Not long ago, I ran into an old friend. We met because we were going through job transitions at the same time and we became very close. She landed a job at a big company, I started my own business. It had been about seven years since we’d spoken. We lost touch.
It was nice to see and chat with her again, but the conversation lasted only a couple of minutes. She said she retired. I said I was growing my business and retirement is still a number of years away. She’s what I call “one of my friends from a former life.” I have quite a few of those.
Oh, I tried to reach out to her a few times over the years. A couple of times I sent her “Happy Birthday” wishes on LinkedIn when I got the notification it was her birthday. She never responded. I figured she wasn’t logging into LinkedIn anymore. She admitted during our brief conversation, she hadn’t been on LinkedIn in years.
That got me thinking about how much our careers and lives change. Priorities change. I changed the focus of my business about four or five years ago – certainly since I’d seen my old friend.
Chances are, you’ve changed too. Maybe you’ve changed jobs, careers, moved to a different phase of your life. Quite possibly you’ve changed since you started using LinkedIn.
And, even if you haven’t changed careers or jobs, you have still changed in some way. Your priorities have changed. Maybe you’ve gotten smarter about the value of a good network. You might even understand LinkedIn a lot better now too.
Here’s a good question – what do we do with our old LinkedIn network?
Maybe now time to take a good hard look at your existing LinkedIn network of connections. Are they relevant to what you’re doing now? Do they align with your LinkedIn goals? Are they good connections to have and keep? Are they serving you well? Are you serving them well?
It may be time to remove some of your connections and possibly replace them with better connections.
But wait! Before you do, let’s think this through. Here are things to consider and steps to take:
Why are you using LinkedIn NOW?
If you’re in the midst of a transition or job search right now, this is probably not the right time to reduce your network. You may need the assistance of your old network to help you get where you want to be. But, if you have a new career or are pretty set you may want to really think about the types (categories) of people you want in your network.
Make a list of your career and LinkedIn goals.
Knowing what you want helps make the decision of who to connect with and remove a lot easier. It becomes your decision tree so to speak.
Review who is your network now
The easiest way to do that is to download your list of connections. Go to Settings & Privacy – Privacy Tab – Download Your Data -Connections. In a few minutes you’ll get an email with a link to a .csv file. To make it easier, you can sort this list by the “Connected On” date.
STOP here! There are a few things you need to know before you start removing connections
- When you remove a connection, their endorsements of you and recommendations they wrote will be deleted.
- The size of your network does matter when it relates to how you turn up in other people’s search results. If you rely on being found, you will want to stay connected with well-connected people. On the other hand, the size and quality of your network also affects your Home feed and information you receive. It’s LinkedIn’s algorithm and that continually changes. You should be aware of that.
- They are not notified if you remove them, however, if you look at their profile before you do, they may see you viewed their profile. You might want to change your Profile Viewing Options to hide that you’ve looked at their profile.
- This may take a little time and definitely a lot of thought. Your certainly didn’t connect with these people in one sitting, so don’t feel you have to reduce your network all at once. Be thoughtful. You never know the value of your network until it’s gone.
Good Reasons to Remove a Connection
- You don’t remember who they are or why you connected with them. It’s OK, we all have them.
- You have changed careers, jobs or even career levels and they are no longer part of your strategy.
- They have made a major career shift or job change that is no longer relevant to you or your goals.
- You reached out to them and they never replied.
- They spam you with unwanted sales offers and/or too many messages
- It’s obvious they haven’t on LinkedIn in more than 2 years. You can tell by their outdated profiles or lack of activity.
- They are posting status updates that are annoying, political, childish or inappropriate for LinkedIn.
- They are constantly complaining.
- You don’t like them.
The point here is that your LinkedIn network of connections is YOUR network. Think about where you are now and where you want to be. Be intentional from here on out. Not all connections are equal and please remember, you don’t know their value until they’re gone.
If you need help figuring out your connection strategy, contact me and I’ll work through it with you.
More info on this topic
Good LinkedIn Invitations Include These 5 Things
10 Things that Annoy Your Connections
The Size of Your Network Does Matter