Everyone has caught the ick at least once in their lifetime. Once you get it, it’s hard to move forward with a romantic prospect, and it turns out that this is also true in the professional world. The ick can creep up on you at any time – especially on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has changed the world of employment. It’s given jobseekers another way of putting their best foot forward when applying for a job. However, if you’re not so careful, your LinkedIn profile might stop you from landing your dream role.

From oversharing to inappropriate selfies and unsolicited sales pitches, the team at The Audit Lab conducted a survey exploring the top LinkedIn icks so that you can make sure to keep your professional persona polished at all times. 

Adding qualifications to your name

Your name should be just that: your name. Don’t add different letters from qualifications of years gone by. Yes, you may be proud of your degree, but a BA has no place in your title. Sure, you want to stand out and make sure that potential hirers notice your excellence quickly, but your profile should speak for itself without going overboard – so let’s keep those certificates to the appropriate ‘about you’ section.

Instant sales pitches

LinkedIn messaging can be a great tool for connecting yourself and your brand to your network. However, you need to master the art of conversation on LinkedIn.

Long, spammy sales pitches are a guaranteed turn-off and will have potential employers reaching for the mute button – especially if that person has only just accepted your connection request. 

Adding anyone and everyone

This isn’t the early days of Facebook or Instagram. Yes, LinkedIn is all about growing your network, but let’s keep things organic. Adding anyone and everyone to your network without any prior interaction can come off a bit eager. While there are exceptions to this, try to keep your requests to those you know in real life.

Buzzwords

Simplicity is key. Nobody is a ‘sales ninja’, a ‘head of happiness’, a ‘growth exec’ or a ‘digital rockstar’, so try to tone it down a little bit.

Selfies

There is a time and place for pictures. Everyone is a fan of self-love, but any type of photographic content other than conference and work-do-related images should probably be kept off your LinkedIn profile. Negative points if you accompany a random selfie with a novella of a post.

Inspirational quotes

Although it might come from a good place, repurposed inspirational quotes have no place on anyone’s feed. Anything from ‘strive for progress not perfection’ to ‘pain is weakness’ or ‘missing 100% of the shots you don’t take’ won’t induce that life-altering awakening you’re aiming for. 

Toxic positivity

There’s power in being positive, but asking other people to follow your lead and ‘work hard’ and keep a ‘winners mindset’ in response to difficulties that occur in the modern workplace can overlook employees’ potential struggles. So let’s stop conforming to corporate (and toxic) positivity.

Oversharing

Adding a touch of your personality to your posts on LinkedIn is a great way to create genuine connections within your network, but there’s no need to go overboard. Oversharing about your personal life can give people the wrong impression. So we’ll stop you there before you inevitably TMI.

Posting multiple times a day

The general rule is to post on LinkedIn one to two times a day. Posts generally live in the LinkedIn feed for a long time, so over-posting can give you or your brand a bad image. And the next time you put something live, we’ll probably just scroll straight past it.

Performative liking and commenting

Interacting with your network and building relationships is key to social media and business development alike; however, there are times when this can be overkill. Over-interacting with people’s posts in the hopes that they will do the same for you is really not a good look.

Images: Getty