Job seekers often ask me how to add their resume to their LinkedIn profile. While you might be tempted to copy and paste your resume content into your profile, I caution against it. The following are four reasons to reconsider inserting your resume content into your profile.
4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Add Your Resume To Your LinkedIn Profile
1. Fight off LinkedIn plagiarizers.
Unfortunately, LinkedIn is rampant with plagiarizers. One of the biggest arguments for not copying and pasting the contents of your resume into your LinkedIn profile is to fend them off.
Personally speaking, I’ve had more career coaches than I can count steal my profile content, and my coaching clients have experienced similar instances of plagiarism. Thankfully, they heeded my caution and were cautious with the information they included in their profiles, so the damages were minimal.
However, imagine if you uploaded your entire resume with all your career accomplishments to your profile. A stranger (or multiple strangers) could be claiming credit for your successes, and even worse, on a public platform with hundreds of millions of users.
2. Protect confidential company information.
While on the topic of choosing what content to add to your profile, be careful not to disclose confidential information. If the content is already publicly available on the company’s website, in a press release, or a similar forum, you’re likely safe to use it. However, if you learned the information through your day-to-day work, you’ll want to think twice before publicizing it on LinkedIn.
This discretion is particularly important if you’re an executive with access to revenue numbers, employee data, or other sensitive information. If you’re on the fence about whether to include particular content on your profile, err on the side of caution and leave it off.
3. Continue to tailor your resume for each job posting.
Another important reason not to add your resume to your LinkedIn profile is that doing so prevents you from customizing it for each opportunity. While your resume doesn’t need to be rebuilt for each role, it should be tailored to each job posting.
Removing your resume from your LinkedIn allows you to continue to tailor it for each job opening. Additionally, it provides you with the opportunity to write and add a cover letter alongside your submission.
4. Spark recruiter interest.
Along the same lines, keeping your resume content off your LinkedIn profile provides recruiters and hiring managers with a reason to contact you — i.e. to ask for your resume.
Uploading a generic or template resume to your profile may seem convenient but can lead recruiters to skip over your profile if it’s not tailored to their job requirements, as you may seem underqualified. Thus, consider adding just enough information to your profile to capture their interest and get invited to submit your (customized) resume.
Final Thoughts
Your resume and LinkedIn profile serve two distinct yet complementary purposes. At a high level, the goal of your LinkedIn profile is to invite people to network and connect with you, while the goal of your resume is to land a job interview. If your profile is written with this in mind, you are bound to land a new role in no time. You’ve got this!
