ThatNewAE

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

Valued Contributor

It's a no from me: LinkedIn Ick

Again, pleading the fifth amendment: Let's just say I was also researching LinkedIn profiles of various AEs this morning.

Here's what I feel: If an AE has put up their company's description in THEIR "About" section, and went on to elaborate what the company does in the "Experience" section: I am subconsciously categorising this AE as lazy and disqualifying in my head of their abilities.

There are so many AEs / SDRs out there who simply have put up the About page of their company, as their About section. I have screenshots and there are more than 12, in a research done on 25 AEs. So. That does not give me or anyone any insight into who you are as a person, and an AE and then an employee. It just shows me that you are married to the company and are investing almost nothing into your own branding.

In the experience section, I'd love to know how much you have closed, what have you done so far in the company etc. But if that section too is full of what your company is all about: BOOM, No!

And then worse: Their posts are all reposts of company page.

Boy, bye!

12

36 comments

Sort by:

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

17

Director of Revenue

I'll take generic corporate "About Me's" anyday over the super-personalized, insufferable titles like:

Dog Dad x5 | Professional Doer | ex-Skynet | IPA drinker | sales leader x 27 | Dreamer | T-Swift fan | Golfer | Amateur gynecologist |

HVACexpert

Politicker

5

sales engineer

I do have to admit, if I saw “ex-skynet” or “amateur gynecologist” somewhere I’d have lots of questions.

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

1

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

Hahahah true, me too !

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Or I would just put that person in the "out" pile.

jefe

Arsonist

3

🍁

Amen.
And if not actively searching for a job then why not position your LI to appeal to potential prospects?

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

2

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

Oh no no. Not that. But would you take exact copy paste of Company page on the person’s profile ?

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

7

Director of Revenue

I would. I think most people I know that use LI, myself included, are only doing so because they have to. I'm not big on using social media, so I'm only there to use it as a tool to research companies/contacts.
I've also seen enough companies have weird/strict rules about what their employees post and how their LI profile is presented, that I wouldn't hold it against an AE if there's was generic and copy/pasted.

Not sure if it's relevant, but I spent a good amount of time in the recruitment space and when I was looking into AE's, I was way more focused on their career growth, notable companies, education, time spent at each role, etc. I can't recall a single 'About Me' section that stood out to me.

HVACexpert

Politicker

1

sales engineer

I’d take the copy/paste over that fake influencer stuff any day.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I'd consider that highly relevant. Your viewpoint is important on this topic, considering your background.

wolfofmiami

Opinionated

1

🐺

IPA drinkers are the worst. It’s their entire personality.

GDO

Politicker

1

BDM

These are indeed horrible

pirate

Big Shot

1

🦜☠️ Account Executive

I don't get the EX Skynet it's almost like look at me all the other companies suck only Skynet competition Starlink should hire me

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

1

Director of Revenue

I don't get it either. For all I know, you worked there 1 week and got fired.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

1

Sales Rep

my favorite is ex-Google, and they worked there 5 years ago for 2 months before getting PIP'd

braintank

Politicker

10

Enterprise Account Executive

I don't publish my numbers in LinkedIn. That's for my resume.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

6

🦊

That and NDAs - you may not be able to publicly list names either 🤷‍♀️

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

2

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

Got it !

Sunbunny31

Politicker

6

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

My current company requested that I put info about the company in my profile. As I'm not actively looking for a job, and the description is pretty self-explanatory, I went ahead and did it.
TBH, I haven't even looked at my own profile in over a year. My bad. Need to check it out..

But there could be a simple reason why.

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

2

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

Yeah. I’m realising this as I read the comments that companies have this requirement - which I wasn’t aware initially. Now tell me this.- should companies have this requirement from LinkedIn profiles ?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

0

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I've only been asked to do it once. And since I'm using it for business contacts, it's fine with me.
If I was interested in finding a new job, I'd tweak it a bit.

It's interesting now that I think about it. I did have a negative reaction to a request to do certain kinds of outreach leveraging LI and my personal network before; my rationale at the time (which is still true) is that the profile is my personal profile and property, and what I do there ultimately reflects on me. So upon reflection, it's evident that requesting me to put up info about my company in my "About Me" section passed my own internal sniff test, because I think I thought about it for half a second before just doing it.

Titanic

Opinionated

0

Senior VP - Sales

Personally, I wholeheartedly disagree with this practice. It’s YOUR profile, not THEIR billboard.

WillieTrombone

Executive

0

SMB AE

Yup, one of my jobs had zero marketing and in order to get some social media projects off the ground for visibility and for clients googling my name + LinkedIn I used my old companies description to add to the other social media stuff I was doing online.

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

3

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

Guysssss. don't cancel me just yet. It's just my opinion and a personal ick. :p

underdog

Big Shot

3

Outside Sales Representative Power & HVAC

Idk man, I think y’all are reading into this profession a little too much. If you want to sell then go find a job or start a business and start selling, you’re either a natural or an over educated jack ass, who cares, go get it.

HVACexpert

Politicker

2

sales engineer

Regardless, what could you possibly take away in a LinkedIn about me page that is going to sell you on them on the spot? In the end if you are auditing/referencing AEs because they are applying for a job or you could be working with them in a project there is a list of priorities for me to make my decision on way before their LinkedIn about me section.

Many people on LinkedIn are there for the network and public profile to find jobs or be recruited. Many don’t care what their brand is and imo I’d rather see a copy/past company about me versus this awful fake LinkedIn influencer stuff.

Could they put more effort into their about me section? Of course, but I’m not going to overreact if they only have company information their.

My humble opinion.

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

2

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

Sounds good.

pirate

Big Shot

1

🦜☠️ Account Executive

I somewhat disagree.Depends whom your targeting with LinkedIn? Recruiters or customers or colleagues and other AEs?

In my experience, it really helps with recruiters and really helps with bosses and customers to tell what the company does. If I was entrepreneur, I would build own brand. I'm not an entrepreneur. I am not an influencer and not trying to be. I rather use the company to my benefit...Saying that I always try to come up with good content and think of something that would help my customers. Reposts... Occasionally because there's some good content that benefits the customer

Experience I have both what the company does and both I've done

Why would someone need to know whom I am as a person? Leave that for actual interviews, Instagram and Facebook

Same for what I've done. I'm in cyber security so my CV is very different from my LinkedIn. And details how well I've done and all that. I don't need to brag to my customers on LinkedIn about my performance per say?

But agree with you that most sales people are like passive aggressive and lazy on LinkedIn

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

2

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

To an extent, I agree. But would you really consider a copy paste of Company page on the person’s page though ? How is that any better than keeping it blank?

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Well because people buy from people they know. People don't really buy from my company... They buy from me because I have the trust with them. Or it I message them and invite to the events they will look at my profile and be more aware of the company and what they could buy :)

wolfofmiami

Opinionated

1

🐺

I leave it blank. I hate LinkedIn now with all of the influencers and spam posts about how to email

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Focusing on CV does more good anyway

Beans

Big Shot

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Yea what's the issue here? I am not selling over LinkedIn it's a networking tool, why am I going to ELI5 a super complex enterprise level solution when I can CTRL+C the gist of it.

fidelcashflow

Catalyst

1

Account Executive

Disagree here. I'm not relying on my linkedin to sell myself. This is only giving you interest, *hopefully. I'll let my resume give you my #'s and then an actual call to give you insight into who I am as a person.

Imagine you're at a bar trying to make moves and you see a hot person. You're not saying "Omg you're hot but I need to be able to know you as a person based on what I can physically see"
No.

Their looks make you interested. Then you get to know them by actually talking to them.

Mothy

Politicker

0

Account Executive

My company has a boilerplate About blurb. I also am guilty of reposting company posts, but mostly because I think most self posts are cringe + imposter syndrome.

YoureMuted

Executive

0

Regional Sales Director

The worst for me is when a rep shares a post (link to a company blog) and their "personal" comment about the post is the title of the article. I tell my reps, "Don't be a robot. If you're going to share the company blog, read the article and post your thoughts about it. Summarize it."

Most of the likes on those types of posts are all people that work at that company. LI has become quite the echo chamber.

Titanic

Opinionated

0

Senior VP - Sales

While I understand your point, I personally don’t put much on my LinkedIn profile. Specifically because I attempt to maintain the smallest online presence possible, both personally and professionally. So in my own research on this very topic in considering hiring, it definitely looks like a pain point, but it’s also likely that the AE is wearing many different hats. Some might be worth the reach.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

© 2024 Bravado Inc. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy Legal and Privacy Center Sales Jobs

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.