Suiting All Your Personnel Needs. A LinkedIn Story.

So true story--- I use to manage a personnel staffing agency and the blog post title "Suiting All Your Personnel Needs" use to be on my business card until I came across the innocent client or job seeker embarrassed they assumed I wanted to "suit all their personal needs."

Words matter. Business relations matter. These things do not exist in a vacuum untouched by human nature. I wrote this letter and sent it to LinkIn's Help Center. It turns out I cannot contact management or even send them mail via LinkIn's services without first upgrading. Are you kidding me?

Well. Let's get down to business then.

To the presiding CEO Jeff Weiner:

It seems a shocking and perverted kind of reasoning that motivates a letter writer to humiliate and scold his/her reader, when the purpose is to win co-operation.

Yesterday I received the “occasional email to help me get the most out of LinkedIn” which landed me in front of this screen.

I know I haven’t been placed in a personnel department job in the past 6 years but I do not think business letter mechanics have taken on indifference and ignorance in place of making a pleasurable first impression, even if the structure is now in digital form.

A delicate phase of human relations:

1. Any man or woman looking for employment is entitled to courteous attention. No person need apply for a job with his head hanging down.

2. Goodwill is a two way street if your purpose is to deliver value to your members regarding employment and professional networking. My identity and your insights in this relationship should be handled in such a manner that goodwill is created. Personnel relations at all levels should be valued from the point of view of public relations, the goodwill of one person may be as important as that of the other.

3. I understand your need to use devices such as analytics to gain emphasis, but perhaps you should be aware of what the data is emphasizing. Where is my human identity among these numbers? Nothing in your sales email correspondence and member insight tool made me feel like a person. I was a name, an email address and a just a record.

4. It once was a business necessity and a moral obligation held by any person who handles employment to uphold two things; to remove any resentment towards the company and offer encouragement.

Business correspondence takes place between humans. That will never be an exact science.

Good manners are not extinct to “dignity” of business. There is no more dignity in business than in any other ordinary form of human activity.

Perhaps your management team could afford to learn about spirit of goodwill and rendering an honest service.  I am not saying unfriendly business haven’t been  known to succeed, but then again their products were probably not people.

Brandi VanAlphen

***Have a great day and please unsubscribe me from any more of your negative insights while I am currently unemployed, seeking employment. I need positive professional development at this time. Also, please note I am 50% less likely to recommend your service to anyone, including my peers. Would you be interested in improving your odds by making adjustments to your business profile?