Being flippant on your LinkedIn profile probably isn't going to get you any serious interest from anyone.

Are you referring to the profanity specifically or the sentiment of the phrase in general?

Think of LinkedIn as the first stage of an interview. "Dress to impress" and put your best foot forward. If potential employers get the impression that you're "a funny guy" they'll probably pass you right by, unless they're looking for a comedian.

Thanks for the reply and I agree with that. For the sake of argument, what if the phrase was meant completely seriously. Would the profanity be a deal breaker?

The problem, as I see it, is that while the phrase may be meant seriously, it probably won't be taken seriously. It will be taken as flippant and may even be taken as a "shot" against your current employer. That's not going to leave a good impression on potential employers who may think "What will he say about us? Will he take this job seriously?"

It depends on the context. DLL hell is a well known technical phrase and in the right context it is just a technical situation. But I've never heard of Excel hell and the way you're using it is not technical at all. The profanity doesn't matter. Saying "Excel heck" instead of hell, for example, would not make it any better at all.

"Replacing ridiculously complicated Excel-based data processes with automated software" - that sounds much better as a headline or job description summary. I'd probably replace "ridiculously" with a synonym (because "ridiculous" is negative, much like "hell"), or just drop the word entirely (someone else might disagree about how complicated it is, or see it as bragging).

I have the programming language "brainf$%k" on my resume. I use it as a culture filter. So far, it hasn't steered me wrong.

As a developer, I think of this as analogous to DLL hell (as @Brandin pointed out) and it gives me a clear understanding of the situation and how you seek to improve it. I see no issue, but looking at the existing comments/answers, it looks like I'm in the minority.

I also see no issue with this - frankly I think considering the word "hell" to be profanity is way over the top and wouldn't want to work with any employer who had that view anyway...

Well I imagine you won't be getting a job at Microsoft...

The answer is going to be almost totally culturally dependent, depends is your primary audience Bay Area tech types, or other parts of the US or world? For example, people from some religions in the US (evangelicals, LDS) consider 'hell' unacceptable profanity, whereas techies consider it a neutral everyday term. If your audience is wide, play it safe and rewrite in milder terms.

Your question is missing a fundamental point: WHO do you want to appeal to? In startups we tend to like stuff like this - just then be prapared to be asked something really hard about excel...

I would not so much worry about the profanity but beeing associated with mundane excel editing tasks (even while replacing, which "one at a time" suggests not that it is strategic work). And you should also consider that employer might not like their business process to get called "hell".

@Evorlor: Shouldn’t it be spelled “Brainfuck”?

@Michael it was. A mod censored the comment.

If a recruiter is not technical enough to be familiar with expressions like DLL hell and JAR hell he/she will get an unnecessarily bad impression, like of an undiplomatic person, or a non-"positive" attitude. If the recruiter is technical enough and understands, you still gained nothing from using that expression and anyway the recruiter might still get that negative impression, just less. I wouldn't use that expression in a CV or LinkedIn.

Interestingly, somebody has "The R Inferno" in his curriculum.

@Evorlor: Wouls you mind providing an answer to the brainfuck question: workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/149984/… your perspective seems not to be there, so I would be happy for your answer!

One thing you have to be careful of is not getting on the wrong side of people who use Excel very effectively. I've seen time and time again well-meaning but naive attempts to replace "Excel hell" with a properly designed system result in major issues due to the replacement being inflexible, incorrect or in many cases not even as performant or easy to maintain as the so called Hell they're trying to replace.