Who does your LinkedIn profile belong to?
Wait, I know we’ve asked the question of who do your LI contacts belong to… but I’m asking… who does your LinkedIn profile and all that lovely real estate within your profile belong to?
I’ve always, always, ALWAYS thought of my LinkedIn profile as a destination. It’s somewhere a job seeker should arrive and through the words on that page, my hope is they become excited about the company I work for, and excited about potentially meeting with me. They should learn about my own background and the kind of recruiter I am. They should learn about my company and our culture. And they should get pumped when they spend time on my profile. They should also feel more than welcome to reach out to me because of the tone of the language in my profile. Through very specific language. By leveraging all the real estate LinkedIn gives you within your profile. And I’ve had some pretty good success with this. It’s always been self-serving though. I want to attract and find talent. And so I’ll do what I have to do to attract and find said talent.
So you’re a recruiter and I’m a recruiter at the core… but here’s what I think – our LinkedIn profiles are ours, except for they aren’t. Because if I’m in the recruiting game, I’m using my profile for my company. And maybe even using enhanced tools through LinkedIn paid for by my company. And whenever someone is trying to do a search on LinkedIn to see who they know at my company… my name is going to pop up. As does yours. Because we believe in being findable. Highly discoverable. And we should be extremely approachable once found. Which for me in my new role means on-brand too.
But here’s what else is important – on-brand has got to mean consistent too. Shouldn’t we want everyone to have the same experience with every recruiter or HR contact they look up? Don’t ya want everyone to deliver the same messages?
I sparked some interesting conversation recently around some work I’m doing to try to harmonize how all of our HR team members present themselves online. Pretty harmless, I thought. You engage with candidates? Well, here’s some standard language to get you on brand and talking about the company in what I think is the right and most ideal way. You have a huge network? Great – so here are some little tricks you can employ to make your profile even more appealing and consistent with our employer brand. Yet I received a few hesitations because it turns out… LinkedIn profiles are more personal than I thought. It’s a representation of you – and your personal brand, your career journey. Which I think is legit and fair if you’re a non-recruiting type. But if you engage with talent? Well then…
So what do you think? Is your profile yours? Your company’s? Hit the comments…
The issue of social network ownership will only get thornier as companies exert more and more influence over digital real estate.
Of course a linkedin account should belong to an individual and especially so if it was theirs prior to joining a firm. I say so even if the firm pays for the “extras”.
I think ownership of a profile is shared. On one hand, I agree that a profile should be a destination and an opportunity to showcase my company. At the same time, nobody goes to a profile to learn about a company – that’s what company pages are for. They go to a profile to learn about the person.
I thus believe that a profile should have mixed content – the requisite pitch for my company, but also a description of what I do at the company, so any visitors can discern for themselves the type of opportunities that I may [or may not] have received from my company. That’s the type of content that gets people to conscienciously connect with you, and refer others to you.
The individual owns their profile. I strongly disagree with companies that dictate what someone should list on their profile about the company. I get it, and a company can surely suggest, but what you say and how you say it on LI is your right and says a lot about you. And how you feel about your company/employer. I blogged about this at htttp://www.peoplepositiveculture.com. A good, smart employee will understand that they are representing their employer’s brand.
What’s mine is mine…until I decide to rent it out
It’s an interesting question. With all the focus on recruiters using LinkedIn, and companies investing in the platform, what happens when a recruiter leaves? Does all that company investment leave with him? We look at connecting recruiters with platforms such as Jigsaw, that will build a talent network using LinkedIn activity, however the company owns the information. If the recruiter leaves, the profile can be rebranded with the new recruiter’s information. snellingnj.com/blog
In LinkedIn many people are there those all are recruiters but not others, contains many professionals. Off-course profile belongs to their own profession.