19 LinkedIn Mistakes That Prevent Recruiters and Employers from Contacting You

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When you start looking for a job, you were likely advised by experts to create a LinkedIn profile. If you have already have a LinkedIn profile, now you just need to wait and the recruiters and employers from your particular niche will soon be contacting you.

However, if it has been so long since you created your profile and nobody has contacted you so far, you must be making some mistakes that have prevented concerned persons reaching you. There are at least 19 common mistakes that you might have been making and if you could stop them, you could get a pretty good job soon.

19 LinkedIn Mistakes That Prevent Recruiters and Employers From Contacting You

Here are 19 common LinkedIn mistakes that may prevent a recruiter from contacting you.

1. Having an Incomplete Public Profile

When you create your profile on LinkedIn, make sure it is 100% complete because a complete profile always have higher chances to be seen quickly. Some of the most important information to be added on your account are:

• Current Employment
• Past Employment
• Complete Education
• Professional Photo
• Your Specialties
• Recommendations
• Profile Summary

2. Ignoring Personalized URL for Public Profile

Most of those who don’t know much about the importance of a personalized URL for public profile, usually ignore this important element and let jumbled numbers and letters messing with their URL. If you have made the same mistake, stop it now and create something like: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgardon

3. Not Creating an Impressive Profile

You might have failed to create a truly impressive profile and might have not included executive brand values to your profile to target prospective employers. This is something extremely important and you must spend time to work on it to make your public profile intriguing enough to attract recruiters.

Find out how to build a great profile with our personal branding guide.

4. Not Adding Important Documents

Another mistake most of the users make is not adding their resumes, biography or other important documents showing their qualification, experience and other necessary skills. Once you have securely added and shared documents on your profile, the chances of getting contacted will get much higher.

For more LinkedIn tips, check out our LinkedIn review.

5. Forget to Add Websites Links

If you have a website, blog, online CV, articles, white papers or other profiles, you must add their links to your profile. In case you don’t have any link to add, you must create at least three links to be added as these will help other people know more about you. If you don’t have your own hosting, you can also use blogger and Wordpress for the time being.

6. Not Uploading a Professional Looking Photo

Career branding is all about developing emotional attachment and attraction and it is commonly believed that people find content really attractive when they also see a professional looking photo. Your profile, if missing photo, cant’ engage other users and therefore, it is crucial to have a photo of you with confidence and simile on your face.

7. Giving No Importance to Recommendations

You might think you need no recommendations as you believe in your abilities to prove your skills. However, on a public profile, recommendations from others make real difference and therefore, it is really important that you request some professionals with LinkedIn profile to recommend you.

8. Not Recommending Others

The best way to get recommendations from others is to write recommendations for them first as this motivates them to give you favor by writing same level of recommendations on your behalf. If you are ignoring others, most probably, you will be ignored by them too. Here you better follow give and take rule to get favor from others.

9. Having No Specific & Highlighted Section

You must have a specific section where you can highlight your major certifications, publications, skills, patents and languages. LinkedIn has added some new features which will surely enable you to highlight your accomplishments.

10. Not Setting Keywords to Target Right Audience

You should have a professional and searchable headline that includes all important keywords to brand you as a unique professional who could do much better than many others. Include some relevant to your niche keywords in headline to target right people.

11. Not Showing Your Interests

Some users don’t want to show their interest which is quite an important piece of additional information for the recruiters to have a clear idea about the personality of account holder. Therefore, it is quite important that you give a brief on your interest and passion to determine your involvement in community.

12. Not Joining Professional LinkedIn Groups

If you have not joined any groups relevant to your particular niche and if it is true, you must join some of them as this will allow you to take part in important discussions and will also help you have conversations with others. Post information articles in groups to leave people feel curious to learn more about you.

13. Inviting Unknown People

Almost everyone who creates an account on LinkedIn, immediately start inviting unknown people to come in his/her network. This might be quite annoying for most of the professionals who might also report you as a spammer. So be very careful while inviting those who you don’t know.

14. Not Bother to Look for Targeted Company Profile

When you target a company, never forget to check its profile to find out about common interest and those who are connected to that company. You should also try to find co-workers who have accounts on LinkedIn and associated with your targeted company.

15. Not Getting Benefited with Job Tab

LinkedIn brings lots of job postings and listings for its users and most probably the company you want to join might also post jobs suitable for you and not getting benefited with job tab is not wise at all.

16. Not Using Exclusive Apps

LinkedIn has various applications and ignoring them will make you lose lots of advantages that you can get otherwise and therefore, it is really important that you try to explore all those apps that can help you reach your prospective employers.

17. Not Taking Part in LinkedIn Answers

Another big mistake, you might be making is that you might have neglected questions & answers area where you can actually show your interests, passion and expertise in relevant filed. This area is open for every user and by taking an active part, you can highlight your name in your network.

18. Excessive Self Promotion

When you are on a professional network trying to connect with professionals, recruiters and employers, you try to promote yourself so everyone can come to know about you or you can stand out of the crowd but if you run an excessive self-promotion campaign in LinkedIn groups, this will bring negative impact on your recognition.

19. Not Updating LinkedIn Profile

You might not be updating your profile regularly and this will surely send you in back side because when people in your circle will not get updates from you, they will not be able to feel your presence in network and therefore, it is really important that you always update your profile on regular basis. Since its launch, LinkedIn has been constantly making changes to its features and overall appearance and if you are failed to update your profile with the latest changes, you can’t expect good results.