One of the benefits to using third-person in your LinkedIn summary is that is reduces the use of the word ‘I’. The word 'I' often appears far too often when the writer uses the first-person point-of-view.
However, there a number of ways to avoid using the word ‘I’ too often in your LinkedIn summary, without having to resort to using first-person.
One approach is to move the word ‘I’ further along the sentence. This avoids the repetitive appearance of ‘I’ at the start of every sentence or paragraph.
Here is an example of a sentence that starts with the word ‘I’:
‘I am adept with all aspects of wind turbine maintenance and I have over 10 years’ experience in engineering’.
This could be changed to:
‘With over ten years’ engineering experience, I am adept with all aspects of wind turbine maintenance’.
Restructuring the sentence in this way makes for a much more pleasant reading experience in the first-person point-of-view.
Some people also believe third-person is more practical as most CVs and resumes are written in third-person.
But, as previously mentioned, CVs/resumes and LinkedIn profiles have different objectives. While your LinkedIn profile should correspond with your CV or resume, we don’t recommend using the same writing style.
CVs and resumes should use a more formal writing style. Rather than demonstrating candidates’ personality, CVs and resumes simply highlight the key information that hiring managers need. Of course, this key information should be presented in an engaging manner. But the writing shouldn’t be overly personal.
When deciding which point-of-view to use in your LinkedIn summary, it’s important to acknowledge this distinction between CVs/resumes and LinkedIn profiles.