Hate Your LinkedIn Profile? Then Shut It Down!
In my coaching business, one of the things I hear most from people—women, especially-are confessions like, “Yeah, Carlota, I’m on LinkedIn…but I hate it. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, and ugh, I hate my profile, it’s boring.” Let’s face it: if you, like many people, are dissatisfied with yourself, and by extension, your career, LinkedIn is a minefield of intimidation and despair. It’s the infamous gym scene in “Carrie,” repeated endlessly. If you’re feeling stuck in your life, just the idea of going on LinkedIn can raise a lump in your throat and bring you to tears of shame. You’re surrounded by people who seem to exude confidence, achievement and success through their very pores. Meanwhile, you’re stuck in a job you hated five years ago, when you took it. In desperation.
Okay, so you have no idea why you’re on LinkedIn. You’re probably on because everyone else seems to be, but it’s no fun, you hardly ever visit the site, and you couldn’t “use” your profile to get a job for love or money, since you have no idea what career you really want. So, it just sits there. Something else to make you feel like crap. Oh, goody.
But what if you took down your profile? Before you roll your eyes at me…I’m serious, yo. If you’re not going to invest the time to understand and use LinkedIn; if you’re not going to recognize your time-wasting, life-draining insecurities for what they are…why not simply take down your profile? Take your profile down, close your account, and focus on the things in your life which give you joy. LinkedIn isn’t going anywhere. If and when you forgive yourself for not being superhuman, and start taking pride in all that you have achieved, LinkedIn will happily welcome you back. LinkedIn’s not your mom, it doesn’t judge. You’re the only one wasting time making yourself feel guilty.
Presentation is extremely important in our speed-of-light work culture, so I’d argue that you’re doing far more significant damage to yourself and your long-term career goals with a half-assed profile, than no profile at all. When I see clients with disorganized profiles, headlines that don’t really say anything, bad photos—or, even worse, no photos—essentially, when I see clients with unintelligible profiles, and these same clients hate their jobs, are ashamed of their careers and their job searches are stagnant at best, despite having 500+ contacts…I’m not in the least surprised. If you don’t know what you want, how can you possibly present yourself to get what you want? All you’ll end up doing is showing the world how disorganized you are. What employer would be interested in that? All you’re doing is announcing to the world that you don’t take yourself seriously.
Also, let’s all step back from the ledge and realize that the people with rock-star profiles are simply exceedingly careful about what they allow the world to see. It’s comparable to you taking oh, say 500 photos of yourself to finally capture that one “casual,” wind-blown, flattering shot. (And then you delete the other 499 pictures.) That’s what these people are doing on their LinkedIn profiles: obsessing. They’re obsessing about how they present to the world, so they can get the best possible response in terms of opportunities, connections and approval. It’s not good, it’s not bad, but it is very human.
Listen, life’s hard enough. Figuring out what you ideally want to be doing, and then gathering the courage to create that life is brutally hard. It takes almost Jedi-like discipline. If being on LinkedIn reminds you of the girls in high school whom you felt obligated to impress, even though all they did was mock you…seriously? Come on. I don’t even know you, and yet I know you don’t deserve that nonsense. Shut down that profile and go treat yourself to a cocktail. Or two. (The first one got lonely.) There’s enough people out there who will demean you for their sport. You should be the first to celebrate (wonderful) you!
Want some (non-judgmental) advice on your LinkedIn profile, or even better, someone to join you for those cocktails? Bueno! Become a fan of my Facebook page, “Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta,” and email me at carlotazee@gmail.com!