to do this.

Assume it will make you look stupid at some point and come back to bite you in the butt.

Mistake #9: Trying to connect with someone over and over and over again.

  • This is just annoying.

Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and say the first rejection was a mistake. If you send another request and you’re STILL not able to connect with this person, give up. “They’re just not that into you”.

Mistake #10: Not endorsing someone back.

  • You don’t want to come off as only a taker.

Share the love by visiting the person that endorsed you to endorse them back.

 

LinkedIn Features You Might Not Know About

Feature #1: For a short time you can actually be anonymous.

  • Want to check out the competition, but don’t want them to know your doing it? This is the way.

Go to “Privacy & Settings” then scroll down to “select what others see when they have viewed your profile” under privacy controls.

Feature #2: You can hide an endorsement someone has given you or hide endorsements all together.

  • LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to opt-out of getting endorsements but you CAN hide them.

Select “Edit profile” from the Profile Menu. Scroll down to “Skills” and click on the pencil edit icon. You can now add, remove, or hide skills and their related endorsements.

Feature #3: You can turn off the “viewers of your profile also viewed” option.

  • Don’t want your competition to know which customers you’re checking you out?

Go to “Privacy & Settings” then click on Show/hide “Viewers of this profile also viewed” box under privacy controls.

Feature #4: You can change the order that sections appear in your profile.

  • Feel like being original? This one’s for you.

Select “Edit Profile” from “Profile” menu, position cursor over the up/down arrow icon and drag it to where you want it.

Feature #5: You can remove connections.

  • You never know when you might need to delete a connection.

Select “Connections”, find the person you no longer want to connect with, hit the more option under their name and select “Remove Connections”.

Now that you got through all of that I have a few questions for you. Which of the above LinkedIn mistakes were you making? Did you know about all of these features?