Are you a Results Driven Professional? Really?
“A results driven professional with business and human resources mangement experience in a global environment.”
This was the opening line on a LinkedIn profile. Let’s review it and avoid these mistakes.
What is this person trying to say and how might that be different from the message their profile conveys?
As you read each phrase, think about the intended message and likely perceived messages.
What mistakes do you see with this opening statement on their profile?
You might notice that it’s full of vague terms. There’s nothing specific. What has this person accomplished? Nothing that we can see. It feels cliché and nothing grabs your attention.
It appears that they have written their profile to attract “click bait”. Key words that they believe recruiters might be looking for.
Nothing specific, nothing about their accomplishments. Simple click bait or so they hope.
Let’s review this sentence.
“A results driven professional”
What does that mean? How might that make you different? Are there professionals who don’t care about results?
Even if you are driven by results – what results did you achieve? Give us the numbers. “Show me the money!”
If you want to sound like everyone else – call yourself a “Results driven professional”
Ho, hum. If you want to stand out, tell us about your results.
“with business and human resources mangement experience in a global environment.”
What does that mean? And yes, I left the misspelling of management in there to demonstrate their experience and (lack of) attention to detail.
“business experience”
Notice that doesn’t say anything about business success. What kind of experience? What kind of business? Did you once work for a business? Did you buy something from a business? Did you have a lemonade stand when you were a child? Did you read a business book?
What business experience? How long? What challenges? What triumphs?
“human resources mangent experience”
Curious that you lumped this phrase with business experience. I’m inclined to think that you did some work in HR, maybe for a business. Does that mean that you completed an application form and submitted it to the HR department of a business? Was that your first job working for a restaurant when you were in high school?
What are you trying to say?
“global environment”
Does that mean that you vacationed in Mexico?
What’s the intended message with this LinkedIn profile? It appears that this person is looking for another job and they want to cast as wide a net as possible. Maybe that means they are unhappy with their current position and simply want to run.
They don’t know what they want. They simply want something else.
This profile seems to scream, get me out of here!
This profile says nothing. It appears that you don’t know what to say about your accomplishments. Does that mean that you have no worthwhile accomplishments?
There seems to be so much effort in being vague and not saying something worthwhile. I’m wondering, “What are you not saying? What are you hiding?”
What was the intended message?
What might be the unintended messages?
PS: You might want to review your Linkedin profile for silly phrases like this – and change them quickly.
Comments 2
Great catch!
All your questions are spot on.
Sometimes LinkedIn’s AI will automatically suggest a wording for some section like the About section in your profile. Of course, it often results in a nonsense generator. We have a brain so we can overrule the suggestions.
Perhaps you’ll appreciate this screenshot I once captured: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3585935d35d34dc569f5f4996676ca0b -more personality than in most profiles
Author
Daniel, thanks for sharing that screenshot. I appreciate that person’s sense of humour.