How “Promiscuous” Should You Be on LinkedIn?

Well, the poll results are in!  If you haven’t gone back and checked the posting I ran earlier this month, asking whether “quality” or “quantity” was more important when it came to forging connections on LinkedIn and similar sites, here’s a link that will take you there.

In sum, out of 27 people who took the time to vote, two of them seemed to feel that it was best to err on the side of building lots of connections, 10 of them felt people should be really cautious about who they hooked up with, and 14 felt that the answer really depended on the context of the situation and the purposes you were using the site to achieve.  And one person basically voted “none of the above” for some odd reason.  I’m not sure what other option there might be, actually, in terms of connection methodology, but if you’re the one rebel out there who voted this way and want to clarify your point-of-view, I’d love to hear it!

At any rate, it probably comes as no surprise that I would have voted for the third option, above, based on my belief that one’s “promiscuity level” on sites like LinkedIn should depend entirely on what you use the site for  and the risk/reward curve you’d face in connecting to lots of people on these types of systems.  For example, if you are someone who makes your living by networking and accessing lots of diverse people, I can completely understand the benefits that would result from connecting to almost anybody who asks, even if they’re a complete stranger.  For example, if you’re in a sales or recruiting role, there’s an awful lot to be gained, financially, by having thousands of 1st Degree contacts on LinkedIn and being able to access millions of other 2nd and 3rd Degree contacts, as a result.  You also probably have the networking chops to deal appropriately with the barrage of return favor requests and introductions you’re likely to get as a result of pursuing this high-volume strategy.

If you’re NOT in a sales-related role, however, you probably have a lot more to lose than to gain by overexposing yourself to thousands of contacts on these kinds of systems.  For starters, if you’re somebody in a management role with a well-known company, the reality these days is that you’re going to attract a lot of attention from job hunters seeking some inside help getting hired in your organization.  This can become  burdensome, after a while, especially if these requests are coming through complete strangers or other people you’ve let into your network, but don’t know very well.  You could also be a big neon target for hunter-type sales professionals eager to get an audience with you.  Don’t get me wrong — these are perfectly legitimate uses of the system and people have every right to ask the other folks around them for favors — but if you’d prefer to minimize the number of such requests you have to field on a regular basis, it’s smart to connect more carefully from the get-go and only build ties with a handful of people you have a great deal of trust in.

Is this advice reaching you too little, too late?  Have you already let a plethora of people connect to you on LinkedIn, including folks you don’t know all that well?  Unfortunately, the only permanent way to deal with this issue would be to actively disconnect with some of the people you’ve already hooked up with, but this is pretty bad form if they haven’t done anything specifically to abuse their connection with you.  A better approach, in most cases, is to visit your LinkedIn “Account & Settings” page and make a few adjustments that will protect you from some of the more extraneous requests.  For example, you could tweak your “Connections Browse” setting to prohibit casual browsing, as I do, so that people can’t just flip through everybody you know on the system looking for targets of opportunity.  Additionally, you can change your “Invitation Filtering” option to only accept invitations from people who know your e-mail address, going forward.  Or you can go into the “Contact Settings” page and tell the system to only let certain types of introduction requests through, such as business deals versus job inquiries, that sort of thing.

The bottom line is that you have a LOT of options in terms of how you approach sites like LinkedIn and how restrictive (or not) you choose to be about who you connect with.  The trick is to come up with the right strategy, for you, based on your professional focus and your relationship to “relationships” in general!

Career Poll: Quality vs. Quantity of Social Networking Connections?

Despite the many marvels of social networking websites, these tools have raised a whole new type of interpersonal challenge to the forefront that we haven’t really had to deal with in the past.  When using tools like LinkedIn and Facebook, should people be “promiscuous” and agree to connect with just about anyone who asks, or should people be much more guarded and only connect with a small handful of friends and acquaintances whom they know well?

I get asked this question all the time from my clients — and certainly have my own personal opinions about it — but before I share my own thoughts via an upcoming blog posting, I wanted to take a quick pulse-check and see what all you out there thought  about the issue.  So cast your vote and weigh in using the poll below!

Inappropriate LinkedIn Usage: 2 Examples

I suppose it’s only natural to expect a few examples of “bad behavior” when you get 40 million people together in any one place, including on a website.  Still, I just can’t resist calling attention to two sleazy practices that some LinkedIn users are starting to engage in that not only violate the spirit of this wonderful website, but will hamper the effectiveness of the tool, eventually, if left unchecked.

Sleazy Practice #1:   Posting rhetorical or self-serving questions in the “Answers” section

The Answers page of LinkedIn is a beautiful thing and is clearly designed for one purpose and one purpose alone: for people to submit legitimate queries about business, careers, and (I suppose) life and receive useful input from fellow members.  More and more, however, I’m seeing some consultants attempting to use this section as free advertising to promote their own services and personal agenda.  How do they do this?  They ask rhetorical, circular, or baiting questions that they then answer, themselves, or use to promote their own products.  You’ll find a recent example of this if you click here.

Shame on you, Rita Ashley!  And what the heck is the Seattle Examiner, anyway?  She alludes to running an article with some great job search tips in this publication, and when you click on it, you get some weird made-up news website that actually says Spokane at the top, not Seattle.  Not very impressive for somebody who claims to be a professional advisor to $100,000+ job seekers.

Going forward, please help me stamp out this practice by clicking on the “flag answer as advertisement” option at the bottom of these types of questions, whenever you run across them…

Sleazy Practice #2:  Creating a LinkedIn profile for your company, instead of (or in addition to) yourself as an individual

One of the reasons LinkedIn is so useful is that you can’t hide behind anonymity on the site.  Whenever you post a job, or respond to a question, or network with other people, your actions are ALWAYS tied back to your specific individual profile so that people can immediately identify you and gauge your authenticity.  Recently, however, I’ve noticed a few organizations trying to game the system by building a separate profile for their company as a whole (in violation of LinkedIn policy) and then using this generic profile to build connections and increase recognition for their organization.  Here’s an example of this practice.

Shame on you, iMatch Staffing!  While I suppose some of these organizations think they’re just being innovative, or engaging in acceptable “guerrilla marketing” tactics, it’s abundantly clear that this practice is not the intended use of the site — and there’s also no question that the companies engaging in this practice know they’re being deceptive.  I mean, come on people.  Did you really think it was okay to type “iMatch” as the first name and “Staffing” as the last name on your profile?

In closing, thanks for letting me vent, and while I recognize that the above two examples are still fairly isolated incidents, I’m hoping that LinkedIn steps up and nips this kind of behavior in the bud before it becomes commonplace.  These kinds of actions only serve to confuse people and if thousands of additional folks starting following suit, and ignoring the etiquette of the site for their own personal gain, there’s no question that this would weaken the functionality of the site to a significant degree.  Let’s report these types of abuses when we see them and help the offenders “wise up” before they spoil it for everybody!

LinkedIn: Career Change Secret Weapon

Everybody knows by now that LinkedIn.com is the single most important website to master if you’re looking for a new job, right?  Everybody’s gotten the memo?  Well, I’ve got news for you.  As good as LinkedIn is at helping people research companies, and make relevant job search contacts, it’s equally as good at helping people research new career options, if that’s their goal.  It’s just that most people don’t think to look at the tool through this slightly different lens…

So if you’re seeking to make a significant career switch, here’s a quick rundown of how LinkedIn can help you explore your options:

•  Use Keywords to Find People Doing What You Want to Do:  With over 40 million people now on the LinkedIn system, most of whom have fleshed out their career histories to a decent extent, the process of researching career choices can finally transcend the “theoretical” realm of high-level labor statistics and government reports.  Now, with the press of a button, you can find hundreds of real people, doing the real jobs out there that you want.  You can find “proof of concept” that the job of your dreams actually exists.  All you need to do is visit the People page of LinkedIn and try searching the “Keywords” box using several of the key skills, competencies, and passions that you most want to apply in your career, going forward.  See who comes up associated with these words and then simply make note of what they do for a living!

•  Reverse-Engineer Using Education:  Wondering what doors a certain degree or certification can open up for you?  As above, try doing a People search on the LinkedIn site, but this time leave the Keywords box alone and search instead using the name of your degree, major, or certification in the “School” search field.  This approach will scan the educational backgrounds of all the other members in the system, to see who shares your same degree, and then, as above, you can then simply note what occupations these people have now found themselves in.  Want to eliminate the obvious choices?  Try using a minus sign parameter in the Title box to screen out any job titles your research has already turned up.  For example, if you’ve got a degree in Psychology, but already know you don’t want to be a counselor or psychologist, search with “psychology” in the School field but then add “-psychologist -counselor” in the Title field.  You’ll turn up numerous alternative paths such as Curriculum Designer, User Experience Specialist, and Organizational Development Consultant.

•  Find Role Models: What Do They Read & Where Do They Congregate? Once you’ve identified some people in the LinkedIn system who do the kind of work you want to do, or seem wired to the types of topics that interest you, scroll down in their profiles to see what they read (if they’ve filled out their reading list) and even more importantly, which LinkedIn Groups they belong to.  LinkedIn Groups have EXPLODED over the past year and can be a phenomenal source of useful information for career-changers.  For example, if somebody was interested in breaking into the field of web analytics, and looked up a list of people with the phrase “web analytics” in their Title, they’d quickly uncover a number of relevant Groups to consider joining, including Web Analytics Demystified, Web Analytics Professionals, and the Online Marketing, Web Analytics, and E-commerce Group.  Getting involved in these Groups can be a tremendous way to build contacts within the appropriate professional communities and immerse yourself in the latest relevant trends, talk, and terminology.

•  Ask & Ye Shall Receive: Amazingly, many people still haven’t figured out that if they ask virtually any semi-serious career or business question on the “Answers” page of the LinkedIn site, they’ll likely receive dozens of thoughtful, useful responses from other members of the LinkedIn community.  This is a pretty incredible thing.  Try throwing out a question like “What career options, aside from being a novelist or journalist, would be best for somebody with strong writing skills?” or “What certifications are red-hot and would offer the most immediate marketability, these days, for somebody trying to break into the information technology field?”  The answers, suggestions, and positive boost of encouragement you’ll receive from your fellow members might amaze you!

One of my favorite all-time lines from the Simpsons TV show is when Homer once said: “Doughnuts.  Is there anything they can’t do?”  (guess you kind of had to be there…)  But that pretty much sums up my feelings about LinkedIn.  It can be used in so many incredibly creative ways, including as a pivotal brainstorming tool for those seeking a new career path.  It’s just that most people don’t quite think to use it from that angle, so hopefully the above tips will help get some of you pointed in the right direction in terms of these powerful capabilities!

LinkedIn Tip: Two Handy New Search Features!

As wonderful as the LinkedIn system has been, all these years, I’ve always wondered why the powers-that-be over there haven’t made certain little features available that seem like they’d be a piece of cake to add — and that would extend the usefulness of the tool (especially in the People search category) to a much greater degree.

Well, somebody must have been listening, since LinkedIn has finally added two simple “tweaks” to the search interface that I personally feel will help most people — especially advanced users — zero in even faster on some great networking targets when conducting a search.  I’d highly encourage all of you out there to try out these two features in the near future to see how they might be able to enhance your own search efforts:

Feature #1: Searching for People By Exact Degree

If you’re a regular LinkedIn user, you’ve already figured out that you’ll have more success, on average, reaching out to your 2nd Degree contacts (i.e. “friends of friends”) versus 3rd Degree ones (e.g. “friends of friends of friends”).  To date, however, you couldn’t tell LinkedIn to only show those individuals who were an exact degree away from you in a given search.  You’d instead receive a list of EVERYBODY in the system, by default, and then would have to sort this list and start filtering through your contacts, page by page.

Now, if you click on the “Try our new People Search Beta” option at the bottom of the People page, you’ll be able to use a new interface the site has designed that adds several helpful features — including the degree specification option, above, as well as the ability to screen people based on the number of Recommendations they’ve received, which is helpful, as well.  This is definitely a step in the right direction and I’ve already used both of these features, multiple times, in my own search efforts.

Feature #2: Customized Views of Your People Results

The next helpful feature that we just noticed was available on LinkedIn (not sure how long it’s been around) is the ability to customize the data view that actually comes up, once you run a People search.  In the “old” days, for example, the search results page listings would automatically show the number of connections each person had, which was useful in gauging who might be most responsive to your networking inquiries.  Then, suddenly, they eliminated that data from the results view.

Now, after running any People search, you’ll see a drop-down box at the top that has a choice called “My Customized View” where you can define the exact information you want to see for each person who shows up in your search listings.  This feature lets you choose to display or turn off up to 11 available fields of data in your listings.  So in my case, I turned the “connections” feature back on, as stated above, and I turned off a few fields like “past” (job history) since I’m usually more curious where somebody is currently working, at first glance, as opposed to where they’ve worked previously.  These view is then saved and will be the default view for any future searches you run, unless you change it.

Again, these two new features aren’t necessarily ones that I’d label as revolutionary, but they certainly help take the search capabilities of LinkedIn to the next level — and eliminate a few more of the frustrating “why can’t I…” aspects of the system that have been a blemish on this otherwise terrific tool over the years!