I read with interest and article on my newsfeed written by Rachel Sokol in Reader’s Digest, “12 LinkedIn Mistakes that can Cost you the Job.” She listed skimping on work history, hiding your skills, forgetting to brand yourself, neglecting keywords in your summary, ignoring your profile, forgetting to add location, posting political or controversial things, forgetting where and when you met someone, not asking for recommendations, not uploading your whole resume, and not downloading your connections. Of course, whenever people write these lists, they omit major things. As a community service, with tongue in cheek, I want to add to the list:
1. Don’t mention your fraternity or sorority. If your fraternity or sorority hasn’t been in the news recently for some stupid stunt, it will be. Best not to mention it until after you’re hired.
2. Remember that funny video of you drunk and falling into a wedding cake? Yeah, don’t post that video.
3. Check the background of any pictures you post. Make sure you don’t have things like Confederate flags, your pot bong, your collection of Playboy magazines, your exes, or your KKK hood.
4. It may be too soon to list Trump University on your profile. Hold off on that.
5. Remember, drinking beer while standing on your head is not a skill you should list. That also goes for making pipe bombs, stalking, and coloring, sexting, cooking meth, field stripping an AK47, shooting an RPG, breaking and entering, and picking locks.
6. Don’t list references who are still in prison.
7. Do not list your time in prison as an extended vacation.
8. Don’t use family as references unless you still have copies of photographs you can use for blackmail.
9. Don’t list your parole officer as a reference. Same for your Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor.
10. Don’t misspell the name of the university you claim to have attended.
11. Don’t try to be clever in your email address, i.e. buttkicker@whatever.com.
Keep these tips in mind as you build you LinkedIn profile.
For e-books by me, visit http://smashwords.com/profile/view/monteranderson.
Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/monteranderson
Follow my blog at http://monteranderson-author.com or http://monteranderson.wordpress.com
1. Don’t mention your fraternity or sorority. If your fraternity or sorority hasn’t been in the news recently for some stupid stunt, it will be. Best not to mention it until after you’re hired.
2. Remember that funny video of you drunk and falling into a wedding cake? Yeah, don’t post that video.
3. Check the background of any pictures you post. Make sure you don’t have things like Confederate flags, your pot bong, your collection of Playboy magazines, your exes, or your KKK hood.
4. It may be too soon to list Trump University on your profile. Hold off on that.
5. Remember, drinking beer while standing on your head is not a skill you should list. That also goes for making pipe bombs, stalking, and coloring, sexting, cooking meth, field stripping an AK47, shooting an RPG, breaking and entering, and picking locks.
6. Don’t list references who are still in prison.
7. Do not list your time in prison as an extended vacation.
8. Don’t use family as references unless you still have copies of photographs you can use for blackmail.
9. Don’t list your parole officer as a reference. Same for your Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor.
10. Don’t misspell the name of the university you claim to have attended.
11. Don’t try to be clever in your email address, i.e. buttkicker@whatever.com.
Keep these tips in mind as you build you LinkedIn profile.
For e-books by me, visit http://smashwords.com/profile/view/monteranderson.
Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/monteranderson
Follow my blog at http://monteranderson-author.com or http://monteranderson.wordpress.com
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