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7 Things You Must Take Off Your LinkedIn Profile Immediately

3 minute read

Your LinkedIn profile can be the ticket to a better job and career advancement, but if you’ve got the wrong stuff in there, it’s going to just hold you back instead. Career experts say these are the top offenders.

Your unemployed status. Don’t use your headline to write that you’re unemployed, even if you use the somewhat gentler-sounding “looking for my next opportunity,” the blog Things Career Related advises. “This is prime real estate for branding yourself and including some keywords.” The odds that a potential employer will be searching for “unemployed?” Zilch.

A bad picture. The average recruiter spends all of six seconds looking at a resume, according to a study conducted by TheLadders. A weird, unflattering or distracting picture will distract people. “Use a professional photographer to get an image that viewers will find appealing,” Katherine Burik advises on the Interview Doctor blog. We have a hard time seeing pictures of ourselves objectively, she says. Having a crisp, professional head shot can help mitigate that.

The third-person summary. Yes, the summary is kind of like a resume in terms of the information it delivers, but it also needs to convey who you are as a person. Wooden, third person or passive voice will just fall flat, according to a Business Insider interview with LinkedIn’s former career expert, Nicole Williams. “This a great place to reflect your professional brand… [but] remember this is a place to infuse personality.”

Dust. Metaphorical dust, that is. Keeping your profile active is one of the most important signals you can send to a prospective employer, says LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher. “A robust and active profile can be your ticket to a variety of professional opportunities,” she says. If you don’t have the time or the writing chops to keep up a blog, don’t worry; there are other ways to show that you’re plugged-in to what’s going on in your industry. “An easy way to do this is to like or comment on the status updates of others in your network,” Fisher says.

Lame cliches. Every year, LinkedIn publishes a roundup of the most overused words people have in their profiles. The current top culprits: motivated, passionate and creative. Although some industries have other words that make the most-overused list — in the sales and talent fields, for instance, “strategic” is the biggest offender — notice what makes all of these words terrible: They’re generic, which means they’ll say nothing about why you in particular would be a good fit for a certain job.

Anything out of date. If you don’t update your resume often, it’s not the end of the world as long as you’re not looking for another job. LinkedIn is different, though; you have to approach it with the attitude that you’re always open to job-seekers, which means keeping your profile up-to-date in every way.

Fibs, white lies and exaggerations. Just don’t. It’s so easy to fact-check almost anything about a person’s work history these days, this is almost guaranteed to be a fail.

5 Horrible Habits You Need to Stop Right Now

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Do Not Email First Thing in the Morning or Last Thing at Night “The former scrambles your priorities and all your plans for the day and the latter just gives you insomnia,” says Ferriss, who insists “email can wait until 10am” or after you check off at least one substantive to-do list item.Chris Pecoraro—Getty Images
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Do Not Agree to Meetings or Calls With No Clear Agenda or End Time “If the desired outcome is defined clearly… and there’s an agenda listing topics–questions to cover–no meeting or call should last more than 30 minutes,” claims Ferriss, so “request them in advance so you can ‘best prepare and make good use of our time together.'”Sam Edwards—Getty Images/Caiaimage
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Do Not Check Email Constantly Batch it and check it only periodically at set times (Ferriss goes for twice a day). Your inbox is analogous to a cocaine pellet dispenser, says Ferriss. Don’t be an addict. Tools like strategic use of the auto responder and Boomerang can help.Jetta Productions—Getty Images
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Do Not Carry a Digital Leash 24/7 At least one day a week leave you smartphone somewhere where you can’t get easy access to it. If you’re gasping, you’re probably the type of person that most needs to do kick this particular habit.by nacoki ( MEDIA ARC )—Getty Images/Flickr RF
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Do Not Let People Ramble Sounds harsh, but it’s necessary, Ferriss believes. “Small talk takes up big time,” he says, so when people start to tell you about their weekends, cut them off politely with something like “I’m in the middle of something, but what’s up?” But be aware, not everyone agrees with this one (and certainly not in every situation), and you may want to pay particularly close attention to norms around chit chat when traveling internationally.Reza Estakhrian—Getty Images

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