One of my favourite features on LinkedIn is the “Who’s viewed your profile” page… What can I say, I’m a nosy person.
To fully take advantage of the feature you have to adjust your privacy settings to allow others to see when you visit their page–an interesting trade off. As much as I love to anonymously check out someone’s profile (or “creeping” as people often say in the Facebook context), my curiosity to see who’s on my page is much higher so I let it go.
It’s interesting to me particularly because LinkedIn is purely a professional network. You’re not visiting my page to see what I’m up to this weekend or to look at pictures of me and my friends, you’re there to read into my professional life and work experience.
So my question to you: why do you visit someone’s profile?
Obviously there’s not one answer, and of course there’s no right or wrong, I’m just curious. I also wonder what people think when they see I was on their profiles (again, nosy)…
Are you looking for new business opportunities? Potential hires? Sizing the competition? Just plain nosy (like me)?
I usually visit someone after meeting them for the first time at an event or similar. I just like to read up about who they are, and Linkedin is a good resource for that.
for sure, I actually always do that too but didn’t really think of it when writing this post. Thanks for commenting!
It’s pretty simple for me as a young professional. Generally, if I am looking at a seasoned professional’s page (such as yours), I am surveying your career path. I’m always interested to see what senior practitioners in the industry did before they got to where they are. I’m also checking out what information veterans consider important enough to include on their profiles and then comparing it to what I have on mine.
That’s a great idea to look to professionals you aspire to and how they present themselves compared to your profile. I might have to steal that trick!
This post made me laugh because I’m always curious to see who’s been looking at my profile too! I tend to look at someone’s profile after I’ve met them and am sending an invitation to connect. And then of course, I like to click on the profiles of the people who’ve been reading my profile
When you look to see who’s been viewing your profile, do you see any kind of pattern?
haha agree with everything you just said. I didn’t even think about that, but yes after any networking event or meeting, I usually look them up on LinkedIn and read the profile before connecting.
As for patterns, not *really* but I’ve noticed things like people I’ve met once or twice, coming to my page often, but never really contacting me and that makes me the most curious. Although I may do that to other people and not realize it…
All of the above! It’s addictive.
I also like to check out people BEFORE I meet them in job interviews (on either side of the table) and networking events. It makes conversation easier as you have talking points to start with and allows me to decide who to try to meet and sometimes who to avoid
A great point–proactive profile snooping-I love it!
I love the question Kelly. I have often thought the same as I see interesting people having checked out my profile.
I have a number of reasons for checking someone`s profile and it varies with my relationship to them; friends, business or networking acquaintances, somebody I have communicated with in a group who I find intriguing, and somebody I feel professionally I wouId be interested in knowing. I have friends across the globe and check them out ocassionally to see `where`they may have moved on to. A big trend towards the Far East.
When I get reference requests from previous team members I am always happy to see how they have progressed since we worked together. I feel really great when I see them landing dynamite jobs.
In Ottawa, I am curious about how the Marketing Communication and Business Leader crowds fit together. Although I have been back in town for just a year, after 18 years my local professional network is highly interconnected. The 80 – 20 rule applies I would say. 80 percent of the profiles I check are connected to the same small group of friends and frequently the same 3 – 4 friends. (Your name pops up quite a bit Kelly!) They are Tipping Point connectors. How people are connected is also indicative of how organisations are connected.
It`s also interesting to see the career progression of someone who has worked in a position of interest – or to determine how a company operates and hires by seeing the experience level they place in a given position.
Of course it`s also VERY helpful to see if a company is presently hiring or letting go in the droves.
Hope that is interesting to you Kelly
Cheers
VERY Interesting! Thanks Suzanne!
You also bring up a good point about companies–LinkedIn provides great statistics about current and past employees.