Mind Your Manners On Linked In

OPEN SECURITY ALLIANCE

What I Dislike About People on Linked In – Mind Your Manners!

• I get these ‘connect’ requests

• Since my profile is public, I don’t mind the requests because I am online to network too!

• What gets to me is the request message and the way people send out these invites indiscriminately – sort of spam, that’s how I term it

• People just do not have any amount of sensitivity on how to say hello! Are they dumb…. And I got enough charge to start writing!



• A human being can handle no more than 150 ‘friends’ so what are people doing with thousands of connections and looking for more!!

• At any time how many business associates can you network with? More than ten! Goddam it you are superXYZ.

• If you are at a conference and get a business card from every attendee what do you do with them? Hahaha – think hard and recollect the trash.

• At every event you rush to shake hands and hand over your business card to the guest of honor – do you believe your card will not be in the garbage the next day? Liar !



TRUST? !!does this thing exist!

How about me trusting you??

• OK so you want to connect with me, but why should I …• How about a better

reason than this one line spam!

• How do you know me?

“I’d like to connect you to my professional network”

“Since you are a person I trust I wanted to invite you to join my network on Linked In”

“Please add me to your Linked In network”



• How do you expect me to respect your invite if you do not have the time to tell me about yourself

• Do you expect me to go check your profile?

• Come on – be a bit polite – show you care and put in some effort



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• You shared some information about who you are, where you’re from, what you do!

• Your motive(s) ?

• If you want something from me.. ?

• Don’t just drop out of nowhere with a (canned) one liner written by someone else !

• Did you sent me the invite because you liked my gender (m/f) or my picture or what !



• I may not be interested to increase the number of connections on my profile

• Having x,000 connections may get someone brownie points with Linked In but how will one person (humanely) manage the expectations of thousands of connections is anyone’s guess!

• IAC – this is not an FAQ – it is about me!



How do we take this relationship forward. BTW I sent a message asking why you are reaching out to me … did you reply !



• You are connected to me but you do not respond to my mail when I ask for an introduction

• Linked In is about professional networking and if you do not respond to a business proposal – why did you connect to me in the first place

• You may be having new opportunities but you do not communicate with your ‘connections’ – so why did you connect with them?

• Many a times you don’t even know if you are connected to me !



• With your connection request write a few lines

• Why did you want to connect

• How did you come across my profile or name

• How will ‘being connected’ benefit us

• What are you bringing to the relationship

• If nothing like above, and you just want to connect…. Then

• Just say that you want to be a friend

• Tell me why you want to be a friend and how you found me



Some of my experiences with connections which make me wary about intentions or objectives. It will be so nice if people just communicated.



• I accepted a connection and suggested we meet – and, this guy wants to know why ! • Hey WTF, you sent the invite to connect

• I accepted your request and am asking to meet you… - taking your interest to the next level!

• Why did you want to connect if you did not want to meet up to discuss opportunities of areas of common interest.

• Creep full of attitude – I disconnected.



• This guy sends a connection request and I see his profile is nowhere near my business or lines of interest so I write and ask him what brings him to my doorstep. • He says he is a recruiter so I write back and say

‘that’s great’ and how can I help him? Is he looking at me as a potential candidate?

• Now there is no reply from this guy – so much for being polite when you come knocking my door.



• I am traveling to this new city and decide to lookup some of my ‘connections’

• I write to them in advance … 50% do not get back, 30% are busy and 20% ask me to ‘drop them a line’

• Now these are all people in senior positions … the supposedly ‘big’ guys.

• Had I written to freshers or juniors the story would have been different (that’s what I would like to believe)



• I got connected with this real enthusiastic person who helps me a few times and I help him a few times and we are now real pals – and he moves to my city!

• I call him to say I am in the neighborhood and but he is too busy to take a five minute break.

• Or even drop me a message on LI



• This is another painful one… the connection is from a company and not a person

• No picture of anyone!

• And this company has only one or two connections

• And the message says that I am a person to be trusted!

• Oh God – help me please



• The same 10 / 20 odd people are the only ones who are posting or responding to discussions in the groups. Millions of lurkers and freeloaders

• I believe that a lot of recruitment happens on Linked In and I have seen hundreds of interesting ads too –no one has ever approached me No friend of mine has been recruited through LI or FB or TW

• I have heard the same about business too … but have to see evidence. Yes I have made a number of acquaintances and have instances of mutual benefit.



• Oh yes then there are those who connect with me and are working in a competitor company (“them”)

• Either “they” do not monitor their employees or “they” do not care !

• Anyway my the new connected friend sends me a request saying that I am ‘someone he/she trusts’ or ‘wants to grow his/her’ network

• After I have accepted the connection there is nothing … no noise, no thanks, no communication

• Until… this person leaves his / her job or is kicked out, when I get a hi how are you doing mail

• Asking for references for a job or career advice

• Everyone is not in the same boat because some do take time to reach out in emails or at conferences (Check the email about the gracious ones)



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Mind Your Manners On Linked In

Self Improvement

Transcript of Mind Your Manners On Linked In