Friday, July 9, 2010

Do I Need a LinkedIn Profile?

Dear Evil HR Lady,

I have a middle-managerial position in a big international IT company and I am considering changing companies. Does not having a LinkedIn profile In makes me less attractive for HR personnel? I really have a strong education, expertise in my realm, a long and successful career and can provide good references from top managers of all the companies. I mean i have nothing to hide and I consider myself to be quite competitive but i do not have that LinkedIn profile.

Reasons: I personally find Linkedin to be a very biased tool. From my practice the worse the employee is, the more connections and recommendations they have in Linkedin - that's just frustrating for me. i personally know some very low-performers who were in fact fired after working less than a year. However they all have very shiny profiles in linkedin with LOTS of buzz words, connections and even recommendations, which are granted by the similar people (i also happen to know them personally). That makes Linkedin for me a very poor tool for reflecting real persons' qualities and i have abandoned *my* profile a long time ago after i noticed how many connection/recommendation requests I got regularly from either non-performers or even complete strangers - people just seem to hunt for them nowadays. Similarly i do not have any accounts in social networks like Facebook or Twitter - it's just against my nature to spend time on such activities...

But on the other hand - literally everyone now seem to have Linkedin profile so i ponder whether being "not in the same boat" actually makes *me* look worse or suspicious for my potential new employer? Could you enlighten me on perception of social networks' public profiles by HR specialists nowadays?


Do I need a LinkedIn Profile?

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