LinkedIn – Where’s the wild and crazy?

Post from my old blog

I’ve had a LinkedIn profile for several years, but I don’t really use it and I haven’t updated my profile for ages. When I recently logged in to give my profile a full makeover, I was therefore surprised to see what LinkedIn has turned into today.

From just being an online CV network, LinkedIn is now a full-grown jobzilla network. Members can endorse each other’s skills and expertise, write flattering recommendations and monitor when the favor is returned.

Don’t get me wrong. Overall, I think the concept is brilliant. Imagine how much work it saves the companies’ HR-employees? I’m also aware that ordinary job applications are often written with both the airbrush and the blur function enabled.

Still, I was surprised to see how homogeneous all LinkedIn profiles appear. When everybody has excellent leadership potential and great interpersonal skills, then excellent and great becomes trivial and mainstream.

Where is the edge? The wild-and-crazy? The much longed for proof that there’s a real human being behind that impressive CV? Of course I understand that people leave out less flattering traits such as “often calls in sick on Mondays” and “gets too drunk at Christmas parties”, but wouldn’t it be refreshing with some information that actually revealed a little more and made the individual more..individual?

Here are 3 skills I’d love to be endorsed for:

• Karaoke: All time favorites include  everything JAY-Z, but my repertoire is huge.

• Sauce-making: I make a mean red wine sauce.

• Kung-Fu.Ok..not really, but everybody embellish their cv a little, don’t they? (at least I’m not claiming that I’m fluent in ancient Greek.

PS: I just saw that someone has endorsed my military skills (?!?)….not really sure why