From BSafani. Posted under Career Management, Networking on March 7th, 2009
I receive a lot of invitations on LinkedIn and while I am happy to accept most of them, sometimes the invite process is so poorly managed that the last thing I want to do is connect. Since I seem to see the same LinkedIn networking mistakes repeated over and over, I decided to post them here. Here are my top four.
- Not enough information. I recently received an invitation from someone that read “I would like to introduce myself.” That was it. I searched their profile but all that was listed was company names, job titles, and employment dates. Please do not make me work so hard. Just give me the facts. Create a branded, detailed profile and explain to me what possible synergies we might have.
- Expecting too much too fast. Sometimes I receive invitations from people asking me if I know of any job openings. I don’t even know you yet. If you take the time to get to know me first and prove your value to an employer I will certainly open up my network and help you if I can.
- Just plain laziness. Frequently I receive invitations that were simply copied and pasted from a LinkedIn boilerplate template. How can you send me an invite that reads “you are someone I know and trust” when I have never met you? Please respect me enough to send me a personalized invitation that explains why we should connect.
- Unwillingness to share. Some people send me invitations to connect so they can mine my database, yet their contacts are protected. I think the concept of sharing was covered in kindergarten. If you have no intentions of creating a reciprocal relationship, don’t bother sending me an invitation.
