What are we to make of this?
Business networking website LinkedIn has published a series of guidelines to help prevent users damaging their careers by mixing professional contacts and friends online.
That’s from an article in today’s Guardian. Much of what it says is quite sensible. If you are a policeman, don’t write on your blog that you love your job because it means you get to hit people with sticks. But I also think that it is very naive in several ways.
Firstly, if there’s stuff you don’t want public, don’t put it online. It will be found, and it will come back to you, if it is out there.
Second, it seems to me that LinkedIn is stuck in a very 20th Century concept of full-time employment and a fixed career path. In contrast many of the people I have connections to on LinkedIn are self-employed and have more than one career. LinkedIn makes it very difficult for people like that (and I’m one too) to use their system.
And finally, the whole idea of having a private life being damaging to your career is also (hopefully) outdated. It is pretty much still the case that being a well-known science fiction fan will scupper any chance I might have of getting a job in the UK in the area where I have most expertise. But the world shouldn’t be that way. One of the academic energy economics blogs I follow today boasted a post from a contributor enthusing about the Police gig she went to, because she is a huge fan of the band. To me that makes her more of real and interesting person, not someone who is damaging her career by admitting to interests outside of work.
I agree. And also, people can change careers, and contacts that were personal can become professional as well, especially nowadays when people do end up changing careers several times. So much that is wonderful can be something you fall into, something unplanned (you said as much in an entry the other day). The lines are blurry…although I think you said as much when you mentioned folks who are self-employed.
But I see that blurring in my own life too…gaining more skills and opportunities to network than I ever encountered in any of the professional organizations or networking groups I’ve tried.
Thanks Cheryl! Glad you read KP. I agree; it’s important to be who you are and to be comfortable with it. I’ve found that contributes more to success than any other “rules”.
Note, however, that I was very careful to mention neither the name of the band nor any other names. That means that my post won’t show up in any searches. I do that on purpose, because I think some judicious separation does make sense. But I don’t mind if my regular readers and colleagues know what my passions are!
Well, we live in a society in which being who you are is highly valued. But in my parents’ generation being who you are was regarded as shameful – the object was to be who you were expected to be. That attitude hasn’t entirely gone away, and there are still types of being who you are that can get you killed and have radio shock jocks call your killing “justified”. The point is that we are moving away from that, and LinkedIn doesn’t seem to understand that.