Before you go bananas and think I am totally mad, just read this so you understand why I suggest you drop out of LinkedIn if you don’t use it. Welcome to LinkedOut.

A LinkedIn profile that is not updated, with no personal photo or background image, with few connections, the list goes on… is so bad for your image and brand that it’s better not to be on LinkedIn at all.

Closed quotation mark with solid fills your excuse that you are not using LinkedIn yourself so why bother keeping your profile top-notch, attractive and up to date?

Of two poor choices, no LinkedIn profile is better than having a bad LinkedIn profile!

LinkedIn is the go-to-place to check out other people’s professional backgrounds. There are now more global members than the total population of the 10 ASEAN countries.

• Hiring Managers search for candidates to job opportunities in their company.
• HR professionals like to check if the LinkedIn profile reveals other details than presented in the candidates’ resume. Yes, happens too often and may result in the candidate being ditched from the process.
• The Sales Director looks up your profile before your meeting to find any potential icebreakers.
• Your head office is comparing LinkedIn profiles of internal applicants for the big promotion to Regional CEO. They want to see if you are marketable and have paid attention to personal branding.
• The best-in-class candidates, who have been approached by your HR Department about a management job in your company, are using LinkedIn to learn more about the immediate superior of the position in question.
• A potential new supplier to your company is checking out your profile to evaluate the standards of how your company manages the LinkedIn profiles of their employees. Will they want to be your supplier?

Fashion is in the eyes of the beholder

The “problem” is that fashion and styles keep changing constantly. Just look at clothing, cars, buildings, colours, and design to see the never-ending changes.

Best practice in resume writing and LinkedIn profiling also keeps evolving. Often, it’s caused by new development in technology and programming of applications.

Did you see the recent news that LinkedIn will now let users add their preferred gender pronouns to the accounts? Could be handy if your name is Chris that may be from Christopher (he) or Christine (she).

If you are Singaporean and your name is Kim Low or Japanese Sato Suzuki; it will certainly help westerners to know who is male and who is female.

Free webinar on LinkedIn Best Practice

Join my regular free webinars, one is about LinkedIn Profile Writing, to get inspired, to get a refresher on what it takes to build an attractive profile.

Details on www.tomsorensen.in.th/webinar/

Remember, LinkedIn is all about marketing.

The only purpose: To get someone to reach out to you.