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I am joining a very small company next month and I see from their website all their key employee profiles are on their website with their pictures. Each profile is linked to their respective LinkedIn profiles.

I suspect when I join them,they may want my profile and picture on their website as well and they may also want to link that to my linkedin profile. I am just not sure if I want to do that right away for various reasons but at the same time I do not want to send a wrong message to them that I am embarrassed about joining them. I am actually excited about the new role and the team. As I spend more time there, I may actually open up more about my role publicly but not right mow.

I just want to know how to handle this situation if and when it comes, i.e. they asking for my profile and other information to be updated on their website.

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  • Stop using Linkedin, at least temporarily? You can live without Linkedin for a few days, right? – Shantnu Tiwari Apr 1 '17 at 19:54
  • @joestrazzere But isn't it misleading if his profile is indicating he is at his previous employer still? – HorusKol Apr 1 '17 at 23:33
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    "I just do not want to give them that 'I told you so' moment." It is your life. Why do you care about moments in other people's life? Life is too short to worry about silly things. If you don't want to update your LinkedIn profile, that is fine, by your reason for that is very strange. – Masked Man Apr 2 '17 at 1:24
  • While I do not mind living withing linkedin or not updating, I am just expecting company may want me to keep it current so that they can link it on their website as they did for other employees. If I do not want it, they would have to make an exception for me and that may be okay too by them. I just do not know it yet! – PagMax Apr 2 '17 at 3:01
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    You are making this into a much bigger issue than it is. Updating LinkedIn immediately after starting a new job is ok, updating it a few months later is ok, not updating it at all is also ok. If your employer asks you to update the account and you don't want to, you should give them a better reason than "I don't want some people to find out I am working here because they had advised me to, but I didn't want to." That is exactly what your reason as described here sounds to me and if the employer sees it the same way, they would obviously not be very flattered. – Masked Man Apr 2 '17 at 9:00
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I update LinkedIn "when the honeymoon is over". Think about a new job like a promising relationship with a potential significant other. There's a running joke about driving a U-Haul on the second date. Updating your LinkedIn before you are sure you are committed is not much different. A job is a relationship after all, and quite often we spend more time at a job than with a significant other (for instance when they are also inspired and driven).

To put this in quantitative terms, I don't ever update LinkedIn before 90 days have passed. If I still love the role after 90 days, I'm happy to add it. If I'm not sure, people have long forgotten that I never added the company.

If you have peers that want to judge you based on this behavior, it can be a sign that it's not the right company to stay with. Peer pressure for putting a company on your LinkedIn should be packaged as genuine concern and care for your happiness. If it comes across any other way, beware.

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    Thanks. I think 90-day idea is great and reasonable! Also, this is what I am expecting once I join based on what I see on their website. So far there is no pressure from them or even a mention of that. The company is great and I am really excited about joining them. Just not sure if I want to announce it to my network yet! – PagMax Apr 2 '17 at 10:54
  • @PagMax - Seems reasonable, but, really, what's the point of even having a LinkedIn profile? It's supposed to be a snapshot of your professional profile. If you're embarrassed to be working there, then, yeah, your co-workers are probably not going to feel great about that. Futhermore, you'd be misrepresenting yourself to the professional network you are trying to build. Is that really the way to go? Might as well delete your profile. – PoloHoleSet Apr 3 '17 at 21:24
  • @PoloHoleSet Are you just saying that to be controversial? You might as well not have a Facebook profile if you don't report every possible event or a StackExchange profile if you don't ask every single question you have. Seems you are misrepresenting yourself, what's that next step you were advocating again? – Brian Topping Apr 3 '17 at 21:29
  • right, because every bit of minutia on a general social networking site is directly equivalent TO A DIFFERENT JOB on a professional networking site. The job and skill profile is pretty much the entire point of having a LinkedIn profile to start with. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to not have a profile or to delete it if you decide you don't want to use it that way, but better to delete it than to post lies about your professional profile. And excluding your current employment is exactly that on a site that is, #1, a professional networking site. It's not Facebook, with jobs. – PoloHoleSet Apr 3 '17 at 21:32
  • Of course your opinion is more correct than everyone else's. Good luck with that! – Brian Topping Apr 3 '17 at 21:33
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Linkedin is your private business, and it is used for getting jobs. You've got a job now. There is no reason to update linkedin until you are looking for another job. No need to tell them anything.

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If anything, you should be thankful to those people who gave you good advice, despite the fact that you ignored it. Learning to be okay with being wrong is extremely important, and this seems like a great chance to practice.

Put it on your LinkedIn, and link your profile to their website. There's a "don't publish this update" button that means it won't show up on people's feeds that you can also utilize.

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