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I have a serious question. My husband has received an email from management. They want to "showcase" him on LinkedIn. We don't even know what LinkedIn is really about.
What are the pros and cons of doing this? If he agrees what should/shouldn't he do?
All advice welcome
LinkedIn is like Facebook for business. It's full of useless content extolling the virtues of putting your workplace ahead of your personal life. Things like "I am on holiday on this tropical island but had a killer idea, so I am now at a shared workspace networking with professionals" etc.
Unfortunately, if you are looking for a job in IT, LinkedIn is one of the likely places to find it - so a LinkedIn profile is sort-of required in some fields. I hate that it is sorta necessary, because it's the one place on the Internet where I am listed under my real name.
If his employer wants to "showcase" him, it means they want to brag about him on the network. They are trying to make the company look better. To customers? To prospective employees? To government? I don't know, potentially all of the above.
Maybe your husband is a leader in his field and they want to entice rookies to work at the place so they get a chance to work with your husband. Maybe he has done something cool they want to brag about? Maybe they're a tiny company that nobody has heard of so they'll showcase some employees to look more legit? I honestly don't know.
If my employer wanted to showcase me, I'd hesitate. I might concede, but I'd need a bit of time to think about it. It could be a good thing: if I have an employer bragging about me, it would probably make me look good to future employers. If someone Googled my name though, this will come up. I may not want people to know where I work and what I do.
Short version: This is something they want. It may or may not be something your husband wants.
LinkedIn IS Facebook these days. It used to be strictly work-related content, now it's mainly wannabe influencers posting crap with a tangible connection to the work/business world.
I would ask for a draft of whatever they plan to post to approve before they go ahead, to make sure you're happy with what gets posted. Showcase sounds like there's going to be a photo involved.
If anyone's still on Reddit, r/LinkedInLunatics is a fun read. We have one here too, but it's not super active
It sounds like a fine gesture, others have accurately spoken about what the platform is (corporate facebook).
I killed my LinkedIn years ago because it seemed to just be a place for people to be fake and virtue signal all day to self-promote and I can't STAND that nonsense.
But I'd just think of it as them wanting to post a news article to the corporate world about how cool he is. Nothing to stress about.
That platform recently had a bad data breach. My work is mandating a certain number of their courses per year. I refuse to join, so there are now group viewing sessions of their (largely useless) videos.
I refuse to join most of these apps as well
Like people are saying, it's facebook for "corporate" or similar. Really fucking cringey.
Workplace wants to use him as a promo for something.
If he agrees, his real name and work details will be online for people to see.
If he disagrees, management might have a little sook. If he chooses not to he should say something like "I genuinely appreciate you wanting to showcase my work, but I'm not comfortable with social media platforms in general".
That's pretty much it.
My immediate reaction: "Showcase" him how?
Is this just a LinkedIn post? A video? An article on the company website that's linked to on LI? Something else?
Maybe clarify with them? It could mean making a profile whereby he is identifiable by name and workplace etc.
It can be made so that you have to be logged into LI to access, but yeah, that’s the gist. Some fields love it for networking/jobs etc.
Not my tumbler, but different horses, you know.