Ready Or Not: Changes To LinkedIn Profiles Are Coming Soon

October 17, 2012 / in General Information, LinkedIn / by Mic Johnson

Nothing endures but change. – Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher

This quote is true on so many levels, but especially when it comes to social media tools. How many times have you seen Facebook make a change and then had to listen to your friends rant on their Facebook timelines about how they don’t like the changes and want things “to go back to the way they were”?

The same is true for LinkedIn, especially since they became a publicly held company in May 2011. Whether it’s adding features similar to Facebook’s “LIKE” option on posts from your connections, or rolling out new LinkedIn Company Pages in an effort to make them more relevant, or their latest attempt to shake things up by changing the LinkedIn Profile for everyone…yes, now more than ever, it’s clear that change is here to stay.

The way I see it, there are two ways we can look at all of this change going on around us: 

1. Change sucks, so you should do everything you can to complain when change happens, even though, in almost every instance, it won’t matter.

2. Embrace the change and learn how to adapt. 

Personally, for me, I have learned throughout my career that being able to quickly adapt to change is a skill set that will forever pay dividends. I didn’t get there overnight, but I’m glad I eventually did.

Sure, seeing something one day on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn turn into something different the next day can give all of us a little “social media shock”, but it usually doesn’t take long to figure out how to adjust to the change.

And let’s be honest, oftentimes the changes are for the better, even if we don’t like to admit it. In addition, I firmly believe that if one of the Big 3 (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) rolled out some changes that people hated and were vocal about, then they will eventually fix it. No company wants millions of their customers complaining. 

So what changes are coming to LinkedIn profiles?

According to this post from the LinkedIn blog (dated October 16, 2012), the profile changes are going to be rolled out to all of their customers over the next few months. Nothing looks too alarming at first glance.

In fact, it looks like they are doing more to make the profiles more visually appealing (which would be a welcome addition), easier to edit, bigger pictures (so a good, smiling picture matters even more going forward!), and it looks like they are going to do more to encourage engagement between you and your connections (which also would be a welcome addition). They also are giving people the option to follow celebrities, business leaders, etc., which is something that Facebook and Twitter have been doing for a long time now.

I signed up to be added to the waiting list so that I can be one of the first to see the changes for myself when they are available. If you want to do the same, click HERE. If you’re really curious (and have an extra 26 minutes), check out the recording of the live stream of the announcement from LinkedIn. (Warning: I did run into some audio and pixilating issues when I watched it.)

I will do a follow-up blog post once I’ve been switched over to the new profile. In the meantime, I’ll wait anxiously for the changes to come. When they do, I’ll be ready for them. And you will be too. 

We’ll get through this together.