Are You Retired or Dead on LinkedIn?

The question that is the title for this week’s article came to me because I know many people who have retired.

I look at their LinkedIn profiles and, honestly, they’re all over the map.

Retirement is a major transition in life for most people.

Some are prepared for it, some are not.

Some enter into it willingly, some are forced into it by this curious economy we seem to be living through.

Whatever the reason for your retiring, your LinkedIn profile should reflect it properly.

Let’s talk about this!

First, let’s go over the types of retiree LinkedIn profiles that I’ve seen out there.

We’ll go from worst to best.

The worst type of retiree profile is the one where the owner just walks away and never comes back to it.

It’s like they just want to forget their entire career and put it behind them.

(Yeah, I can understand that, but I’ll explain later why it’s a bad idea.)

Then, there’s the angry approach.

This type of profile shows that its owner has been nursing a grudge for a long time and now feels at liberty to let the world know about it.

Again, not a good idea.

At this point, we switch to humor.

This is where the retirees try to show how happy they are to be retired.

Examples have titles like CEO of My Own Destiny” or “Living the Good Life.”

OK, the tone is improving but this is still not a great approach.

Next up is the obvious approach.

This one usually has something pithy in its title, like “Retired” or “I’m Retired.”

All that’s missing with these ones is the little note saying, “Go away, don’t bother me!”

Finally, we get to the right way to announce your transition to retirement on LinkedIn.

We’re going to spend sometime on this one.

The right way to handle retirement on LinkedIn is to treat it like any other transition to a new position on LinkedIn.

You wrap up your last position and introduce your new role.

Why should you do this?

Maybe you’re preparing to strike out on your own.

Or, maybe you’d like to be open to new possibilities that you haven’t even thought about but could come your way.

Or, maybe your circumstances may change and you may need to get another job somewhere down the road.

I don’t care how well off you are financially when you retire.

Do something and put that something into your LinkedIn profile.

You’ll thank me later!

The steps to staying current on LinkedIn as you retire are simple:

1. Update your profile and keep it current (That includes a recent profile photo, not the the one you received when you first started working!)
2. Stay engaged with others and grow your followers
3. Post your own original content, and share and comment on the content of others (You probably have a lot more time to do this now)

I once warned my readers about not treating their LinkedIn profile like it’s their obituary.

For retirees especially, now more than ever, this is critical.

Remember the old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind!”

LinkedIn is important in whatever phase of your life or career, you happen to find yourself in.

Retirement is merely the next phase in your career not a dead end!

Keep at it!

That’s it for now!

Please check-out my 8 step approach for developing a social media program to get some more ideas on how to use social media.

Also, never forget to reach out to either ask questions or to ask for help from someone like myself!

In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!

I look forward to any and all comments that you may have. I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.