In my business, it’s paramount that my clients look as good as possible throughout their career. And Linkedin is now included as a “must have” just like a resume. I’ve seen some really good Linkedin Profiles, and some really bad ones. A poorly written profile can cost a job seeker an opportunity, without even knowing it. These are the profiles that are stark, contain bad grammar, or misspelled words.

That’s why clients contact resume writers like me to help out with Linkedin profiles. There’s a lot of behind the scenes work involved from turning on or off privacy and broadcast features, to creating a custom url that can be inserted into the resume. However, the folks at Linkedin don’t make it easy to help their members put their best foot forward. Their rules dictate that no one but the owner of the account can have access. That means no sharing of usernames and passwords or you can jeopardize your account privileges. I get the reasoning behind it, and I’m totally on board with it. But it doesn’t make it any easier for newbies trying to get an account up and running for the first time when they’re on the hunt for new gig.

So may I suggest to the folks at Linkedin a preview page? One that allows the member to send a link to a professional writer for editing privileges, but the profile does not go LIVE until the member approves it and clicks on a button to make it happen. That way the writer won’t have access to the actual account, or private messages, but the client can still have a great looking Linkedin profile without having to cut and paste from a word document.

Come on Linkedin. You know you can do this.