Use LinkedIn to network and find your next job

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Last week I had the opportunity to keynote All Things Open. It was essentially a 15-minute session where I roasted my husband’s LinkedIn profile in front of ~2,500 conference attendees. (Don’t worry, he actually offered!)

The keynote was recorded and I’ll share it with you all once it’s live, but I wanted to use this week’s newsletter to highlight the key points of this keynote so you can immediately put them to use today.

Here we go!

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Why you should take my advice: I’ve reviewed thousands of resumes and LinkedIn profiles and have conducted hundreds of interviews over the course of my career. I’ve also built a large following on LinkedIn (and Twitter) which helped me land my job at Spot AI.

Cover photo: Make sure this isn’t empty. It can be related to your company or, if you’re job hunting, something that gives your profile a bit of personality. I opted to go the company route since we just announced a big fundraise and Video AI Agents, but last week I had the Atlanta skyline in there.

Photo: Use a headshot or even a good selfie. Avoid using a cartoon or keeping it empty. It’s less important for job hunting (folks understandably fear bias when including a photo), but if you plan to use LinkedIn to network (and you should), a photo is critical for relationship building.

Tagline: Pick some keywords and pop them in there. My keywords are Engineering, Leader, and Managers. My focus is on engineering leadership and this newsletter. You can put in a couple technologies, what kind of job you’re looking for, or certifications if relevant to your field.

About: In your own words, describe yourself. What are your strengths? What do you bring to the table? What do you enjoy outside of work? This is a great place to let your personality shine through. Don’t use ChatGPT to write this, please. And if you want to ignore my advice and do so anyway, at least remove the quotes around your About section to make it look like you wrote it. Avoid long paragraphs.

Top skills: Add them. Pick a few. Again, keywords are critical!

Experience: Give your jobs a description, please! I like a quick intro to the company and then my key accomplishments. Avoid long paragraphs. Think about the way you write your resume. These will likely mirror each other or be very similar. You should update this once a quarter with your new accomplishments. Don’t forget key skills.

Want to work with me? Here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Upgrade to paid membership: You’ll get VIP access to Friday deep dives on newsletter topics shared on Tuesdays, as well as the archive of all free Tuesday posts. This includes scripts and templates you can put to use immediately.

2. Sign up for a future session of my course: I’ll help you learn how to identify and coach team members, manage conflict up and down the chain of command, and give and receive effective feedback.

3. Sign up for 1-on-1 coaching: If you prefer to learn alone, I offer one-on-one coaching to aspiring and new tech leaders.