As a LinkedIn member, have you ever lied on your LinkedIn profile? Maybe your answer is negative, but according to research and studies in this field, statistics show that most recruiters believe that people lie in their LinkedIn profiles. Now there may be a question: why and how do people lie on LinkedIn?
As mentioned in LendEDU’s new survey on LinkedIn profiles, 34% of respondents answered the question, ” How accurately does your LinkedIn profile portray your work experience? ” have responded that they lied on their LinkedIn profiles or the 11% of them that said their profile is almost a total lie.
Consequently, based on this research, the good news is that most LinkedIn users are honest about their LinkedIn profiles. In fact, what these people claim in their profiles regarding certificates, skills, work experience, etc., is entirely accurate and without lying.
The most common mistake on LinkedIn: Lying on the profile
LinkedIn is the best social network for business & career purposes that connect the world’s professionals to each other.
According to LinkedIn, more than 850 million users are active on LinkedIn, most of whom are either looking for a favorable and better job position or looking to hire a professional and skilled employee for their companies.
However, there are concerns for recruiters and employers and questions that come to their mind, for example: How much do they trust the LinkedIn profiles of job seekers and applicants? Why do people lie on LinkedIn? What do people lie about on their LinkedIn profiles?
Since the profile of LinkedIn users is their online resume, some of them lie in sections of their profiles to get the first job opportunity.
These lies mostly happen in the skills section. According to LendEDU, 23% of survey participants admitted that they’re prone to lying on their LinkedIn profiles, especially when it comes to skills.
On top of the skill section, the highest amount of lying in the LinkedIn profile is related to work experience and educational achievements, respectively.
All these people are putting false information on their LinkedIn profiles to grow their businesses and find great jobs.
But it’s naive to say that their lies will never be exposed.
Don’t lie.
Given most LinkedIn members’ experience, our advice is that you never intend to exaggerate grossly or lie and utilize false advertising in your LinkedIn profile.
For this reason, your lies and exaggeration will be revealed very soon due to the wide range of connections on social media.
The trouble with lying on your LinkedIn profile
We all know and agree that lying about a resume can run into a lot of trouble for people.
Some users unknowingly and stupidly, without realizing the consequences of lying, add fake certificates, skills, and work experiences to their LinkedIn profiles.
So, why does lying on LinkedIn get you in trouble?
Since everyone who’s a LinkedIn member can see your profile, it’s more likely that if your profile contains false and fake content, it can be discovered by other LinkedIn members. As a result, your credibility is destroyed immensely.
Now, what’s the solution to get rid of lying on LinkedIn, especially in the skills section?
To gain recruiters’ trust in your LinkedIn profile, after adding skills to your LinkedIn profile, you can get endorsements from your colleagues and friends who know you well.
In fact, LinkedIn has designed the endorsement feature to be a solution for determining whether the skills in users’ LinkedIn profiles are valid and preventing them from making false claims about their skills.
Accordingly, you can ask your friends to endorse your skills after completing your LinkedIn profile so that your resume and abilities have more credibility.
For more information on getting an endorsement on LinkedIn, see our other articles under these titles: “How to endorse skills on LinkedIn?” or How to endorse someone on LinkedIn?
Now it’s time for LinkedIn social network managers to take advantage of relevant technologies to expose liars to prevent them from lying in the Licenses & certifications, Experience, and Skills sections of LinkedIn profiles so that no one should not be able to add certifications and skills in her or his LinkedIn profile which she or he hasn’t acquired.
Conclusion
Considering the tight competition between LinkedIn members in getting their ideal job and how recruiters select them, there have always been concerns in this field, and the question that was raised: Do people lie on LinkedIn? Unfortunately, yes. One of the challenges that recruiters and business owners face daily is seeing countless lies in people’s LinkedIn profiles.
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