A Reflection on Professional Online Profiles

I’m going to start this topic’s reflection with a confession. I don’t actually dislike Linkedin, per se. I think my comments on it recently have mainly reflected the fact that, in general, I am ambivalent towards it, as opposed to the standard line that it’s a fantastic way to make yourself look better for everyone ever. (In a fun turn of events, this blog is now the 5^th highest google entry for ‘Andy Sugden Linkedin’!) I do see its uses, and in some sectors pretty much everyone is on Linkedin, as I mentioned in my comment on Aumar’s blog, but it is nowhere near as widely used as is sometimes suggested by people outside these sectors.

I’ve also found some more evidence for my theory of the online profile being more useful for defence than offence, as an interesting graphic (albeit using a slightly old survey) from Sophie’s blog (which I also commented on) showed, when the source was looked at in full, only 18% of those surveyed had been influenced toward hiring a candidate from social profiles, as opposed to 35% who were caused not to hire someone by what they found there.

A number of other people have made some great points on how we can improve these profiles though, and whilst I feel I may always shirk when I hear the words ‘personal brand’, Pippa’s blog certainly was a great advocate of Linkedin in an interesting way that did actually show how it can be used to good effect.

So I bit the bullet. I logged back into Linkedin. I could be accused of being closed-minded if I didn’t, and I wouldn’t want that to be the case. I’ve updated my profile with a number of more relevant bits of information/skill set etc. (though there were some bits I struggled with… there are some of us who don’t really have a dream job or life goals) and even included a lovely link to this blog within the projects section.

As if I wasn’t meta enough already.