What are the Worst or Lamest Linked-In Skills you Have Seen Added to a Profile?

We love Linked-in but it’s sparked some amazing Titles we’ve never heard of. My favourite is someone who knows how to post on Facebook and lists their skill as Social Media or Social Media Consultant. Having fun with this is fine but don’t go too far. “The digital industry has thrived being the new kid on the block and shedding legacy ways of doing business.” (Reference: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/32359.asp?ref=rc_mp)

In this video, Andrew Radics and Ian Hopkinson discuss some of the worst LinkedIn profile titles people have used to describe what they do.

 

 

Transcript:

Ian: Good evening. We’re just sort of having a bit of a session here with the…

Andrew: Ah you’ve disappeared again. Where’s the clapping?

Ian: The clappings there we just can’t hear it because we’re ah yes. But it’s all happening. Just in case you didn’t know you could do those things, you now know that you can.

Andrew: Yes

Ian: To the right hand side of your Google hangout. You’ve got beard back, next one… Anyway we’re going to get rid of that because yeah.

Andrew: I hate beards.

Ian: The worst or lamest LinkedIn skills or titles that you’ve seen recently, there’s some pretty bad ones let’s face it.

Andrew: Mmhmm…

Ian: And the reason why we started the video that way and the reason I’m wearing this ridiculous prop is because it’s fine to have a bit of fun with this, and as I said in the description there the digital world has brought a lot of fun to coming up with funky titles and what not. There’s an article that I’ve referenced there that’s a great overview of it. Thats all fine but, don’t be a wanker. Don’t go too far with it. Let’s face it, here’s a couple of funny ones, but borderline, you guys tell us how far do you go? Digital Marketing Magician. Ok…

Andrew: What the?

Ian: Wizard of Light Bulb Moments. Marketing Ninja. Brand Warrior. Senior Road Warrior Marketing Intern.

Andrew: Ok that one..

Ian: I guess it sounds a lot better than unpaid intern?

Andrew: Or as we call them here “work experience.”

Ian: Social Media Badarse, or badass depending what continent you’re on. Digital Overlord. Direct Mail Demigod. Mobile Sensei.

Andrew: Sensei? What are these people on?! What are these people on?

Ian: I don’t know. Chief Visionary Officer. Chief Marketing Guru. Chief Thought Provoker. Chief Thinker, Founder,  Creative, Inspiration and Elation Officer. Now you’re a wanker, whoever you are. Chief Instigation Officer. Instigator of what? Chief People Herder. Chief Cat Herder could be another one, because we were talking about that in our last LinkedIn.

Andrew: They may aswell be called Chief A-Hole because that is just ridiculous.

Ian: Director of Fundom. I guess they’re like the party organiser or they’re the joker. Ok. So, they’re pretty ridiculous. I don’t mind the one that Keith our guy in LA has, Professor of Marketing, you know because we’re Mad Scientist Digital.

Andrew: Yeah

Ian: I think that’s good, but it’s not going to far, or is it?

Andrew: I don’t think so.

Ian: No?

Andrew: No. Well, I mean it’s a theme. Mad Scientist Digital, Professor. I mean it…

Ian: Yeah.

Andrew: It goes hand in hand.

Ian: Well there was one here, by the way iMedia connection Josh Dreller, great article – I’ll put the link in our video. This one here I thought was really good because it makes sense, it’s a little bit like that Mad Scientist thing. He says he was talking about he met Adam Broitman, at the time he was at cir.cus, which is you know, c-i-r-dot-c-u-s, quite a few people will know about this company. His title was Partner and Ring Leader at cir.cus. I think that’s good, that’s fun.

Andrew: It’s not wanky.

Ian: That’s not going too far, that’s sort of helping the brand. And then his name was Chief Creative Strategist of Something Massive. That’s pretty cool because that’s the name of the company, Something Massive.

Andrew: Well, it’s in context.

Ian: So, there’s clever and then there’s complete wanker, basically.

Andrew: But then, you know, sometimes you don’t have to go to those extremes to come out looking like a wanker. I mean there are so many overused terms in LinkedIn that to me, are really just going a little bit too far. For example, these are the top ten most overused buzzwords on LinkedIn. Creative is number one.

Ian: Yeah, right.

Andrew:  Organisational, effective, motivated, extensive experience, track record, innovative, responsible, analytical and problem solving.

Ian: So these are in the sort of the description, the resume intro of what people are actually doing in the job. They’re using these kinds of words?

Andrew: Yeah, like for example. Ian Hopkinson is an effective, motivated, analytical person with extensive experience in problem solving and very responsible. Which isn’t true, but…

Ian: I might change mine. I can guarantee you that my LinkedIn profile is not going to be…

Andrew: Wanky?

Ian: Wanky. You know, well actually…

Andrew: Well yeah, we’ll see.

Ian: What I’ve done I suppose, is talked about what I would like to achieve in what I’m doing, in what we’re doing. And then all I’ve done is put three of four quotes from other people in there. I haven’t gone into this long spiel of trying to write in the third person.

Andrew: Yeah, which is good. The unfortunate thing is…

Ian: So, if you think it’s wanky let me know.

Andrew: Oh you’re going to get a lot of (inaudible) there. The unfortunate thing is that here in Australia the number one buzzword that we have used is creative. I think that’s very ironic because if most people in Australia who have a LinkedIn profile use the word creative, well then they’re not really that creative because they’re all using the same damn word. You know, it’s sad.

Ian: Touche. I think we see Creative Director all the time, so we have a school of thought that calling yourself Founder or CEO is too heavy or too wanky. So we’ve seen that emergence of Creative Directors haven’t we?

Andrew: But what does that mean?

Ian: Well that’s the thing, it could mean so many things you know. Creative Director of non creative LinkedIn titles? You know?

Andrew: Well, yeah, pretty much.

Ian: I think one of my… Sorry have you got other morsels?

Andrew: No that’s it, that’s all from me.

Ian: One of my gripes, particularly working in the digital space that we work in, is seeing as you’ve mentioned a few times before, social media is a skill. Or Social Media Consultant, or Social Media Expert, or various derivatives of that on your profile because you are able to use social media. Whether thats post to Twitter, Facebook or I can upload a video to YouTube.

Andrew: Yep, that make’s you an expert.

Ian: That irks me, because we’re in this time where the resume was already sort of not being looked at seriously, and now we’re in this time where people can put up a skill or a job title or a description or anything like that for all the world to see, that may or may not have any qualification or any founding sort of reason behind it. So, when did we all become wankers and feel happy to express this online? What happened to we either can do something or not, and actually have a qualification, what happened to that?

Andrew: I don’t know, I think probably because everything has just become so much focussed online that you need to have an online presence for yourself.

Ian: So the personal branding of things has become more prominent and important?

Andrew: Yeah, because prospective employers check you out online before they consider hiring you. Which depending where you are is illegal, but it’s the way it’s done. You can make up all this stuff about yourself but you don’t have to prove it to anyone.

Ian: No, that’s true. I suppose where it’s hard for me getting my head around this is obviously everybody is sort of trying to build their personal brand online now. In order to build your personal brand, your personal profile, you’ve obviously got to say things that are different to stand out. And to stand out more in the digital space you really need kind of to go on to that, I would normally say cutting edge, but because of our last video I’ll say bleeding edge, one of those cliche business terms. So I get that, then I’m a little bit torn because if I read somebody’s profile that’s straight down the line that has a corporate background and has a very strictly laid out resume that uses quite stale language, I’m bored. I don’t really want to read it all. I just think oh my god, this person, I’d rather pull my teeth out than read this.

Andrew: But then, it depends for what reason you’re reading. If you’re looking at someone’s LinkedIn profile because you’re thinking about employing them, you don’t want to read a lot of fluffy words that really don’t mean anything. You just want to know what the person’s about, what they’ve done…

Ian: Yeah that’s true, that’s true.

Andrew: It just depends on…

Ian: So is it possible to find a balance?

Andrew: I hope so.

Ian: Ok. Well, if you think you’ve found a balance, send us your link to your LinkedIn profile. It’d be interesting to see this. I think it is a bit of a hard one, sort of not overselling yourself and yet trying to be different, and not boring. So, it’s a tough one to get right. Send us some of your gripes about LinkedIn, definitely there’s a number of titles and skills and explanations of people’s jobs that we think are going a bit too far. Don’t be a wanker, and if you don’t know what wanker means Google it, because I’m not going to tell you because there’s many different meanings. The one that we’re using, or the context that we’re using wanker is not the kind of context is that wanker probably was originally used in. We’re getting into dangerous territory here.

Andrew: We certainly are.

Ian: In the UK they would say don’t be a tosser which is interestingly similar.

Andrew: I think we’d better leave it there.

Ian: LinkedIn is a good tool, and I think… Now you now laugh because I’ve used the word tool.

Andrew: Pardon the pun.

Ian: This is really not good. LinkedIn is a great tool, let’s not spoil it and be completely and utterly over the top with it. Let’s utilize it because it is a great tool. Just in finishing I’ve noticed that LinkedIn have brought in a couple of things that are encouraging people to put things on their profile that perhaps they may not have put on there. Now one of the things that you guys may have noticed is that on your profile now when, I think it’s when you’re editing your profile or perhaps just looking at your profile, some little boxes come up down the bottom and it says “increase your profile visibility”  or the times your profile comes up in search by adding lets say, social media to your skills set. And it will tell you the potential sort of percentage of increase in traffic you’ll get. It says “you can increase your traffic by 3% or 2%.” I don’t know how many of you have seen that, but I saw that the last couple of months and it actually concerns me greatly that LinkedIn’s encouraging people to add things to their profile to get more traffic. That to me is not a healthy step forward.

Andrew: No.

Ian: That’s not a healthy step forward at all. I understand why LinkedIn’s offering that, but I’ve got to disagree with that, because I think that’s going to cause more of what we’ve been talking about.

Andrew: True.

Ian: Which is people saying they’re something that they’re not. Put your titles and your skills up by all means and let the crowd endorse you for those. But please don’t put up ones that you’re actually not qualified in, just because you want to increase your traffic to your page, that’s pretty pathetic.

Andrew: Or it’s like lying on your resume, isn’t it?

Ian: It is, yeah. I mean if you could add skills or titles or things to your resume to get more people to look at your resume… I understand that it’s tempting to do that, but can we have some integrity? Can we actually have some values and some integrity with this and really just be who we are, not try and be more than that and not try and sort of gild the lily here? Lets just, you know? Gild the lily is that one of those?

Andrew: No.

Ian: No, that was probably in the top business buzzwords of 1950.

Andrew: That’s probably a very underused one now.

Ian: Anyway, thank you very much for listening. Andrew Radics, Ian Hopkinson, didn’t introduce ourselves at the beginning,

Andrew: Eh, I think people know us now.

Ian: That’s because we were being silly idiots with the Google…

Andrew: Effects, I think it’s called.

Ian: So, it’s been great to talk to you about LinkedIn and if you’ve got anything else please hit us up.