Some people choose to document their entire life on Linkedin, while others prefer to keep it simple, showing the bare minimum. Personally, I like to keep mine somewhere in between.
I cringe whenever I see people writing their autobiography in the summary, having an essay under each of their job title, adding too many people they don't know (cough cough Steven Burda), putting Time's Person of the Year 2007 under the Awards section, etc.
What are your Linkedin pet peeves?
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Comments (108)
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-- The people who write in their biographies, "As a mother, sister, friend, IT consultant ..." (and the male equivalent)
-- "Aspiring/Incoming" XYZ as a title
-- People who have something like "Helping project leaders be the best that they can be!!!!!" or "Marketing | Growth | Strategic Innovation" as their title; just tell me what you do
-- People who list their middle and elementary schools on the site (not a pet peeve, but I find it hilarious)
LinkedIn apparently encourages its users to do the first one. You should take a look at the headlines of LinkedIn employees...they're incredibly pompous.
Source: friend who works in LinkedIn bizops
"incoming consumer/retail with a little bit of healthcare thrown in sophomore summer analyst"
"Founder/President/Chairman/CEO of (insert company that only has a facebook page, zero followers and no revenue)"
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the absolute worst
Only to be shown up by that guy who has 6 current positions of the same.
I started a company last year with a co-founder. She wanted her/our title to be CEO and I was like, "Uh, no. Look, we have no revenue. Our value right now is $0, at best. Let's just stick with the term "Partner" or "Principal."" She was cool with that, thank goodness. But yeah, it is kind of off-putting to see people with the same title as Mark Zuckerberg when they have no revenue, no followers, no nothing.
Summer analysts who set the wall paper background of their profile page to a backdrop skyline of NYC or even worse, a Wall St street sign.
this is a great one...do you like mine? it's bananas...
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People who think LinkedIn is anything more than a way to professionally stalk people for background ahead of meeting them.
times I use LinkedIn other than for this - nil.
It's really used by us in sales to get your life story and what you do at a company before we call and try to sell you stuff. Makes our life easier.
"Hello, is John Smith in today?"
It is a great tool to see the path that someone took to become a pain in the ass.
People who straight up lie about their accomplishments. Have seen it happen quite frequently
Float like a butterfly, sting like the bee.
People who put ", MBA" after their names like its a certification
I am actually friends with a consultant that has "MBA" on his business card. I am not proud of it, but I've known him my entire life.
You're a bad friend for not calling him out for it
People who write about themselves in the 3rd person in their self summary.
People who think a cropped photo of them in a tuxedo at a wedding is a professional profile picture.
"Incoming" anything
uh oh, my photo is me on my wedding day 3 years ago...but it's not in a tux. still ok? ha
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lol i think it looks good chief no one noticed
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"incoming MBA candidate" == d-bag canoe
You killed the Greece spread goes up, spread goes down, from Wall Street they all play like a freak, Goldman Sachs 'o beat.
People who comment on posts from companies saying "XXX company seems like a great place to work, please look at my profile and let me know if any positions are open" or some general "I hate the companies operations/the CEO is an idiot" post. News flash no one is looking at the damn comments and making business decisions.
Also the math posts that say, "99% of people got this wrong, are you one of them?" Fuck off and take that to facebook.
Haha the math posts comment is so true!
I saw a variation of this, whereby LinkedIn users were asked to solve a simple yet deceptive calculation. The main prize was, and I quote, "Solve this, and we will give you a great job in an awesome IT company". The number of comments (well in the hundreds) made me cringe...
One of my many LNKD related pet peeves - whenever I see people my age (mid 20s) craft profiles thinking they're the next Tony Robbins or Elon.......
Any self-proclaimed "visionary", "guru", "entrepreneur", or "expert".
CFA Level I Candidate. You paid for the books, but haven't accomplished anything.
That and people keeping "Passed CFA Level 1" which is several years old.
If they've pass CFA Level 1, doesn't that indicate a certain level of knowledge? Even if they never plan on sitting for the other levels, it's relevant.
True, but unfortunately HR might see that and push the resume along...So you have to play the game sometimes.
Totally off topic, but since you mentioned it, what are the books i should pay for to pass Level 1.
I put MD candidate on my linkedin page...just trying to be honest
Recently the posts/pictures/rants that look more like something you would see on Facebook have been popping up on my feed. That's probably my biggest pet peeve.
Not so much a peeve, but something ridiculous and entertaining is the out of control "titles" people have. My personal favorite (best of the worst) is, "Sharks are born swimming."
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I'll choose one. The scenario where a recruiter or HR person posts a job and some clueless person says " I AM INTERESTED". Similarly, a company has an automated advertisement that they are hiring and people post in the advertisement's comments. Good grief. I wonder how much of the unemployment numbers are from ignorance.
Ok I'll choose two. People who have a bunch of fancy titles "Author, Motivator, Educator, Actor, Idiot..." and you look at their profile and they're finishing up their undergrad at Chickasaw A&M. You can be anything you want to be boys and girls!
I agree with all of the above. Not sure what good it does, but I report people regularly for posting stupid shit. I use LinkedIn as an article source mainly, as well as looking people up before meeting with them, so when I scroll through in the morning looking for interesting articles posted by professionals or companies, I don't want to see bullshit.
My list (including some repeats - SB's to those who I steal from):
Well said.
A-fuckin-men
Number nine hit a screamer out of the park for me. Well said, brother.
"Incoming" anything...
It ain't what you know, it's who you know
Student until they're an intern, whatever their intern title is while actually an intern, and then student again until they have a full time job.
Making your title "incoming" in January or whenever you get an offer when you're not actually there until May or June just makes you a tool.
Incoming insert anything (usually bankers)
Insecure morons... Yeah send me the MS, you know who you are.
1) retail traders that put an institutional trading floor as their cover photo... lmfao
2) incoming anything
3) calling every job under the sun an "analyst" when absolutely no analytical skills are demanded of the position
I've actually a seen job posting for "Analytics Analyst". I clicked on it thinking it was a joke...but nope.
Lmfao that's a new all time worst
Steven Burda got everyone beyond his first 30k connections removed. So did anyone else beyond that threshold.
We're no longer connected. Feels bad, man.
-Putting "Incoming" before some internship at one of your dad's friend's boutique.
-Once saw: "Working to live my dream of becoming a Big 4 Accountant" This one in particular made me fume....How boring of a fucking person do you have to be.....
-Kids who mention their paper trading experience. I swear, saw some kid list paper trading as a current job.
People who are super serious teacher pet on linked in and super douche frat boy on facebook, you narcissistic hypocritical dick
1) Cold adds with zero context. You are in a completely unrelated industry and role and live two time zones away in a city I've never been. The least you could do is write something in the little blurb that tells me why the hell I am somehow a relevant contact for you
2) "Stealth mode" job listings - I think that just sounds obnoxious
3) Making unofficial titles official - "Junior Engagement Manager" at McKinsey makes me cringe every time.
4) "Congrats" news feeds - I think it's obnoxious to post something on the friggin news feed so LinkedIn will tell others to congratulate you.
I can definitely relate to all of these comments. Hopefully, with Linkedin being acquired by Microsoft, there will be something done to help make it a more genuine and effective social platform.
Man, that's the problem though isn't it? I guarantee all of the people who post the kind of bullshit everyone here complains about would call their shitposting "authentic" and "genuine" and "reflective of their personal brand" or some shit because there are workplaces and personality types that encourage that sort of nonsense.
Agree with this point - the most annoying LinkedIn users are probably the highest grossing ones (pay for a premium account so they can cold add everyone under the sun etc.).
Also, as much as I love their products, I challenge you to think of a single brand that Microsoft has made better after acquiring it in the post-gates era. The deal made no sense.
knowing microsoft they'll somehow find a way to make LI even worse
What is the answer to 99 out of 100 questions?
Any of the old-people-facebook-esque posts: the clickbait "articles," the 1-like-1-prayer cancer pictures, the 99% of everyone gets this math problem wrong pictures, the over-sharers, the cringe-inducing memes, all of that shit.
hate the facebook esque stuff, I'm just waiting for a blacklivesmatter or makeamericagreatagain thread on linkedin.
here are some of mine, mostly repeats
Questions for everyone: At what point in your career do you take off your internships on your Linkedin profile?
I'm not at that point yet, but I think when you take it off your resume for being "too old" or "unrelated" you should take it off your linkedin
Probably by your 2nd or 3rd job post-college, unless it's a highly notable brand then maybe a bit longer.
Probably once you're 5-10 years in. I know one guy who went MS M&A -> megafund PE -> HBS -> founded VC firm, is 28, and doesn't even include Morgan Stanley and the megafund PE gig anymore.
Going to disagree with the "rising senior" point here. I think the term is really useful for the summer. Being an undergrad student, a lot of people get confused if I say I'm a sophomore or junior, while "rising junior" makes it very clear I just finished my sophomore year. Rising senior implies that you just finished your junior year.
TL;DR I think using "risnig senior" during the summer between junior and senior year is acceptable.
I normally know something is wrong with a Linkedin profile If I cant see all your info on my screen or scroll down abit. If I have to scroll down for more than 3 second, you need a life outside Linkedin
I'm going against the grain and saying that I actually think the objectives/summary section is ok on linkedin. On a resume you don't have enough real estate to write a lot, but on linkedin I dont mind it.
My biggest peeve (and this is partially a problem with linkedin) is how your most recent "education" shows up as the headline education.
So if I completed a certificate course at a university and wanted to add that to my linkedin it shows up in my headline. So I come across tons of people that attended Harvard, Stanford, etc but they really just did an online certificate program. For some reason this really annoys me.
I have a "friend" who was an english major at UVM, but his Linkedin says Booth school of Business. Why? He took a 4 WEEK general business course there, 1 week in acc, 1 in fin, not sure about the rest though. Needless to say everyone who has seen it got a great laugh out of it.
If you happen to be in tech, the 5-10 people per day from India/Pakistan/SE Asia/E Europe that add me and ask to be my development partner with "high expertise" in phone gap mobile apps. Ummm...sounds awesome, click "x". I get no less than 4 per day and usually more.
-Lengthy and, imo, pointless bios
-Too much info on job descriptions especially if you're obviously pumping the tasks like crazy
-random adds, no clue who you are, literally zero connection minus everyone else you added in my network
Very enjoyable thread. I guess some pet peeves are universally annoying.
My formula for linkedin: your desperation to get a new job = the length and density of your linkedin profile
Here are a few for me:
Just fucking today I've seen three different pictures on linkedin with long, rambling, "heartwarming" messages about the recent protests. One is a group of cops that supposedly bought a black family that wouldn't sit next to them dinner. One is supposedly a black lady who bought a cop his coffee. One is supposedly a picture of black lives matter people hugging racist rednecks who were protesting them protesting.
None of this shit has anything to do with business. I have no idea why people think that the world has gone to hell and it is up to them and them alone to be some sort of new age Ghandi and bring everyone together through contrived social media posts.
Top 5 rant. Love "new age Ghandi." Should be the title for the next Depeche mode album
When people start a post with "I know this isn't facebook..." and then proceed to dump a shitty facebook post on everyone. Just because you preface the comment does not make it legit.
I don't even like that shit on Facebook. Def don't want to see it on LinkedIn.
Mr. Dennit: Ricky, your little obscene gesture is going to cost you 100 points. Do you know how much that costs us in sponsorship dollars?
Ricky: With all due respect, Mr. Dennit, I had no idea you'd gotten experimental surgery to have your balls removed.
Mr. Dennit: What did you just say to me?
Ricky: What? I said it with all due respect!
Mr. Dennit: Just because you say that doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want to say to me!
Ricky: It sure as hell does!
Mr. Dennit: No, it doesn't--
Ricky: It's in the Geneva Conventions, look it up!
Name, MBA
who cares about what other people are doing.
The fake it 'til you make it [wealth/life/business/mind]-coach personalities. They enjoy to write about themselves in third person, know every word in the marketing dictionary, and often straight up lie about their accomplishments (or at least claim something that is extremely hard to verify).
They are usually in their mid/late 20's, and have some super awesome rags to riches story to tell: Bored with the rat race as an analyst for some megacorp now turned best selling authors, have done some TEDx talk, have "consulted" Fortune 500 companies, but now spend their days just trading a few bucks here or there, or helping others via coaching seminars. "self-made" millionaire of course. The same shitheads you see on Businessinsider, entrepreneur, etc. guest columns. These people thrive on linkedin, and even worse are their followers.
But other than that:
Maybe it's just me, but I like linkedin profiles to be brief. I know people are being told to really sell themselves, or at least make an effort to stand out, but 9/10 times it just ends up looking like a marketing bullshit generator.
So not one person here has ever done this stuff when they were starting out?
Absolute truths don't exist... celebrated opinions do.
Pictures of Leo as belfort giving business advice in captions
People who post their blog posts as articles they've written. Like no bro, you weren't published you wrote something that got 10 views and forgotten.
"It is better to have a friendship based on business, than a business based on friendship." - Rockefeller.
"Live fast, die hard. Leave a good looking body." - Navy SEAL
Some people have so many of them it takes two minutes to scroll all the way to the bottom.
People whom you don't know well asking for endorsements
I never thought it would happen on LinkedIn, but GoT was legitimately spoiled for me when someone posted a recruiter-oriented meme that showed a primary character's death...c'mon....
18 year old L/S portfolio managers. Just LMAO.
I feel ya, 100%. I've seen "head of credit trading" at HF for a 30-year guy who never worked a day in HF previously.
been receiving more spam via LI pm's lately, annoying.
also sad are the real people who write you pm's actually expecting a response
What is the answer to 99 out of 100 questions?
posting a picture of you in your cap and gown just because you graduated undergrad. even worse if you post at length about the struggles you went through to get there
I don't know how much more to add, but the following really grind my gears;
Lmao @ that profile.
Redact ...
Why do Level I Candidates annoy some of you?
It should show that at least the individual has an interest in accomplishing very distinguished designations. It should also show that the individual at least believes that they have an interest in proving their knowledge in their respective industries (CFA, CFP, CAIA, FRM.. etc..)
getting requests from people i went to high school with who manage a CVS right next to the school we went to or equivalent
People who write arrogant profile summaries in the third-person. Example:
"______ is a recent graduate of ______ University. He is a goal oriented individual and with a passion for growth and success. ______ is a well-rounded leader, remains involved in a variety of capacities, and is an avid scholar.
With a ______ in ______, his interests lie mainly within general financial services, primarily investment banking. He embraces challenges, strives to be the epitome of excellence, and looks forward to reaching back and sharing all he has learned and experienced with those who follow him."
Jesus Christ...
I just have beef with LinkedIn to begin with. It's a circlejerk and as someone said above, only really serves as a stalking device. My personal pet peeve are the people who write like 10 bullet points for each of their experiences. They treat it like an extended resume, e.g. "all the stuff I would have written on my resume if it didn't need to be a single page in length".
Also, endorsements. Don't fucking get me started.....
1) Someone who puts MBA at the end of their name like it's a title. I click on these sometimes and notice that probably 90% of them are from some shitty school that I'd be embarrassed getting any degree from.
2) My aunt is into holistic medicine (don't even get me started on this) and she lists like 10 sets of "certifications" each one more meaningless than the last. When I said that it looks pathetic she said everyone in her "field" does the same thing. Seriously it's like "First Name Last Name 50 letters that mean nothing to anyone even the potential clients".
3) Very pretentious summaries. Mostly by marketing people that think they're proving their worth as marketers by "brilliantly" marketing themselves. It 100% of the time comes off as pathetic and trying too hard. My favorite was a former co-worker working in marketing calling herself a "one woman army" in her profile.
Update of the day:
Connection of mine has the title "Team Valor - Pokemaster." She's in advertising and apparently this passes for wit.
She has tons of blog posts "published" that she wrote, herself, for LinkedIn. The first is about Pokemon. The second about losing her iPhone and how hard that is for a millennial. The third is about "embracing the title of "alumni."
Her summary says "Advertising professional, social media specialist, and personal branding expert working in one of the most robust industries of the 21st century. "
Her undergrad education section literally takes up a full page from top to bottom.
Marketing and PR people are the worst
As someone who was previously in PR, I concur. There was literally nothing about my time with those people that I enjoyed. Everyone thinks they're smarter than they are but still can't run a proper linear regression to save their lives.
If anyone wants motivation to slam their head against their keyboard for an hour, go ahead and google this phrase and have a look at her twitter page.
Founded a hashtag. OH JEEZ. I'm impressed.
Nice try Microsoft....
Name, CFA, FRM, CAIA, CFP, PRM, CIPM
Well what's wrong with that? Ppl studied hard to earn those designations and they deserve to show the world.
Terrible first post
Sure, in theory. But there's almost a 100% correlation between people that feel the need to trot out their advanced degrees in front of everyone and people that are insufferable to be around. Most of the successful people I know who have advanced degrees don't even talk about it unless you specifically ask them what sort of education they have.
People who wave titles around instead of their own skillset are always suspect, to me.
"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
I don't see Linkedin getting any better. This is the fate of every social media site. It starts off great and then slowly deteriorates. As the popularity of the site grows, you are bound to get more people who don't know the true purpose of the site. People on Facebook used to be very tame. They would comment and post pictures once in a while, but now my feed is filled with just memes, and random posts and pictures of strangers with Facebook telling me that one of my many friends "liked/reacted to this." Originally, Linkedin used to be relatively tame and professional, but now more and more people are coming in who constantly post "motivational" things and who are probably the same people who post memes on Facebook.
If Linkedin were to start removing people like this, the site would be less "enjoyable" for them and less people would log in. Gradually, the company would lose existing and new subsribers and thus, lose revenue. As we all know, no company would ever want that.
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