Lose your professional reputation on LinkedIn in 5 steps

More than 400 million people, including 934,000 Czechs, have their profiles on the LinkedIn social network. All these people have been joining LinkedIn expecting that it's a professional social network where they can connect with other professionals in various fields and discuss their work interests. They also use LinkedIn to look for interesting jobs and business opportunities. All this requires professional behavior.

The basis of professional behavior on LinkedIn is filing a user profile. Practical tips on how to start are available in our previous articles entitled Why is nobody interested in your LinkedIn profile?, The unwritten rules of using LinkedIn and Tips on how to exploit the full potential of LinkedIn.

Today we will focus on how to avoid seemingly insignificant mistakes which can destroy all your efforts to present yourself professionally and find valuable contacts on LinkedIn. An interesting article on Forbes.com warned against the following missteps.

Do not impose your contact information on others

A LinkedIn profile starts with the user's name under which the user can fill in the "Headline". In the headline, users can briefly summarize what they do. However, some users write their phone numbers or e-mail addresses in the headline in an effort to promote their contact information. This is formally prohibited by the network rules. There is a special section at the end of the profile which serves to present contact information. Moreover, users with these headlines look like cheap cheaters who only want to impose on others.

Do not brag about a huge number of contacts

Other cheap-looking users fill in information about the size of their network of contacts in their profile headlines such as "Recruiter with over 8,000 connections!". Too high a number of contacts, however, does not look professional since it is impossible for the user to know all the contacts personally. LinkedIn's rules of use encourage users to connect only with people they have previously worked or communicated with or connect only after they are introduced by a mutual acquaintance. A high number of connections gives the impression that you are massively collecting contacts in order to send spam.

Do not say you are a guru or a genius

Real gurus don't need to use any lofty titles. Your personal brand should be mainly built on what you know and what you have achieved. Describe your accomplishments using natural language and talk about yourself in the first person. It will look much more professional than if John Doe writes about himself: "John Doe is a strategic genius and a visionary guru who ..."

Do not bother other users with spam

Everybody's mailbox is full of spam every day. Refrain from spamming other users whether in the form of sending invitations to connect to people you have never communicated with or unsolicited commercial offers.

Do not scare people with a bad photo

Photography is the cornerstone of everybody's professional presentation. Poor, old or badly selected photos send a strong negative signal. Having no photo at all is equally as negative. Your photo should be current, sharp and show how nice and successful you are. Ideally, your photo should be taken by a professional photographer.