Transferring data straight from your resume to LinkedIn?

You could be hurting your company or personal brand.

As an executive and leadership team member, your work naturally affects your employer’s bottom line by driving technology innovation, quality, productivity, or other factors.

Your resume SHOULD tout these facts – but your LinkedIn Profile might be a different story.

When you’re building a LinkedIn presence to support your job search, you may need to limit what you disclose, especially if it affects your company or teams, according to marketer Neal Shaffer, who frequently posts on social media and the law.

Industry competitors, investors, shareholders, Board members, colleagues, and bosses can all see the data you’ve added – and Harvard Business Review reports that employers are increasingly monitoring this information.

To avoid problems affecting your employer or personal brand, here are some ways to “tone down” your LinkedIn Profile, while maintaining a strong message of leadership:

Remove some of the metrics used on your resume.

Metrics in your resume are critical to demonstrating performance (as shown in What Does a Good Resume Look Like?), but these same figures can land you in hot water if they appear online.

This is particularly true if you’re describing projects not yet disclosed to investors or the public.

First, decide what you CAN share on LinkedIn. Your major projects or client names may have already been published on your company’s website, for example.

You can also analyze whether your resume information would give competitors an unfair advantage by finding out the customers you’re targeting or new products you’re developing.

Then, alter your achievements for LinkedIn as needed by toning down facts to an overview level, as shown below:

RESUME:  Closed $54M in solution sales across APAC and Canada.

LINKEDIN:  Closed millions in international solution sales – a 19% improvement.

RESUME:  Saved 6M+ OPEX in Year 1 of 5-year Mitigation initiative.

LINKEDIN:  Trimmed 30% OPEX in first stages of mitigation project.

Question if the information would paint your colleagues in a bad light.

Executives who lead turnarounds or improvements often save the day by eliminating lingering problems. Yet, if you mention these SPECIFIC problems online, your executive team could be portrayed as ineffective – and your professional network could suffer as a result.

Instead of pointing directly at the root cause, try a different way to describe a turnaround, as in this example:

RESUME:  Reversed stagnating 4-year revenue at ABC Company with 32% more product SKUs generating 54% uptick in sales.

LINKEDIN:  Added product SKUs and innovative offerings raising ABC Company revenue to pre-COVID levels.

By focusing on what you did (without framing the cause), you’re less likely to invoke the wrath of company insiders or co-workers.

Consider how customers could react to details you’re disclosing on LinkedIn.

Executives engaged in digital or business transformation face a unique challenge: by describing how they’ve upgraded outdated practices or technologies, they could be revealing problems to end consumers.

Rather than openly providing details on the issues from legacy IT systems or inefficient business models, you can make your point on LinkedIn from a different perspective.

For example, the changes shown below could make it less obvious to consumers that they’d paid a higher price for this company’s products in 2021:

RESUME:  Boosted profits 52% after resolving B2C marketing issues, leading to record-making margins and 30% higher prices in 2021.

LINKEDIN:  Refined marketing insights with new analysis techniques, prompting 34% rise in targeted consumer sales.

The bottom line: LinkedIn isn’t private in any form.

Potentially confidential information (including any copies of your resume floating around online) should be carefully examined to ensure they won’t cause professional or company issues.

Take a closer look at your resume accomplishments and adjust your story BEFORE sharing it on LinkedIn and other platforms.

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Thought about posting your executive resume directly on your LinkedIn Profile?

You might assume this will save a few steps in the hiring process and make it easier for employers to vet your qualifications.

However, it doesn’t quite work that way. There are good reasons to use LinkedIn as your personal marketing platform and your resume as a powerfully tuned branding tool.

Read on for the 4 main reasons to NEVER post your resume on LinkedIn:

1)  Uploading your resume to LinkedIn could alert your employer of your job search.

Are you in the midst of a confidential job search? Posting your resume on LinkedIn could convince your current employer that you’re looking around for a better opportunity.

You’re probably aware that your employees could be avid users of LinkedIn. If your team sees your full resume posted online, they might become concerned – and start their own job search, if they haven’t done so already.

Rather than making it obvious that you’re looking for a change, it’s best to simply  keep your LinkedIn Profile UPDATED with changes in skills, new positions, and promotions for a more subtle message of leadership and capability. This strategy is far less likely to indicate that you’re abandoning ship.

2)  Publicly posting your resume makes it difficult for recruiters to get paid for sourcing you.

The basis of a recruiter’s business is to identify ideal candidates for their client companies… finding hidden gems, if you will.

When you post your resume on LinkedIn (or on a job board), recruiters lose the ability to claim a fee for finding you and presenting your resume to employers. See 5 Common Myths About Working With Executive Recruiters.

After all, another recruiter could easily send your resume directly to the same employer – or the client company could simply find your resume on LinkedIn themselves!

In order to work successfully with recruiters, you’re best off keeping your resume private until you’ve established a strong relationship with a recruiting firm – enabling you to customize your document (see point #2) and guaranteeing that no other recruiter will be forwarding the same credentials.

3)  Uploading your resume to LinkedIn might leak confidential data.

Here’s the BIGGEST reason most executives should refrain from posting their resumes online: it discloses too much insider information about your company.

If your executive resume is well-written, it should contain compelling, SPECIFIC details of how you’ve rescued a challenged operation, set new pricing, tightened network security, restructured a division, or gained back market share, as well as the metrics involved.

These stories are crucial in your job search, but NOT for public consumption. Why? They show outsiders how your employer’s business is growing, stagnant, or possibly even facing shutdown.

If your Board or shareholders see this data (and your resume) on LinkedIn, there’s a good chance you could be dismissed or at least questioned about your intentions. Rival companies might also be able to use the data in your executive resume to predict your company’s corporate strategy or rush a competing product to market.

Instead, ensure your LinkedIn Profile is regularly updated with a high-level summary of your accomplishments, plus a robust mix of keywords… all toned down to refrain from disclosing corporate secrets.

4)  Your resume should be customized to EACH job.

You already know this; an executive resume works much harder when you use it as a tool to show alignment between employer needs and your skills.

Your LinkedIn Profile, however, will often be more “general” in nature – and therefore NOT identical to your resume.

For example, you might have broad skills that let you pursue either a COO and Finance Director role. Your LinkedIn Profile should show BOTH capabilities, but your resume must showcase accounting skills for a Finance position (or operations strategy for a COO job). Otherwise, employers hiring for these positions will see you as a “weaker” candidate.

In addition, resumes must be adjusted to satisfy both Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) systems and hiring managers. By tuning your resume to reflect the phrases used by your target employers or job postings, it will score higher when reviewed by employer ATS systems.

When you post your resume on your LinkedIn Profile, you won’t get the chance to emphasize specific skills sought by target employers.

As you can see, the risks of posting your resume on LinkedIn far outweigh any benefits.

Use your LinkedIn presence to promote your skills and maintain engagement – and reserve your resume as a direct, finely tuned job-search tool.

I recently conducted an informal review of LinkedIn Headlines and found a surprising problem: 

More than 90% show ONLY their current job in this field, using perhaps 60 of the 220 characters allowed.

In other words, your LinkedIn Headline is far too SHORT (and boring).

You’re truly missing a golden opportunity to promote a strong personal brand! Here’s why you should change your Headline – immediately:

Your Headline follows you everywhere on LinkedIn.

No matter how others find you on LinkedIn, your Headline is the FIRST field they’ll notice after your name. It shows up in your posts, comments, and anywhere your Profile is found.

If your Headline is limited to your current job, other users can’t discern any difference between you and others in your field.

You’re making others read your ENTIRE Profile to find why you’re good at what you do… and honestly, most of them won’t take the time.

Get around this problem by adding more keywords and even an achievement to your Headline, like this example:

Chief Commercial Officer Leading 23% New Growth From Sales Enablement, Team Motivation, and Shorter Sales Cycles in EMEA and Americas.

You’ll now have an automatic introduction in your Headline that speaks before you do.

Your current job probably doesn’t reflect the one you want.

I’ll bet your job title fails you in numerous ways. Does it describe how you lead teams, cut costs, affect global operations, drive strategy, or any of your other executive competencies?

If you want to be courted by employers or recruiters, show them WHAT you do and WHY you’re an expert in your field.

For example, if you’re a healthcare CEO, Hospital Turnarounds, Patient Care Quality, New Service Lines, and Physician Relations are critical skills. If you add them to your Headline, you could experience a dramatic rise in views to your Profile and a strong possibility of more employer inquiries.

As another example, an IT leader could benefit from incorporating Agile, Digital Transformation, RPA, Remote Connectivity, or other in-demand skills.

See A Fast Formula for a Powerful LinkedIn Headline for more pointers.

Your Headline is the BEST personal brand tool available on LinkedIn.

Keywords in your Headline will make a HUGE difference in your competitive edge over other leaders. A single skill in this field provides the same effect as using it DOZENS of other times in other sections. (Take my word for it; I’ve tested this multiple times.)

More content in your Headline not only gives you an automatic advantage – it also introduces you (to every LinkedIn user!) as a sought-after leader with robust skills. 

Don’t keep ranking behind others in your industry – and don’t wait to make these changes!

Even if you add a few more keywords and crucial areas of strength in your work, you’ll be far ahead of most LinkedIn users – AND benefit from a standout LinkedIn Headline that showcases your brand.