Don’t Make this Simple Error on LinkedIn

I just had a client whose LinkedIn profile wouldn’t come up in Google searches, despite the fact that he has an relatively unusual name. Nor did he appear in the LinkedIn search directory. We couldn’t figure it out – until we realized that he had included initials after his name. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and thinking it would help with recruiters, he included those initials after his name, listing himself as Joe Brown, PMP (not his real name).

Unfortunately, the search technologies thought that PMP was part of his name, so when you search ‘Joe Brown’ in Google, his profile doesn’t appear.

This is easy to fix – he can just remove the initials from his name and add them to the ‘Professional Headline’ which comes up right after his name. Once Google reindexes his page, he’ll start to appear in the results.

But now you know – no initials after your name on LinkedIn!