But, what if someone met you, lost your business card, and is trying to use LinkedIn to reconnect? Make it easy for them to find you!

Wonder how many people have left the “c” out of your last name or spelled “Neal” as “Neil” and not found YOU? You don’t show up in my LinkedIn search results if I spell your last name “shaffer,” and if I search on “neil shaffer” even more names show up. None of them are you.

So, my recommendation is that you don’t skip this particular bit of personal branding.

I wanted to comment on and thank you for your excellent advice to supplement this blog post. I actually look at a LinkedIn Profile as being more accurate than a resume. I have written a few blog posts that complement your advice that readers of this article might also be interested in:

Is Your LinkedIn Profile More Accurate Than Your Resume?
http://windmillnetworking.com/2009/07/21/is-your-linkedin-profile-more-accurate-than-your-resume/

LinkedIn Branding Tips: Should I Indicate on My LinkedIn Profile Status Update That I am Unemployed?
http://windmillnetworking.com/2009/06/18/linkedin-branding-tips-for-unemployed/

As for your suggestion for misspellings of your name, while it makes perfect sense from an SEO perspective, I believe that if someone is looking for you and has a good idea of your name, they will be able to find you. Think about it: they probably googled you or know a little bit about where you live, what company you worked for, industry, and/or profession. What is more important is that they find you when they search for someone of your skill set…that is where I would put my LinkedIn Profile SEO emphasis.

- Neal Schaffer (http://www.linkedin.com/in/nealschaffer)

I recommend the job hunters view LinkedIn as a “live” resume. And, I have 3 additional tips, the last two specifically for job hunters:

1 – If your name is easily or often misspelled, add a section to your Summary entitled: “Common Misspellings of My Name” (or something similar so people know you are doing the misspellings on purpose), and list them. Then, people who spell your name wrong when searching LinkedIn for you will find you.

2 – If you are unemployed, do NOT put “Unemployed” in your professional headline. Follow the above advice about a short bio. Unemployed is a temporary situation, not who you are.

3 – If you are unemployed, put your job search email address in the Summary section so recruiters can contact you easily.

You’ll find those tips and more information about using LinkedIn and social media for job search in articles on Job-Hunt.org.

Regards,
Susan

Editor/publisher Job-Hunt.org
http://www.job-hunt.org
Twitter – http://twitter.com/@JobHuntorg
LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/susanjoyce

If you take step #10 before you take step #9, you may have fewer recommendations to ask for as you should get some in return already;-)

I agree with Neal on the personal brand suggestion – and have written about that a number of times on my own site. As author of your profile, you are significantly influence what others think of you, so why not offer them your personal brand instead of a random collection of facts about yourself?

I’m not sure what Jenna is commenting on – LinkedIn clearly has to have permission to store and share everything that you upload about yourself – or they wouldn’t be able to share that with others. You aren’t going to upload actual art/books/songs to your profile are you?

Ok – I’ll be specific – don’t do that – then you won’t have much to worry about now will you?

steve
–
Steven Tylock
The LinkedIn Personal Trainer
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock