Bad LinkedIn advice we’d like you to stop following

Include the title you want instead of the title you have

You may have heard that you should put an aspirational title on your LinkedIn profile to make yourself seem as experienced as someone with that role. In fact, seeming more senior than you really are isn’t necessarily a good thing. If a recruiter is searching for a “Head of Product” and you already have that title on your profile, they might worry that you’re too senior for the role and pass you over for a role you’d be happy to get. 

Here is what to do instead: include your current job title, but use an industry-wide term. If you have a company-specific title, you should adjust to something more common. For example, if your company calls senior managers “Level 3 Leaders”, feel free to change your title to “senior manager, product group”. It will give someone unfamiliar with your current organization a good idea of who you are and what you might be open to doing next.

Use AI to write content

We’ve seen advice for job seekers to use AI in order to get more stuff on their profiles, posts, blogs, comments, etc. Here is the thing, though, more isn’t necessarily better. Whether it is LinkedIn posts, blogs, your about section, or job experience section, people can tell when you used AI to write it. AI written content looks great on its own, but all together it starts to look repetitive and generic. 

Here is what to do instead: You can absolutely use AI to draft things for you, but make sure you go in and edit it yourself. AI has a very specific way of writing things like social media posts, with bolded titles, bullet points, and emojis. It all starts to look the same, and recruiters might worry your profile is AI-created. If you’re going to use it as a starting point, make sure you go in and give your writing some natural variance and human touch.

Send out as many applications as you can

Just because you can one-click-apply, doesn’t mean you should. Companies get thousands of applications the moment they post a job on LinkedIn. When you one-click-apply, you’ll probably just end up in the job search black hole.

Here is what to do instead: It is better to send four specialized, intentional applications than a hundred generic ones. Read the job carefully (sometimes companies sneak in instructions like cover letters or questions they want answered to see if people are paying attention), edit your resume a bit to highlight your relevant experience for this role, and then apply. Once you’ve applied, reach out to the recruiter or hiring manager who posted the job. Sending a nice personal message will differentiate you from most other candidates. Read more on how to do this in our January newsletter- https://meytier.com/blogs/mid-senior-level-job-seekers-need-a-different-strategy. 

Use LinkedIn as your super resume

You shouldn’t be using LinkedIn as your super resume. There is no need to include every single thing you’ve ever done, especially if it is years old and not relevant to what you’re hoping to do next. You should tailor the jobs, skills, and responsibilities you highlight to what you hope to do next. 

Here is what to do instead: First, remove any short stints in a different field, your college summer jobs, and old experiences. By all means, keep anything that is important to you, but don’t feel pressured to leave everything on your LinkedIn. Second, go through and rewrite your responsibilities of your old roles to highlight the work you did that is relevant to the new opportunities you’re looking for. For example, say you’re looking for a role as a Marketing Analytics Lead and your first job was at a PR agency managing several key accounts. Find the overlapping responsibilities between this role and the one you’re looking for, in this case, campaign performance measurement, data analysis and interpretation, communication skills, etc. You can keep other responsibilities in your description, but reorder them to really highlight what is relevant to what you want to do next. 

Want our thoughts on LinkedIn advice you saw somewhere? Send it to content@meytier.com and we’ll include it in our next blog!