I got this question last week: “how do I close down a really old LinkedIn profile I forgot I ever had?”
Perhaps you have one (or more) too!
Here’s how to check for that and what to do:
Open LinkedIn. Put your cursor in the search box at the top left. Type your name. Include middle initials.
Did you get results that show you have more than one LinkedIn profile?
Do that again, without the middle initial.
More than one profile?
Now here’s what to do, right from the LinkedIn Help Center.
Don’t delay.
People who want to contact you are confused which of the two or three yous to approach, and they probably just leave and contact your competitor…so merge your duplicate personas and take a hard look at the result to be sure it’s now the best (unified) you that you can show.
LinkedIn personal coach, group trainer, marketing strategist and overall evangelist, having a great time pursuing my passion of connecting professionals so they can collaborate better!
YES. Well worth it. It confuses people when you have two (or three), like I used to have. Just a note–the recommendations you gave and received don’t merge from the about-to-delete one onto the other/still-keeping profile. So my advice is to check if there are referrals you want to copy/paste and give again to someone who deserved your praise before you close out. If you don’t, they may think you took it down and not know why. AND for those that you received, you can copy/paste the content back to the giver and ask them to post it again (saving them time in having to write something)… but this time to add it onto the profile you’re keeping. In my humble opinion, I’d do all of that before closing out the old one. Shouldn’t take more than an hour!