Irish Workers Worry About Being Seen As Braggers

A new study released today by LinkedIn, which was conducted by Censuswide, reveals a number of surprising insights into Irish workers attitudes towards communicating about themselves professionally.

The new LinkedIn study found that half (50 percent) of Irish workers surveyed weren’t confident that they could effectively describe their achievements if they stumbled across their dream employer. Ireland’s lack of confidence in talking about work achievements may stem from a fear of bragging that over 55 percent of Irish workers feel when talking about their professional success. The Irish workforce’s “fear of putting the head above the parapet” may hurt their wallets as over 63 percent agree that it is important to let senior staff members know about professional achievements in order to get a pay rise or promotion.

The survey also found that nearly all (97 percent) of Irish workers surveyed understand that making a good first impression is important during the application process. Sixty-four percent of recruitment decision makers always look at a candidate’s LinkedIn profile and almost half (42 percent) make a judgement based on a candidate’s online presence.

In contrast, almost two-thirds (64 percent) of Irish workers didn’t think about their online persona before starting their current role. Despite this, 55 percent agree the impression you make online is just as important as the one you make in person and more than three-quarters (78 percent) believe it’s difficult to overcome a bad first impression.

The survey findings also showed that Irish workers were more willing to talk about politics (21 percent) than promotions at work (17 percent), and that more wanted to share online about what they had for lunch (26 percent) instead of a new job (22 percent).

“Our research shows that half of Irish workers aren’t confident they could effectively describe their achievements if they stumbled across their dream employer,” according to LinkedIn’s Darain Faraz.

“A strong LinkedIn profile that demonstrates your experience and accomplishments will do just that, and it’ll get you noticed. Even doing simple things like updating a LinkedIn profile to include experience, and adding an image, will give you up to 21 times more views and make it easier to land that dream job.”