Linked In-terface Issues

During the past week, LinkedIn has been rolling out a new interface for its member profiles. In the usual LinkedIn fashion, they neither announced the change, nor offer any explanations to help users cope with the new interface, nor do they say why they made the changes. This is, unfortunately, LinkedIn's normal operating procedure. 

The same attitude is reflected in the actual changes made. Most LinkedIn bloggers and users agree the new appearance is nicer. The user photo is a bit larger. There's more white space and the upper part of the profile (what media people call "above the fold") is cleaner and simpler. But therein lies the problem. In exchange for good looks, LinkedIn has sacrificed the user's abilty to quickly "push" info out to the reader. 

This is hard to explain to anybody who may not have actually seen the new interface. (If you haven't, you are excused for a few minutes to take a look at your or your friends' profiles and see what I'm talking about.)

Yes, most of the same info is available, but hidden. If you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the down arrow next to the Send a message button of somebody you are connected to. Here you will find a menu that let's you:

• Suggest a Profile Update (a rather cheeky suggestion to start the list with),
• Recommend, (a non-cheeky and very nice thing to do), 
• Find References (useful to HR and other people), 
• Share, 
• Export to PDF, 
• Save (Which works IF you have a paid LinkedIn account. If you don't, it sends you to a LinkedIn ad page which suggests that you pay for the service.)
• Flag (useful if you run across an obviously fake LinkedIn profile).

Question to LinkedIn interface engineers, why would a user automatically connect all these functions to sending messages?

However, if the profile you are looking at is for a 2nd degree connection, you see a "Send InMail" button with an attached arrow with a shorter menu:

• Get introduced,
• Find references,
• Share,
• Export to PDF,
• Save.

If you aren't connected to the person, you have even fewer choices:

• -Find references, and
• -Save.

The choices might be different for those who have a paid LinkedIn account. I wouldn't know.

Click on the Rolodex-card looking button, you can also see contact info for the owner if they supply it: email address, snailmail address, blog and other links, and phone number. The one thing they don't include, which really ticks me off, is the vCard download button (which is what you used to get if you clicked on the Rolodex-card-button. (More on that in a sec.)

So, there's a lot of information available here, but much of it is tucked away behind buttons and clicks. To find some info, like the name of one more employer, or your most recent Status Update, the reader has to scroll down. Other info or tasks are behind a tab or button. The layout of the contact info *is* nicer and it is nice to see it in one place.

However, if you work in HR, recruiting, or sales, you don't see much of the info you're used to without resorting to an extra click or two or three or four. If you believe that extra clicks mean less productivity, then that is a problem. Previously, at a glance, you could see the usual info plus a status update, look at the blog or internet links, and see up to three recent employers. That may have been enough for the reader to decide whether to look further.

The information was pushed out to the reader better in the older view. If you're a job hunter, the change is particularly important, because it makes the people looking for you a little bit less efficient and makes you easier to pass over. (It also puts an exclamation point over the need for a good, professional photo and keywords in your headline.)

OK, now to that vCard link. Most LinkedIn users probably didn't know it was there and won't miss it, that's true. However, those of us who use Outlook or another contact manager on our computer often clicked it. I, for one, liked to add a new contact's photo and contact info to Outlook, along with the date that I connected, and a few relevant comments. (Whether I actually follow up and USE that info is another matter, and might be  the subject of an "I really should do this..."-type blog post.)

Yes, that functionality is still available IF you see your new contact's photo pop up in your home stream. (Click on their name and, when the little popup window, well, pops up, you still see the vCard button -- which also means that LinkedIn is using the same icon for two different functions.) But having somebody show up on your stream is a bit random. Also, that popup screen doesn't pop up if you're viewing from an iPad.

You can also see the same thing in Groups if somebody's post comes up in the discussion list. That's also pretty random.

And, yes, you can download a vCard file of ALL your contacts from your contacts list, but that's like using a machine gun to get rid of crabgrass. It's overkill and unusable for adding one or two contacts.

And, yes, you can copy the info onto your clipboard, then paste it into the notes section of a new Outlook form, and then parse, copy, and paste the info into the correct fields, but that was what the vCard was supposed to automate in the first place.

So, I give LinkedIn a definite Thumbs Down on vCard usage. (And I suspect they will be getting rid of the vCard option on those popups when they get around to it.)

Yes, I agree the new profile look is prettier. No doubt about it. But I don't recall ever hearing a LinkedIn user say, "I'd be so much more effective on LinkedIn if only they had a prettier interface that looks more like Google+!"

So on appearance, I grade the new interface a B-plus. On improved usability, I'd grade it D-minus. On helping users learn how to use the new interface, I'll give LinkedIn the usual F. 

If you are a job hunter on LinkedIn, you better check and make sure that your photo looks professional and that your headline includes the key words for the job you want. And, of course, you need to also do many other things on your profile to make a professional impression.

And if anybody knows of a third-party software solution to add a vCard to my profile, please let me know. It won't help me download any info, but I can at least show LinkedIn that I miss it.

Making Yourself More Visible to Others on LinkedIn

Part 1 of Guerilla Search Tactics on LinkedIn

 LinkedIn is The Sphinx of the social media networks. The (mostly anonymous) people running it tend to make major changes in the interface and features without any announcement, explanation or even instructions. Often, the changes are useful to the average user (improved interface, the ability to follow companies, job search tools, etc.), but sometimes they do something that's obviously designed to make more money, the users be damned.

That's what LinkedIn did October, 2010. In the good ole days (say, the previous September), when you did a People search on LinkedIn, your search results could include 1st level connections, 2nd level connections, 3rd level connections, members of your groups, and either the first name of non-connected people or just their title. For your 1st, 2nd, 3rd level and group connections, you would see their full name and could click on their link and see their full profile. You could search all your groups at once (handy if you belonged to a lot of groups), search for new LinkedIn members, and use other criteria.

Then, without any warning or explanation, LinkedIn began changing search results. 1st and 2nd level connections show up as before, but 3rd level connections and even fellow members of groups often show up with only their first name and last initial. Click on the link to their profile and you still don't see their last name. If you click on the link that says "See Full Name," you get a window which says, in effect, "Either get more connections or cough up $99.95 per month, sucker." LinkedIn also now requires a subscription to search for people using the categories: Groups, Years of Experience, Interested In, Company Size, Fortune 1000, and Recently Joined. (Function and Seniority Level are new paid search categories, too.) So, LinkedIn now has the dubious distinction of being the only social media site that makes it HARDER (or more expensive) to search for other people on their network. (Don't get me started on their pricing policies.)

                                                         

You might respond, "So what? I don't use the People search that often. I don't try to convert 3rd degree connections into 1st degree connections, either." This may be true, but if you're job hunting, you want hiring managers, freelance HR people, and even old friends TO BE ABLE TO FIND YOU!

That's where these changes really bite you in the ankle. Sure, HR professionals who regularly search on LinkedIn for potential employees will cough up the higher fees to get better search results.  But what about hiring managers who only do occasional searches, small business owners, consultants, freelancers, or people who are unemployed and looking for work?

Fortunately, there are several things you can to do make it easier for others to find and contact you. There are also ways you can search for these missing names, both on LinkedIn and off. In this post we’ll show how you can make yourself more visible on LinkedIn. Then we’ll look at some guerilla techniques for finding other people on LinkedIn.

Make Yourself Easier to Find – Even When LinkedIn is Trying to Hide Your Name

               

First, make a simple change on your profile. On the LinkedIn menu bar, point at Profile and click on Edit Profile. Then, click on Edit, next to your name. Below your name, you'll see a block for entering your Professional "Headline". All you need to do is repeat your name in this block. Instead of just entering your job title, write something like, "Andrew Brandt writes frequently about his love/hate relationship with LinkedIn." (Better yet, write something appropriate to your profile.) You decide whether to use first or third person in the headline, just be consistent.

Some people do put their email address here, too, although that might be a technical violation of the LinkedIn terms of agreement. I suggest you make your email address prominent somewhere else in your profile. (NOT in your name field, though!) Hiring professionals often like to see email addresses rather than go through LinkedIn with expensive InMails.

After this, go to Settings (on the top right of the page). Under Profile Settings, click on Public Profile. There, select the Full View option (or think carefully if you still want to restrict info on your public profile). You should already have customized your LinkedIn URL to add your name. If not, do it now. Save your changes.

Another way to make sure your full name always shows on your profile is to ask people who are writing recommendations for you on LinkedIn to include your full name in your recommendation. (Most people only use first names.)

(You used to be able to customize the link title to your blog and internet connections with your name, too. LinkedIn, playing cat and mouse with its users, no longer lets you do that.)

If you belong to groups, check your group settings to see if the group name and logo shows up on your LinkedIn profile page. (In the group menu—not the top-of-the-page menu—point at More...  and click on My Settings.) If you want others from the group to be able to find you more easily, click on Display the group logo on my profile. If you belong to 10 different job hunting groups, though, you might not want to show all of them, especially if you're still working. (Your boss might read your profile and not like the idea that you're trying to jump ship!) There might also be a few groups you want to keep private, like that Cat Lovers Who Knit group that doesn't exactly fit your Construction Foreman professional title.

Of course, the best way to make it easier for others to find you on LinkedIn is to have more connections so you show up more frequently as a 1st and 2nd level connection. You don't have to become a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) who accepts any invitation on LinkedIn. (You can bet that open networkers are feeling vindicated nowadays, though, after taking so much heat from LinkedIn.)

If you belong to a group and send an invitation to a even just a couple of LIONs in that group, you'll make it a lot easier for all your group members to find you. (Invite other group members and friends, too.) You should do this, at least, for your professional groups related to your job hunt.

  

Another way to help HR people find you (especially if you are in a job hunt) is to add the Skills application to your profile. Go to the More menu and select Skills beta. (The beta, or test, indication may come off soon, since it’s been around for some time, now.) Add keyword skills to create a list on your profile. With this list it will be easier for HR people and others to find you based on a search of keywords.

If you want to add optimized search words to your profile (actually, repeating certain keywords in your profile so you show up higher in LinkedIn’s search ranks) you need to first find out which words you should emphasize. Here’s one way to do this:

1. First, find 3 or 4 detailed job descriptions for positions you think would be perfect for you.

2. Copy and paste these descriptions into a single text file. (If you use Word, save the document as a text only file.) Copy this entire file onto your clipboard.

3. Go to the website http://www.wordle.net/create.

4. In the box below where it says, “Paste in a bunch of text:” paste in those job descriptions from your clipboard and press the Go button.

5. This creates a word map, where the most frequently used words (other than “a,” “the,” and the like) are presented most prominently. This gives you a pretty good idea of which keywords are most important in your dream job. Make a list.

6. Make sure those keywords are used frequently in your LinkedIn profile. The top one or two probably should be in your headline. Repeat those and others in your summary and make sure they also show in your Skills section that we described earlier.

7. Do a search for those top job skills with LinkedIn’s Advanced Search tool. If you still don’t show up on the first page, look at profile for the person on the top of the list and count how many times they use the top search terms.

The important thing is NOT to make it look like you’re trying to load up your profile with lots of search terms. Writing style and communication are more important. But this might make it easier for hiring managers to find you on LinkedIn.

Next: Finding Full Names on LinkedIn, even when LinkedIn is hiding them

Keywords: LinkedIn, search, jobhunting, HR, guerilla, keywords, SEO