A former college classmate tried to connect with me on LinkedIn last week. I didn’t accept his connection.
It’s not because I’m anti-social. I mean, I am anti-social, but I didn’t deny him for that. I turned him down because (a) he lives in a city hundreds of miles away from me, (b) he’s in financial services, a realm where I have absolutely no interest, (c) he is selling something (the first paragraph of his profile mentions jumping on a “cold call” with his new LinkedIn connections), and (d) I didn’t even know the guy well when we were in school.
None of this is particularly interesting to you (or to me), but I did leaf through his profile — and then a few other peoples’ profiles — and realized something: all the stuff you’re writing about yourself on LinkedIn is extraneous bull shit.
This particular guy mentioned twice in separate areas of his profile that he was interested in “adding value” to organizations. Really? Shit, here I am subtracting value from every organization and connection in which I’ve been part, only to find out 29 years into my life that it’s all about adding value that matters.
This bro-seph also literally mentioned how he “planned strategic growth to increase size, number, and depth of” a religious organization. I know business-speak and corporate-blabber is “in” around some circles, but if you’re talking about “strategic growth” regarding the members of your organization that’s supposedly about God like you’re talking to shareholders, bro, your priorities are fucked. (And this coming from yours truly who could care less about religious organizations!)
I don’t mean to blow up this anonymous financial non-guru, but his profile is a lesson in bull shit: don’t. Tell people what you do. Explain what you’ve done. In, like, a few words. Get to the point. Don’t talk about boring-ass career objectives and “added value” and for goodness’ sake don’t ever say you want to “jump on a call” about some likely stupid business opportunity. Just cut to the chase, man.
Of course, the people that this is for are the people who won’t take the medicine, because that set of people (apparently, this dude included) are a little… insecure about what they have (not) accomplished int heir careers. The more insecure you are about your work, the more you “add value” and shit like that.
Don’t be that person. Just work hard, be patient, build your shit, and then own it. That’ll add all the value you can handle and then some. Anyways, here’s a doozy of a self-promotion lacking in self-awareness after all that: click here to connect with me on LinkedIn. But please, no bull shit.
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