Mistakes You’re Making on Linkedin that Cost You Job Opportunities

Every day, Linkedin looks more and more like the winner of social media for business networking. What was once a ghost town for job updates and work anniversary celebrations is now a bustling tool to grow your reach, explore opportunities, meet for digital networking, and more. 

Because of this, though, Linkedin is constantly changing in etiquette. What’s socially acceptable? What’s too much? What’s too little? How’re people getting job offers? There are “Linkedinfluencers” now?!

It can be a lot.

After almost three years of being on Linkedin just about every single day, I’ve seen these changes happen in real-time. I’ve also grown with it – building my entire freelance business on this social media platform by attracting offers via my profile, creating content, and reaching out to my connections.

Below are the top mistakes I see on Linkedin – with some tips on how to improve so you can “do it right.”

Profile

You’re treating your profile like a resume

When you should be treating it like an inbound marketing tool. If you’re About section is written in the third person like “Betty is a passionate marketing leader with 13+ years experience delivering exceptional service in the tech industry…,” you’re already missing out. 

Use your About section to sell yourself, tell a story, and draw people in.

Screenshot of Luke Matthews’ About Section on Linkedin

You have irrelevant job experience

Your Work Experience section doesn’t need to list everything you’ve ever done since your 9-month stint at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf during college. (Hey, that was me!). Stick to the important stuff that your ideal leads will care about.

You’re not including your personality

Contrary to popular belief, Linkedin is a poppin’ place to show off your personality. People are there to connect with other people! You don’t have to be button-up, stuffy, formal, correct, what-have-you… unless that’s your personality. Then by all means, be you!

Do:

• Have a profile picture that clearly shows your face

• Make a free Linkedin banner that shows off who you are and what you do

• Add emojis, puns, etc, in your profile if you want to

Screenshot of Liz Willits’ Linkedin Headline

Connections

You’re being random AF

• Cliffhangers that’re just like “Hi james…” and nothing more. Um, context, please?!

• Asking random people to endorse you

• Giving random recommendations to people

• Connecting to whoever so you can reach 100+ connections per day

I don’t believe you need a strategy that stresses you out but put some intention behind your actions. Reach out and make meaningful connections. Then, find common ground based on your profiles and consider how you can bring them value.

You’re “pitch slapping” them

“Pitch slapping” is the act of pitching someone your services the minute they’ve accepted your connection request. 

Slow dowwwwnnnnnn.

“Pick your brain” messages are filed under here too. You can’t ask to take from someone unless you’ve given to them first (usually through commenting on their posts, building rapport, or creating your own valuable content) or at least have something to give in exchange. 

Screenshot from my “that’s WAY too big of an ask from a stranger” graveyard on Linkedin

Content

You’re writing large blocks of text

Holy moly is this one a pet peeve of mine. Because there’s nothing worse than opening up a page and encountering a large wall of text doom that makes your brain say in .05 seconds “big nope, way too much work” and so you don’t even give it a chance and all your hard work goes down the drain because you didn’t want to spend the extra time in giving the brain a break with some lovely, luscious white space. Don’t do this!

Too many line breaks

On the flip side, people, we know line breaks are your best friend but some people take it overboard. 
They say to break up your chunky messages
by separating it line by line into bite-sized pieces.
So I often see posts like this, looking perfect.
But making the voice in my head seem robotic.

Because it's breaking text for the sake of breaking text.

🤖🤖🤖
It's true that breaking up text makes it easier to read... because, well, I'd take robotic over a wall of text any day.

But we still want each thought to be placed together in the same sentence or same line. That's how we speak naturally!

Sometimes we have a quick thought.

Sometimes we have a longer thought that takes more time to reach the point.

It all blends together like peanut butter and jelly (the smooth kind <-- not the chunky sort).

So here's my tip:

Break up lines in your posts by where you place the periods or by keeping things to a two-three line maximum.

You’re adding links or resharing content

Okay, this one is not your fault. It’s Linkedin. They penalize content that includes links because they want to encourage users to stay on the platform. I don’t know what they have against reshared content (my guess: it’s not original content), but they are my lowest-performing posts every… every. Single. time.

Instead:

• Include your link in the comment section of your post.

• If someone’s post inspired you, create your own post and tag the original user to let them know. Yay for creating more original content!

You’re not engaging with other people’s content.

Or the comments are a weak “Well said” or “Good post.” Try adding something new to say to the conversation or point out what you understood or took away from their post. A lot of great interactions stem from the comments! 

If you don’t see content you like on your feed, don’t be afraid to unfollow people that don’t yield brain juice from you!

Linkedin, just like any other form of social media, should be a curated feed full of people that inspire you, make you laugh, help you learn, and more.