LinkedIn. Time to Reset your Settings?
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GUEST BLOGGER
Glenn Bass, CPA, Director of Recruiting, Security & Investigative Placement Consultants, LLC
Bethesda, Md.
The numbers are staggering. Every second, two new members join LinkedIn. In its official statement LinkedIn reports a total user base of 300 million worldwide. And with that, LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool for Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs) to connect with other professionals in the fraud and investigative industry to gather advice and recommendations for potential hires and to discover job opportunities and apply for them. It’s a critical platform that allows CFEs to stay in touch with the pulse of the industry through its user groups, blogs, job listings and ability to connect with other CFEs.
As a recruiter specializing in fraud, investigations and security, I advise candidates to embrace LinkedIn to the fullest. In my own personal efforts to embrace it, I read and review many posts across the internet about LinkedIn. I came across a post by Cheryl Conner titled “The LinkedIn Setting Mistakes That Most People Still Make” which I think is important enough to share. You, as a savvy user, must stay on top of the continuing updates to the primary platforms as they evolve.
1. “I don’t want to be bothered with all those group emails.”
You have full control over which groups you receive email notifications from and the frequency with which you receive them. Ask yourself, “If I miss something from this group, would I be mad?” Your best bet is to keep track of a handful of groups, and let the updates from the other ones go.
2. ”This guy is driving me nuts with his silly status updates.”
We all have some people in our networks that are using their LinkedIn status updates like a Twitter account, or they don’t understand LinkedIn users don’t want to be sold to on a regular basis. This setting allows you to say “bye-bye” to their status updates. Here’s how to stop them: When you view one of the offending status updates on your home page, move the cursor to the top right of the update and click “Hide.”
3. “I don’t want to tell my network every time I change my profile this weekend.”
This is a big one. This is especially helpful if you are working on your profile in a condensed period of time and don’t want LinkedIn to report every change immediately. Be sure to turn the feature back on when you have completed your final changes. Having your network see your profile changes is a good thing on the whole. But it’s smart to turn off the activity broadcasts while you’re working on multiple changes, or are updating an item you’d rather not go out in email. To do this, go to Account Settings > Profile > Turn on/off your activity broadcasts.
4. “I don’t want people to see my connections.”
The default is that your first-degree connections can see who your other first-degree connections are. Allowing your contacts to know who your other contacts are has always been a valuable step in the networking process, however not everyone thinks the same on this.
Many people would like this setting to be person-by-person and not all-or-nothing. Unfortunately, that option is not yet available on LinkedIn. But here’s how to change your current settings: Go to Account Settings > Profile > to select who can see your connections.
5. “How do other people get their picture, name and company name on ‘Who’s Viewed Your Profile’?”
The default is that you won’t see this detail, but most individuals who are interested in growing their brands would actually want this information to show. But if you’d like to change it – or would like to temporarily change it, go to Account Settings > Profile > Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile.
Lastly, as it drives to the core of ethics and common sense, it is crucial that you don’t exaggerate your efforts on your profile – everyone can see what you’ve written and yes, people will notice.
These adjustments to your LinkedIn account and profile should make you user experience and networking within the CFE community all the better.