One white guy, trying to experiment how people trust LinkedIn information, changed his LinkedIn profile position to “CEO, Shell“, for 24 hours and what happened next is simply mind blowing. The lesson I learned from the guy’s article is it isn’t only in Nigeria that we have gullible followers who fall for sarcasm or don’t check background before believing a story.

A few weeks ago I changed my role to CEO of one of the world’s largest enterprise. With this I wanted to test my assumption that people would critically assess the authenticity of information this social network. I was curious to see the effect.

I noticed that there is a huge trust in the accuracy of LinkedIn profiles. When you compare LinkedIn to twitter, Facebook or Instagram you see that people tend to post serious and correct information on LinkedIn. On twitter I can be “CyberGoofbal83” and post all kinds of facts and lies just to amuse my followers. On Facebook we tend to be partly serious and humorous.

I changed my Job title and employer overnight from “Manager Development of AMIS” to “CEO of Shell”.

The following things happened:

I received almost 400 likes and 80 customized comments.I got more than 500 emails with a personal message.10 of my closest co-workers called within 2 hours.I got almost 25 text messages.I spontaneously received 10 CV’s and requests for a job at my new company.2 offshore companies sent me an email to get an appointment as soon as possible.

What have I learned?

There is a huge difference in trust on the accuracy of the content between different social networks. Even though the validation of new content is done with the same accuracy the LinkedIn network offers a higher implicit trust in the validity of the content compared to other networks.

Most people trust what they read on LinkedIn. Even though it is in conflict with their gut feeling; “when it is on LinkedIn, it must be true.”

Be critical of what you read on the Internet (including LinkedIn)

I realized that there can be a huge difference between what someone can write down and the actual achievements of a person. What you read on LinkedIn could be the result of window dressing or just a plain lie. Performing a background check when hiring a new candidate is always a good idea.

Robbrecht van Amerongen is a Business Innovation Manager

Lol.

This na expensive joke oh. Unemployed Guy's not smiling.

Trust me, frustration could make anyone see things that isn't there to begin with in the 1st place...

lol....truth is i don't take online profiles too seriously
lota altered egos and wanna-bes

HungerBAD:
Lol.

This na expensive joke oh. Unemployed Guy's not smiling.

what will happen if the guy is a Nigerian in this hard time n if Linkedin has d number of nigerian users like other social sites, shut down his phone wt 200,000 calls n 1,000,000+msgs, shut down his email like 50,000,000(some guys will send more than 20), shut down dt linkedin acct wt mammoth likes, infact they will shut down everywhere

Ignorant people everywhere. "everybody wants to shine at the slightest opportunity"..... Nas.

I neva take that linkedin serious 4 once

Really the article makes no sense! linkedin is for professionals.Definitely once your called from the platform,your credentials would be put to test.

my friend got a job by doing that on linkedin. they did background screening and i and other friends made it work.
he was interviewed tru skype.
we sent to them all supporting docs....
He was experienced though so everything worked fine

Nice experiment. But had it been he's a Nigerian, insults will follow