How to master LinkedIn to win at job hunting
There are three stages of getting any job: the resume, the linkedIn profile, and the interview.
Most people agree that getting these three pieces right is very important.
The only problem is that most people weigh these three very unevenly. I know I was certainly guilty of this and I’ve seen several aspiring job seekers make the same mistake as well.
The most common way people weigh these (in terms of time spent) is something like:
Resume — 80%
LinkedIn — 5%
Interview — 15%
The average job seeker spends an insane amount pruning their resume. According to a CareerBuilder study, job seekers spend 11 hours a week preparing their applications.
Not only does this mean you don’t have enough time to spend on the other 2/3 of the job application process, but it usually also leads to tunnel vision.
This is a choice that a lot of job seekers make unconsciously.
Rather than concentrate on the uncomfortable pieces of the process(the interview and LinkedIn profile) they spend all their time in the comfortable space of font choices, layouts, and templates.
The most overlooked stage of job seeking
When was the last time you did a full revamp of your LinkedIn profile? Chances are, unless you’ve been applying to jobs for several months, you haven’t really dedicated a significant amount of time to LinkedIn.
Here’s a secret: most job seekers fail the hiring process more often because of their LinkedIn profile than their resume.
Of course, this isn’t just because of negligence.
LinkedIn profiles are hard to get right.
This is because while you can have multiple resumes, and using a multi-resume strategy is definitely a best practice, you really only get one LinkedIn profile.
Most job seekers who have a good amount of experience struggle with fitting all their experience into a cohesive unified story on LinkedIn. Although a hiring manager will see your resume and might be impressed, you’re really just setting yourself up for failure down the line.
This was definitely true for me.
When I was applying for jobs, I spent months tailoring each of my resumes to multiple positions to make each of them absolutely perfect. As a result, I got interviews.
I got a lot of interviews.
And I failed a lot of interviews.
Even on interviews that seemed to go well, I would inevitably get an email telling me that they’ve decided to proceed with another candidate.
Sound familiar?
I knew I was missing a piece of the puzzle, I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
The LinkedIn hack that actually worked
What should you put in your LinkedIn?
What should you leave out?
The single biggest problem with LinkedIn is that you only get one profile.
While one LinkedIn profile might be great if you’re a recent college graduate with just a couple of jobs and internships under your belt, for anyone with substantially more experience this presents a problem.
Humans are amazing.
We can do so many things and we have so many skills. The mistake that most job seekers make is that they think that they should include all of their jobs and skills in their profile. More is better right?
Wrong.
Adding all your jobs to your LinkedIn profile will absolutely guarantee you won’t get a job.
It’s best to think of job seeking as a presentation.
Rather than presenting an idea, you are presenting a role. That’s a key word.
You aren’t presenting a person, you are presenting a role.
The company you’re applying to is trying to fill a role, and yes while they may love that you have kids or that you volunteer at a pet shelter, their #1 concern is how to fill that role.
So here’s where the modern job application process gets a bit tricky.
You want to apply to multiple roles, but you only get one LinkedIn profile.
It can be very tempting at this point to make a “master profile” that fits all roles that you’re applying for. But just like with a good beverage, nobody likes something that’s watered down and doesn’t know what it is.
If I’m looking for a nice Malbec and you offer me a red-white-pinot-malbec-rose-chardonnay blend…well you know where this is going.
The lesson is: don’t dilute yourself.
There’s a popular saying in sales and marketing:
“If you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.”
The same goes for LinkedIn. You want to tell one cohesive story that makes a strong case for one role.
IF you want to apply for multiple roles, there’s really only one way to go about it.
How to master LinkedIn using the 4th dimension.
Time (the 4th dimension) is one of the most underutilized pieces of the job application process. It’s understandable that if you’re searching for a job, you want to get the process over with in as little time as possible.
This a trap that most people (including myself) fall for.
Rushing the job application process is like rushing a relationship. You can take something that would have been great and completely ruin it ( I’ve done this many times with both jobs and relationships).
What I learned during my 14-month job seeking process is that if you can exercise some patience you can 10x your results overnight.
Here’s how it works:
After you’ve gone through and found three roles you’d like to apply for, pick one that you’d like to apply for first.
Tailor your LinkedIn to reflect that one role perfectly. If need be, change your previous titles slightly or omit some of them completely.
Here’s an example of what my LinkedIn profile’s roles were when I first started applying to Content Marketing Manager positions:
And here’s how I modified the titles so that they tell a more cohesive story, but still were honest to the original jobs I did:
As you can see, jobs that were unrelated to a Content Marketing Manager’s duties I just got rid of. As I’ve talked about before, Hiring Managers have literally thousands of applicants to get through so I don’t want to waste their time reading about irrelevant experience.
You can also see that I changed one of my titles from Project Manager (which was my official title) to Content Manager. Since I was managing projects that still involved making content, this was still an accurate descriptor, but it will look more cohesive.
(You can view my current LinkedIn here to see how I’ve modified it since)
The most important thing to keep in mind when redoing your LinkedIn is that it tells a single linear story.
You want to have a progression of titles that shows how you’ve gotten better and better at doing the role you’re applying for.
How to use your LinkedIn strategically
Since you can’t send multiple LinkedIn profiles to multiple roles, you need to have the discipline to send your one perfect LinkedIn profile only to one perfect role at a time.
To do this, I created a scheduled rotation of applying to different roles at different times. In my case, I wanted to apply to the following roles:
1. Content Marketing Manager (CMM)
2. Social Media Manager (SMM)
3. Video Producer (VP)
Here’s what the schedule looked like:
January: apply to CMM roles
February: wait for CMM interviews
March: apply to SMM roles
April: wait for CMM interviews
May: apply to VP roles
June: wait for VP interviews
The obvious downside to this system is that you might find roles open up that you can’t apply to because you’re still waiting on other applications to get through the interview phase.
Learn to have the patience and courage to wait it out.
It’s a sacrifice worth making, I know because I’ve tested it.
As soon as I customized my LinkedIn profile to only one role, I instantly saw more success during the interview process. Going through this exercise also showed me that my Content Marketing Manager experience was far stronger than my Social Media Manager experience so I quickly decided to give up on going for those roles.
That left me with just rotating between applying for Content Marketing Manager roles and Video Producer roles.
The results:
Mixed LinkedIn Profile:
I spent 8 months chasing roles with a mixed LinkedIn profile only to get turned down by the 2nd or 3rd interview when executives start really digging into your profile.
Specialized LinkedIn Profile:
In 4 months I managed to land 4 final-round interviews and offers for 3 different positions.
Next Steps
If you’re interested in taking your job hunting strategy seriously, head over to GrowthHackYourCareer.com where I’ve put these lessons together along with templates, videos, cheat sheets, and much more.
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And remember…
“If you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.”
