Yes you are right. One sample is not representative. I should have added that I also noticed - of the 35 people (that I knew very well) that I checked in LInk

Yes you are right. One sample is not representative. I should have added that I also noticed - of the 35 people (that I knew very well) that I checked in LInkedin, all 35 had misrepresented themselves in Linkedin to some degree. As a statistical analyst, I realize that a sample size of 30 or greater is actually pretty good. So... I stand with my conclusion to be weary of Linkedin profiles since they are in the end what all resumes are: marketing collateral. I guess the issue is this marketing does not accurately represent the product or service. And in a sense this has nothing to do with Linkedin specifically. Only that they display the marketing pieces and I somehow misunderstood that what I would find there would be more realistic/truthful and match my empirical info. Edit: My editing and typing skills suck