30 LinkedIn Tips: #26/30 – Use the past tense
30 short, useful, actionable LinkedIn tips in 30 days from Doctor David Petherick. #30by30 #TheDoctorisIn
#26/30: Use the past tense. Your previous experience is not your current experience.
- Originally written: October 26, 2017
Text & Images Updated: June 30, 2020
If you look at my profile, you'll see how I describe my past experience.
- I describe it in the past tense. 'I worked'. Not ' I work'.
But when I look at LinkedIn Profiles, I see, over and over again, how past experience is still written in the present tense.
Old roles have never been updated.
- For a position you left five years ago, you're saying “My role includes...”
So it sounds like you're still stuck in that past role. And you're not. But it looks and sounds to the outside world that you are.
All this is not what a potential customer, partner or recruiter wants to see. You look forgetful, at best, or worse, disorganised, and are literally living in the past.
So when you move on to another new role, and leave one behind, spend two minutes putting what was the present into the past. “My role included...”
- And remember, the past is generally best summed up in a concise way, so think about paring down past roles. Get rid of irrelevant stuff - focus on your current role.
Go and sort it out now.
That's all.
- More Tips: 30 Top Tips for a better LinkedIn Profile – Rounded up and summarised…
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