Ask The Big Game Hunter: Can No LinkedIn Profile Be a Problem? (VIDEO)

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter answers a question about whether the lack of a LinkedIn profile Can cost someone an opportunity at a company.

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This is a question I was asked recently:

Are you less likely to get hired and a large tech company. If you have no LinkedIn profile, but you have no problem providing links to a hidden code hosted website profile with some of your codes and links to some of your hidden projects indicating your availability?

The answer is a definite, “Maybe!” Let me give you perspective..

The 1st question is how this firm even find out about you if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile and the code is hidden? What is going to entice them to reach out to you? Now that’s in the circumstance where they are out there recruiting you. How did they even find out about you? 

Maybe it is on Github. Maybe they’ve seen some stuff that you have written. Maybe it is elsewhere. But you are talking about the fact that your best code is hidden away. They know that they should want to contact you?

On the other hand, if you are applying for a position, that is, submitting your resume through applicant tracking systems

or networking your way to other organizations, the absence of a LinkedIn profile may not be a problem.

I’m seeing that some organizations are asking for links to LinkedIn profiles at the time of submission. They are doing that in order to make sure that the profiles are consistent with what is on the resume. Understand, I look at a lot of LinkedIn profiles and there is often a disconnect between what a person says on the resume and what is on their profile. These firms are looking for a very simple baseline.

In the case that you are citing are they reaching out to you (in which case you are making it hard for them to do, and that begs the question why?  Why don’t you have the LinkedIn profile to begin with?),  You have to make it easy for organizations to find you  in order to get found and hired by them.Then, in the other cases when you are applying, in which case you can put a link to your code and have firm see it, then they may go looking for your LinkedIn profile, discover they can’t find it and ask you, “I went looking for your LinkedIn profile and couldn’t find it.  What is that about?” In this case you have an unnecessary question to answer under interview.

So, like I said, it is a definite maybe but it’s your choice as to how you want to live your life and manage your career.  I would just simply say get a LinkedIn profile done.

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Do you really think employers are trying to help you?

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

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