Katharina von Knobloch

The 5 Do's and Don'ts on LinkedIn

März 30, 2021

LinkedIn is THE essential social media platform when you want to change career paths. I know Instagram is more fun but LinkedIn is a way better time investment. In this blog post, I share the 5 Do’s and Don’ts I when it comes to your activity on LinkedIn. Let’s get right into it.

LinkedIn DO #1:

Accept invitations of people you do not know

Yes, LinkedIn can have a negative sales vibe from time to time. There are lots of people out there who want to connect with you just to sell something or worse, just to increase their number of contacts. Hence many are hesitant to accept an invitation from someone they are not familiar with. I totally understand the feeling here. However, as a coach for expat partners, I highly recommend you to accept invitations from people you do not know. There is always the potential of an opportunity arising when someone approaches you so you might want to consider some sort of checklist of connection criteria. Examples for connection criteria can be:

Needs to have a headshot photo
There are some mutual connections
They are operating in a country you have once lived in, living in right now, or have some connections with
They are sharing valid information on their profile and look „real“

LinkedIn DO #2:

Do use the messaging chat

Be conversational. Act when someone sends you an invitation to connect and follow up with a message. Imagine yourself being at a conference and someone approaches you saying hi. You would not just take the business card and run away. You would start a short conversation. Now think about that way about LinkedIn. Just because the connection is not live and in person you can still follow up, introduce yourself and be curious about the other person.

LinkedIn DON'T #1:

Don't be transactional

There is a bold statement here: Just because we are connected on LinkedIn, this does not give you permission to sell to me. I know this might seem counterintuitive as lots of companies and profiles are using LinkedIn as just another channel to sell. I want to give you an example. My blog Sharetheove has grown very organically over the last years. Based on my passion to change the public opinion on expat partners and to gain awareness on the Expat Partner Identity Crisis I have always prioritized providing value to my audience over click-baiting and selling my services. While it takes much more time to grow your platform, I have the privilege to communicate with my audience on an eye level. So from my experience, I invite you to build relationships rather than be purely transactional. What does that mean in your context? In case you are job hunting at the moment and in contact with a recruiter think about building a relationship instead of just saying yes or no to a proposal. Start a conversation, share your point of view, build common grounds, and ask questions you genuinely want to know the answer to. Engage and comment with the content they are sharing on LinkedIn follow their work. In that way, you gain experience in the field of job hunting on LinkedIn and might just be on their radar when the time is right.

LinkedIn DON'T #2:

Don't forget your elevator pitch

Yes, LinkedIn is kind of a copy of your CV but the target audience is a bit different. Don’t expect that people take the time to read through your past job postings to get a sense of who you are and what you are looking for. Make it easy for them and introduce yourself in an elevator pitch. I know coming up with a couple of key sentences about you can be very challenging when in transition. That’s why it is always a core focus in my coachings and mastermind groups. The upper section below your headshot is the perfect stage for you to introduce yourself so don’t miss out on this opportunity.

LinkedIn DON'T #3:

Don't forget about the settings

LinkedIn just like any other social network is updating their settings constantly. Set yourself a reminder to check your visibility settings from time to time. Here is one example:

You can choose what other people see when you visited their profile. In terms of gaining traction for your job hunt consider making your profile as public as possible.

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If you want to learn more about using LinkedIn for your professional goals, hop over to my other blog posts (about the LinkedIn profile, about the job hunt on LinkedIn) that are still very much up-to-date. If you need someone who is working on your profile and visibility on LinkedIn in person, hire me! I am more than happy to support you! You can find more info on my CV Lab with new spots in January 2024 here.