LinkedIn profile pics: you CAN turn it off
This has got to be the most useful feature from LinkedIn. Not only do you have the ability to set your photo’s visibility on LinkedIn, you can also choose not to view OTHERS’ profile pictures. It’s definitely a valuable tool for those of us who feel that the photo feature could compromise anti-discrimination hiring practices/expose corporations to possible discrimination suits (from the few sue-happy folks who will use just about any excuse to squeeze a buck).
The option is under your account settings and is the very last option under privacy. Or. You can just click here.
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LinkedIn users divided on pictures, recruiters don’t like it
(Note on all the self-linking: not trying to overly promote myself but I have written about this not just here but also on my other blog so much so just trying to avoid being redundant).
Check out the discussion on LinkedIn’s new feature: pic on profiles, question was posted by LinkedIn user, William Uranga. I posted my thoughts in this post.
Just as expected, recruiters are wary about the ability to view pictures. I had a casual discussion with LinkedIn’s Mario Sundar several months ago on this. That discussion happened just days after the Facebook Developer Platform was launched. Wasn’t a big deal quite yet…right before Silicon Valley fell into Facebook hypnosis. 
(Not exactly sure when this happened. But notice the post on the platform announcement simply said that Facebook was the “Anti-MySpace.” It’s hard to even put the two on the same boat now. You just can’t. ).
I know I started out this post by talking about photos on LinkedIn but I can’t help but be amazed at how little time has passed since that conversation with Mario about profile pictures (Chris Salazar just happened to be right there with a camera. How cool is that?) I can’t believe all the F8 craze is barely three months old.
So many things have happened since. Or little. Depending on how you look at it. LinkedIn has since hinted at opening up their developer platform, and even that is still at least another 4-6 months away (I’m basing it on their “within nine months” statement). LinkedIn Groups is now live (though I think it’s useless). And now photos.
Not sure where LinkedIn is going with all of this. I have mixed feelings about a LinkedIn platform. On one hand I’d like to see applications like Causes but on the other I’d hate to see apps like Zombies (both apps were, by the way, were from the same developer — met him at the Facebook Mixer a while back). And then sometimes, I just wish LinkedIn would just stay the way it is, but maybe with better messaging tools. Or maybe an RSS feed for LinkedIn answers.
I wish there wasn’t so much pressure for LinkedIn to catch up with Facebook. There’s room for both in my book. But how do you say that to LinkedIn, when their position as the leader in business [social] networking is at stake?
Tough choices.
More coverage of LinkedIn Photos:
LinkedIn Photos: Good or Bad Idea? ZDNet
LinkedIn Photos Allows Photos After Resisting - CNN
Job References You Can’t Control - WSJ
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LinkedIn now has pictures
I noticed something new in my LinkedIn profile today. It now has the option to add an 80×80 photo.
The Boston Globe’s Business Blog was wondering why it took this long. Did it not make it to their to-do list?
I doubt that’s the reason.
LinkedIn is used heavily by recruiters. This is because unlike Facebook and MySpace, a person’s LinkedIn profile is almost equivalent to a resume. (I suppose LinkedIn using the hresume microformat is based on what members use the site for.) Any seasoned recruiter or staffing professional will tell you that resumes and photos don’t belong together.
Discrimination suits aren’t fun. Or cheap. Sure, you can argue that discrimination can occur in other stages of the recruiting process, but recruiters will tell you it’s better to play it safe and throw out that photo attachment.
It’ll be interesting how this new development with LinkedIn changes things, if it changes anything.
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LinkedIn Recruiting
There are two schools of thought in the use of LinkedIn. On one end of the spectrum you have the so-called LinkedIn Open Networkers who publish their e-mail addresses so that they can get invites to connect. They typically have 500+ contacts on LinkedIn. The idea is that the more people they are connected to the more people they have access to. The question, however, is what kind of a relationship do you have with that “professional network?”
On the other end of the spectrum you have those who use LinkedIn as their online contact management tool. They connect only to those they truly know and trust.
It seems that a lot of recruiters who use LinkedIn lean towards the first group. It does make sense to use it this way in recruiting as your network becomes a free candidate database.
While I totally understand the approach, I think it has contributed to the recruiting industry’s bad reputation in social networking circles because there are those who have (ab)used their network by asking them to introduce them to their contacts rather than using the information in the profiles to contact candidates directly. There are also those who spam their networks, using it as some sort of a mass mailing list for whatever reqs they are working on, regardless of whether they fit the position.
How do you use LinkedIn in recruiting and do you have a set of guidelines/best practices that you follow when it comes to the use of your social network?
Update:
Found this post by Scott Axel about LinkedIn invitations.
On LinkedIn Answers: Have Recruiters Perverted LinkedIn?
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Recruiting and social media
I went to the Lunch2.0 event yesterday at Netgear and was chatting a little bit with LinkedIn’s Community Evangelist Mario Sundar about social media and employment.
LinkedIn is becoming quite popular with recruiters these days because it allows them to tap into passive candidates who are not otherwise available on Monster or Dice. And as other social networking sites (MySpace, FaceBook, etc)become more mainstream with job seekers publishing more information in these sites, recruiters are also starting to tap into them not just as a resource for candidates, but also to research their candidates.
In addition to social networking sites, there are also new services popping up targeting the job seeker/recruiter market. A lot of them are designed to make the recruiting process more personable through the use of images, video and reference tools to allow the prospective employer to see the candidate beyond their skill set.
We already do this in recruiting. They are called in-person interviews. But social media allows recruiters/employers to see a more complete view of things that may not be mentioned in their resumes such as their personalities and communication skills before they even proceed to the interview, so in theory, shouldn’t social media be a valuable tool for recruiters?
In theory…yes. But in a litigious society, maybe not so.
Remember the old recruiting days when we used to toss out resumes that had pictures attached because employers didn’t want to be exposed to for racial, sex or age discrimination suits? Never mind that the photos were unsolicited? In the world of blogs, MySpace and FaceBook, pictures don’t have to be attached, they can be easily found via a simple Google search. If a candidate is not hired for some reason and a potential employer appears on that candidate’s site traffic report, can that person claim discrimination? “I applied for a job and employer A came to my blog, saw that I am Asian and decided not to hire me.” What about video resumes on YouTube or ResumeBook?
I mentioned this concern to Mario and he mentioned that this was actually one of the reasons LinkedIn members do not have the option to upload photos as part of their profiles — because the company recognizes that LinkedIn is used not just as a networking tool but also as a recruiting tool.
LinkedIn also has a recommendation tool that allows clients, partners, co-workers and bosses to comment about a person’s quality of work or credentials. I think this is a great tool because it allows recruiters to do a reference check before even possibly contacting a candidate. But as a former recruiter I seem to also remember widespread corporate policies prohibiting managers against giving references to former employees. Now…LinkedIn, despite it being a “professional” networking tool, is still a personal tool so I guess the point here is that social media definitely blurs the line between what is official and what is “personal.”
At the risk of being redundant, if recruiters/employers don’t find it on LinkedIn, it takes but two seconds to find it elsewhere.
I won’t offer any opinions here, other than to say that I am at a wait and see state. It would be interesting to see how the staffing and employment industry adapts to new trends in technology and social media.
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About This Blog
Lisa Amorao is currently the Marketing Programs Manager for ATR International, a Silicon Valley-based contingent staffing firm.
Lisa has held roles in recruiting and sales before moving on to her current role in Marketing.
The opinions expressed here are her personal opinions and does not reflect those of her employer or any of its clients.
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