They Viewed Your LinkedIn… But Didn't Reach Out. Here's How to Think About Your Profile | #154

Oh my gosh, they view my profile.

I'm so excited.

I can't wait for that recruiter to reach out to me

with a job opportunity.

And then silence.

See, if somebody viewed your profile,

maybe a recruiter or a hiring leader and then didn't reach out,

then you might be wondering what exactly happened.

See, when people create their own LinkedIn profile,

they think from their own perspective.

And that is why it doesn't resonate with hiring leaders.

But not you, my friend.

Today, we're going to change the way you think about LinkedIn.

We'll help you to understand the flow,

evaluate your own profile,

and see the exact point when you may have lost them.

And while we're talking,

you might want to open up your LinkedIn account

because you're going to have a couple of lightbulb

aha moments as you're checking it out

and listening to this podcast.

And of course, since you're there,

go ahead and connect with me,

send me a quick message,

let me know you're listening to this episode,

and I'll send you our three-step LinkedIn profile.

Hey there, you're listening to The Uncoming Career Podcast,

and I'm here with you every single week

to help you stand out in a sea of applications.

My name is Patricia, and my job is to help you get noticed

in a system that might feel like human versus robot.

Now, I'm going to start first with a little bit of a story

because this very same thing we're talking about today

happened to me when I first started this podcast,

and really over the last couple of years,

if you've been sticking around with me

and you and I have been having conversations for a while now,

you've probably seen the evolution.

When I first started,

I would talk a lot about terms like emotional intelligence

and patterns and overcoming barriers

and transformational coaching.

And all of these words made sense to me

as someone who's in the profession of coaching,

but they didn't resonate with someone who's thinking,

like, give me what I actually need to get to the job offer

and see, here's the thing.

It took me years to realize how to do this.

At first, I started to DIY it thinking,

okay, well, I just changed the words.

And no matter how much I try to change the words,

my perspective remained.

So my words were different yet from the same perspective.

And so eventually I got a coach,

thank you, Jen, a virtual podcasting school, Jen Rogers.

By the way, if you need a podcast coach, she is amazing.

And she helped me how to evolve this in terms of the podcasting

and being able to understand how to get into someone else's shoes,

how to think from someone else's perspective.

Then of course, how to iterate a little bit.

And now I'm like, oh, that's what you mean.

Now I get it.

And now the words that I think of are more from your perspective

instead of coming from mine.

Otherwise, it's like a coach talking to another coach.

They're like, yeah, yeah, you're preaching to the choir, right?

But the people who actually need the information

aren't receiving the message.

I'm happy to report now that our retention numbers

are over 100% consistently.

And what I'm understanding from that

is that what I'm sharing here,

it's much more helpful for you now than it was before.

And that's a great thing.

That's exactly where we want to be.

So today what we're gonna do is help you

to put on the perspective of the hiring leader

so you can communicate with them

through your LinkedIn profile.

Now before we get started,

I want you to think about these three goals,

the entire time that we're talking.

The first goal is attention.

As soon as someone lands a recruiter or hiring leader

lands on your profile, you want to grab their attention

so that they realize I'm in the right place,

I do want to learn a little bit more about this person.

Now the second goal is retention.

That means that as they learn more,

they are getting more and more interested

in sticking around to learn even more about your experience.

The final goal is decision.

Now we might think of decision as contact me,

send me an email,

tell me you want to bring me in for a screening.

But sometimes that decision is not visible.

So maybe someone looked at your profile

but decided not to connect,

but they're gonna forward your information

to their hiring leader,

or they're gonna send your information over to a recruiter,

or they've decided to have a conversation

with a decision maker.

So you may not see the action take place and that's okay,

but the point is that your profile should be optimized

for three goals, attention, retention and decision.

Okay, so now heading into your LinkedIn profile,

we're gonna look at micro decisions within the profile

just so you can start to get a sense of like, okay,

how are these decisions being made?

Now each hiring leader is gonna have their own way

of making decisions when they look at profiles.

One hiring leader, Michael, straight to the about section.

Another maybe a recruiter will go straight

to the experience section.

That's all they really care about.

They just wanna see your titles.

But what I'm talking about here is different points

at which someone going from top to bottom in your profile

will be met with those decision points.

So really quickly here, going through the top of your profile,

the initial decision point is, should I scroll?

Should I hit that connect button?

Should I hit that message button?

Those are the main ones there.

If they decide to scroll, now they're looking

at your about section, but they can't see everything.

All they see is four lines.

And whether or not they decide to learn more about you

is highly dependent on those four lines.

Because if you don't open the email, it doesn't matter.

How good the information is in that email.

That means that the title of the email,

the subject line is the most important part of that email.

So for your about section, the first three to four lines,

the lines that are visible before that see more link

are the most important parts.

So if they decide, yes, I'm gonna go ahead and click see more.

Then there's multiple micro decisions

even in this about section.

Is it a wall of text that already presents

some friction we're in reading?

More importantly is the content,

not the content they're looking for.

Keep in mind at this point, recruiters, hiring leaders,

anyone looking to make a hiring decision

is not so much interested in your passion, your drive.

They're more interested in can you do the job

and what have similar accomplishments look like before?

So this is where leading with your passion and your drive

is really going to work against you.

It's just another example of the way these decisions

get made along the way.

Now at the very end, if the about section

just kind of ends without a call to action,

it feels like, hey, learn more about my experience.

Okay, thanks, bye.

And what you really wanted to say instead

is a very clear, now that you've learned my experience,

here is the next step.

And that might look like, hey, if you're looking for

X kind of professional to bring X outcome,

go ahead and contact me here on LinkedIn

or send me an email.

Now does that mean that everyone who comes on your profile

is going to take one of those two actions?

Probably not, but you're creating the space

for those people who want to reach out to you

to go ahead and make that decision to say,

oh, right, it's time to reach out to this person.

Okay, so then we're going to go into your experience

but to get there, we've got to go through your activity.

And if you haven't had any activity in a year,

two years, then what that tells the hiring leader,

it communicates to them that you might not be active

on LinkedIn.

And so now they're thinking, well,

maybe I shouldn't reach out to them

because it's going to take time to draft up a message

and hit that connect button, send the message

and I'm not going to hear anything back.

Let me go on someone else's profile

who's active on LinkedIn, who I know

is going to respond to me right away.

Quick heads up on being active on LinkedIn.

It's helpful.

It's not going to make a break your search,

but it is helpful.

Anyhow, you'll see a lot more decision points

or micro decisions along the way

when you pop into your experience.

Specifically, all those see more links

and whether or not they continue on

to see your full experience

or if it's available all at once.

And there's multiple other sections here, right?

Education, licenses, volunteering, skills, et cetera.

I won't really spend too much there

because the bulk of hiring leader recruiters time

is probably going to be spent on the top portion,

the about section and your experience.

And in a perfect world, they would take action from there.

So as you look at your LinkedIn profile,

just holistically, whether you're at the header

in the about section or in the experience section,

keep in mind there's a difference

between the information you want to share

and the information they need to see.

So always be leaning toward what is it

that the hiring leader needs to see at this point.

Now, at the end of all this,

maybe you're in your car or maybe you're cleaning house,

maybe you're walking around, just remember this.

To create a profile that gets noticed

by recruiters and hiring leaders,

you need to think from their perspective.

And the goal today is that you had a light bulb moment

because that one light bulb moment

is much more important than any one small decision

that we talked about.

Your next step now is to look at your LinkedIn

and ask yourself, what micro-decision

is my LinkedIn profile leading them to make?

And by the way, if while you're looking at your profile,

you're wondering whether or not you need a total overhaul,

then you might want to head over to

the uncommoncareer.com slash intensive.

Because in that intensive, you're going to get clear

on what's strong within your LinkedIn profile,

but more broadly within your messaging.

What needs an overhaul and what really doesn't?

It's a solid space for you and I to get clarity

and for you to achieve those aha moments

that are more meaningful than any individual hack.

The moments that are going to turn your search around

and help you to really start seeing traction.

So again, if you're curious to learn more

or if you want to grab a time,

that's the uncommoncareer.com slash intensive.

I am so glad that we got a chance to chat a little bit more

about LinkedIn today.

I know we haven't talked about it in a minute

and I know last time you and I talked about LinkedIn,

it was more tactical, like very specific things to do.

But today was really more about perspectives,

the big picture aha moment.

And so I hope it was helpful for you.

Come back next week because we're going to keep talking

about all things job search.

But for now, I'll let Denise and I are praying for you

for cheering you on.

And we'll see you on the next one.

Hey, thanks for listening.

I really appreciate you spending time with me today.

If you found this episode helpful,

please tap the five star review on the show's homepage

in your podcast app.

It would absolutely make my day

and it helps others discover the uncommoncareer podcast.

Now, to download your free career resources

and learn how I help season professionals

land amazing offers in as little as 90 days,

click on the link in the description

or go to the uncommoncareer.com.

Thanks again and I'll see you on the next one.