Focus on your LinkedIn Profile

Okay. I would love everybody to put in the chat. Are you currently in search of a new amazing job? Just throw in the chat, yes or no. All right. So we have a couple searching. Perfect. So I want to talk about LinkedIn today and feel free to ask questions during the session. Um, I consider LinkedIn more important than your resume. This is how people will find you. This is how people will get to know you. And this is the place where you can really be yourself versus this formal, um, structure that a resume has. So I want to walk through a couple of tips for you folks on how you can leverage LinkedIn. So let me share my desktop really quick. Okay, there we go. I should stop. Give me 2 seconds to find the right presentation. Give me one moment. All right, here we go. Got it. Okay, let me share my desktop. Okay, everybody, can you guys see my desktop? All right, great. Holy cow, my internet's slow today. I apologize. Come on, computer. There we go. So how many of you folks today use LinkedIn actively and just throw it in the chat. When I say active, I mean every week. Are you on LinkedIn? Because that is the cadence I absolutely recommend, is you are on LinkedIn at least once a week. Oh, good. So you— a couple of you super active, sort of, yes, just started. Okay, perfect. OK, so LinkedIn is about creating your brand. Think of LinkedIn. So yes, it's where you're going to show the world your expertise. But it's also an advertisement. Just like with any ad, you start with a little information. And the goal is to get them to click to learn more. And you slowly reveal information about yourself. Okay. What I love about LinkedIn is you can use it as a way to tell your story. You should tell it in the first person and engage the reader. Yes, LinkedIn will describe your current job, but it's a way to frame your past. So let's say, um, you're a senior product manager and you want to become a director. I want your LinkedIn profile to show all of the amazing leadership things that you have done over your career. I don't want it to necessarily highlight, you know, that I was at standups. I want it to project and frame your past based on where you want to go. Certainly it'll highlight your successes, but again, the successes that are relevant to your future. And what's really important is that you're authentic. In the world of product, it's so important we do what we love and we love what we do. So you want to put your future self out there, but you want it to be authentically you. Okay, certainly you need to remember keywords. You need to show that you're knowledgeable about product management. And you want to speak to your expertise. Okay, so let's talk about really what I call the two most important parts of your resume. The headline and your summary. Okay, so let's talk about your headline. I think this, this is not— I think this is the number one part of your profile. It's 120 characters. The goal is to have somebody click on your profile. Okay. Yes. And what you don't want it to say is product manager. Interesting. But if so, are a million other people. You want it to be memorable, enticing, and authentic. Again, job title doesn't cut it because you look like everybody else. Then think of your, think of your headline. It's an advertisement. You want the click. And you need to differentiate yourself. And you also want it to be the future you. So if you're a senior product manager and you want to get to group product management or product director, I want you to use the word product leader or product management leader in that headline. I want you to project who you want to be. Okay. And you also want to use it to kind of jazz up what you currently do. And your headline needs to answer the question, so what? What is your expertise? What is your unique value proposition? Why are you different than everybody else? And remember, you want to speak to your audience. Think about who are you selling yourself to. If you want to be a product manager in enterprise or a startup. Or e-commerce or IoT. You want to speak to the audience you're trying to get to click on your profile so that HR recruiter from where— and you know, it does need to be relatively specific. For example, product leader passionate about solving customer problems. All right, interesting, but that's not nearly enough to tell me anything about you because all product managers, we're all passionate. About solving customer problems. I'm passionate about the intersection of technology and culture. I'm passionate about how technology can help create more amazing work environments. You want your headline to be specific about— Keywords need to be there, at a minimum, product manager, product leader. OK, so I'm going to go— let's go through a couple and then we'll hop on. I'll go into LinkedIn, show you a couple more, then we can look at some of your profiles. So I love David's: globally making products come alive. I love Eric's: expertly helping tech companies Bring products to market through better strategy. Sunshine's marketer turned product manager turned product marketer and loving it. Okay. I love Harrison's experimentation insights. Man on a mission. You want it to be specific. You want it to say, who are you and what do you care about? OK. I love Simon Sinek's every day is an opportunity to inspire someone. So what I want you all to do right now is pull up your LinkedIn profile. And I'm going to log into LinkedIn. I'm going to log into LinkedIn and I'm going to show you a couple more. And I'm going to show you some of my clients. Okay. So here's, here's my headline: On a mission to make working in product management awesome. I'm a product management leadership and career coach, and I'm a thought leader. Hopefully it gives you a flavor of who I am and what I do. All right, do any of you folks want to bring up yours so we can take a look at it?

I'll bring up mine. All right, I just made a little change and now I'm 2 characters over.

All right, let's take a look.

Okay, it won't let me save. Okay, I'm gonna have to take something off. Okay.

Saving.

Come on, save, save, save. Okay, and oh my gosh.

Take your time, it's okay.

Okay, okay, where's the share button?

Share, share, share.

I'm working on two screens, so.

Nope, that's okay. You want me to go to it? I can go to it.

There it is. Okay, sharing.

So again, okay, does it tell us about who our lead is? Product and program builder, champion, leader, execution excellence, helping individuals and teams succeed, champion of women of color and leadership. All right. So Arlene, to me that says you're a product leader who really likes the implementation, the making it happen part of product management.

Yeah, I was just going to change something. Just given what you said, I had another phrase that I want to throw in there, but it appears that it is too long. So now I have to kind of tweak it to to make it fit into that. What'd you say? Like 120 characters? Yeah.

120.

Yeah.

I want folks to look at her, Arlene's headline. It says exactly who she is. If you're an HR person and you want a product manager who's really about, I don't know, creating beautiful product design, that's probably not her. But if you, if you're, if you're an HR person who you need a product And you need a PM to make things happen and get things done. She's the person for you. And it's so much more powerful than just saying product manager or product leader. All right, let me go. I'm going to steal the screen back, Arlene, and I'm going to go show— let me show you, show you folks a couple more to give you a feel for it. Okay, so let's look at Naren. Product and visionary thought leader. Talk to me about disruption. He's all about tech that's disrupting industries. Let's look at Danielle. For Danielle, product leader transforming the healthcare industry. Let's go one more. Let's look at Daniel Gonzalez. I love, I love Dan's Swiss Army product leader. He likes to wear tons of hats. He's on a mission to improve The lives of kids. Technology is good. Teachers are better. So that even puts his brand and his point of view on there. So this is so much more powerful than just having the word product manager. LinkedIn is about who you are and who, who you think about your audience and who you're trying to sell to. OK, so this is the most important part of your headline. Then the second part of your headline is the about. And what the about should not be is a resume review. Your about should be, I am passionate about XYZ. I'm known as a leader who thrives in collaborating and bringing zero-to-one products to market. My point of view is XYZ. So you want that. You can certainly put a couple of key highlights. You know, I built a product from zero to one and it generated $1 million. I, um, I implemented a new product management process that allowed us to scale. Or to double our size or to improve our effectiveness. So certainly in that summary, put a few points, but it should be who you are. I'm passionate about, I have expertise in, couple of highlights. Typically that is all they will read. They're going to read your headline and your summary, so that experience at the bottom, it can be really light. It just needs to have your company and that one or two lines about what you've done. OK, but LinkedIn is an advertisement. It's, it's to help you establish your brand, and it's all about getting the right people and the right eyes on your profile. OK, questions? Does anybody have any questions?

Uh, for the— I'm sorry, was someone else speaking? Uh, for the About section, it's the, the default is collapsed. Is it fairly common that recruiters will actually open that up and read it, or will just— they will be like, too long, didn't read sort of thing?

Well, you know, so that's a great question. So How do I say this? So you do want— what I recommend is in your summary that you have at the bottom basically product management terms, requirements, Agile, Scrum, stories, vision, um, UAT testing, A/B testing. So it's— so the— so once So how do I say this? So LinkedIn will go through and scan their, their AI will scan your profile and say, all right, HR recruiter, this person has, here's a list of 100 people who match what you want. Number one, I want them to click on you because your headline's interesting. Then they're going to go to your summary. Some may only read the first sentence or two. Others will read it all. So it absolutely, absolutely will vary, Arlene, but that first sentence is probably your most important sentence in your summary. Okay, Rika, are there things we should not mention? Um, I am not a big fan of mentioning your— I don't know, I'm just, I don't know, I'm a surfer. Obviously I'm not a surfer, but I'm a surfer, or I like to cook. Unless it's relevant Understood. Go ahead, Rika. Yes.

Yeah, no, just, just curious to kind of learn that, Lynne, because, uh, one thing personally I've learned is like generally, uh, the definition of product management itself kind of varies between industries and companies. And I've seen where people have interchangeably used probably like, no, uh, business analyst as product or program as product, right? So there have been times where the definitions are varying across different companies, leaders, and industries. So I was just curious to know if there are things that we should think before we kind of call out there more in terms of whether you are a leader or probably an individual contributor, but trying to get into leadership, et cetera.

So I love that question. So if you're an IC trying to get into leadership, I actually want you to put in your headline product leader.

Mm-hmm. Got it.

Um, and yes, there are so many different, different, different definitions of product management. Um, and even within the realm of traditional product management, you've got people who are more technical, more people who are more on that front end. Right. So highlight that in your summary. I'm a product manager who excels at the business side of product management.

Understood. That's helpful. Thank you, Lynne Levy Levy.

Okay. All right, Tara, you're looking to get into product management. So what— walk us through, Tara, walk us through your question. You're worried about putting something like innovator. Why? Tell me why. Why does that worry you?

So I started my new job in January, and then COVID hit and I've been working from home. And like, we've had a lot of reprioritization, my coworkers have been pretty stressed out. So I haven't done as much networking and haven't like brought up as many ideas as I wanted to just because of the timing. And it's been a lot of bug fixes and less feature work. And I haven't really had as much opportunity to showcase my strengths. And I feel like putting something like innovator on LinkedIn, like, you know, I should do some things at my current job.

Yeah, so that's a great point. So you want that headline to be authentically you. Um, and so, for example, the term innovator— if you haven't done innovation yet, then I would agree you don't want to put it. So there's a balance between who you want to be versus what you've done. I would say something about passionate about Zero to One versus innovator.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And I've done some innovation stuff at past jobs, but not my current job.

So, oh, if you've done it in your past job, then definitely put innovator. Okay, you want to project the, project the type of role you want. And if you've done innovation in the past, you don't want your headline to be worried about your current colleagues. This is about establishing yourself. And, and signaling to the market who you are. And even within your current job, if they— people see it as innovator, they're going to start to see you as the innovator. When they have new projects, I want them to think of you first. Okay, thank you. Other questions?

I, I have a question, um, is very particular to my case. Sorry about that. "but I just stopped working 2 weeks ago and I'm now currently looking for a new job." How do you, like, make sure that you're honest and not, like, put that you're still working in that, but still, like, make sure that you don't come across like, "Yeah, I'm desperate. I, like, will take anything," or something like that? Do you know what I mean? Like, the brand of, like, when they say that "open to work," is that a good thing or not putting that? So all that combination. Headline that doesn't say that I'm currently working in any company?

So that is a really, really good question. And I think right now, I think it's perfectly okay, given COVID, to say open to, open to work. I want your LinkedIn profile. I've seen it both ways. And it's been successful. I've some, I've had, I have some clients who leave it off and just keep their current job. And leave it as a not, you know, 2018 through present. And then they deal with it when they get that HR phone call. Right? So you want to get HR to call you and then you can have let them know, by the way, you know, I've, I've been, I've been looking for the past month. Other people say LinkedIn actually has a a configuration where you can say open to work in it. So it'll appear in HR searches. And then you put the date at the end date in your LinkedIn profile. I've seen it work, especially during these COVID times, both ways successfully. So it would just, it depends on your comfort level. And actually I would also recommend you A/B test it because the goal is HR.

Thank you.

Okay. Other questions? Okay. Oh, so again, yes, go ahead.

Uh, maybe you'll touch upon this. I, I, since, you know, I've been through some of your LinkedIn, um, sessions before, but I have been, you know, concentrating on those two sections, but then I've also been concentrating on, uh, like you said, you know, posts and reading through and signing up for the hashtags. I don't want to jump ahead. Stop me if I'm jumping ahead.

No, we're not going to. We're not covering that, but feel free to go ahead with the question.

Okay. So like the area on the featured and the activity, like I've been concentrating on building that. So like you said, it builds on the brand, builds on giving, giving your profile a little bit more life and personality.

Absolutely.

Like, what, what, what are the articles that you're liking? What are, what's the information that you're sharing with others, etc.?

So that's really good. So you want the word coherence. So if you, so if you are branding yourself as, say, for me, I'm on a mission to make working in product awesome. So when you look at my profile, you are going to see articles about working in tech that I like. You're going to see me sharing articles about working in tech. You're probably not going to be seeing me sharing articles about environmentalism because that's not my interest. So you want your LinkedIn profile to be cohesive. You want it to stick together based on a theme or two. And that is that theme or two is who are you and how are you trying to— how are, how are you trying to brand yourself? Really good point, Darlene. So it's the headline, the summary, and then your articles, the articles you share, what you comment on, what you like needs to have that coherence. OK, just a couple more things we'll cover. Hang on one second. And again, as we talked about your summary, you know, your expertise, your value prop, your role, your passions. So some questions just to ask yourself is, as you're, as you're thinking and adjusting that profile, Start to collect, brainstorm, get a bunch of sticky notes out. What are your passions? What are your areas of expertise? What is your future role? How do you want people to describe you? What is your so what? So brainstorm it out first. And then summarize and build a couple headlines and start to A/B test it and see if you're getting more clicks. Okay, so I want you to, I want you to A/B test it and try it out. Does anybody have any questions? Any other questions?

I do want to support, continue to support, as I see some of the names that are in the, in the call and I don't I see names that are familiar to me. So I just want to speak as someone that's been in Lynne's program for, for some time. The branding sessions that Lynne has had has helped me create my personality and brand for, you know, job searching. So I just want to support that. Even before Lynne, I was, I was thinking of creating a profile for the audience, trying to create it to how inauthentically, like unauthentically, like how do I want others to view me? Right, you don't wanna do that. But that's the wrong way to look at it. It's like, look within yourself first, look at your brand, look at what you really believe about what you want to do, and that will become very, that will become very authentic in then your LinkedIn profile and the information that you share, the comments you make, your likes. So don't be too hard on yourself about like, what, what do recruiters want to see? Look at, look at yourself and see what you want first. And then that Once you like pivot on that mindset, then that'll become more authentic in your, in your LinkedIn profile.

Exactly. So in, I have a program called the Inspired Product Leader where we spend probably half the time focused on helping you understand who you are and embrace who you are as a product manager. And then once you understand that, LinkedIn's easy. Right, putting that persona out there, it's easy. It's about— but we spend time saying, all right, who am I? What do I want? What kind of job do I want? I don't— as Arlene said, you don't want to adjust based on a job. I want you to be authentically you, and then the right job will happen. You're going to search for it, but it's like two pieces of a puzzle. They have— it has to match on both sides. OK, so I just posted two links. If you need some support, I offer what I call a free breakthrough call and just go ahead and apply at LynneLevy.com/apply. I also have a free training if you're ready to move up into leadership, and I go through branding. It's just one piece of a lot of pieces I cover. So feel free to take a look at that. And that's at training- lynnelevy.com. But LinkedIn is a, it's a key part of your brand. And again, you want to leverage it and get comfortable with it. A lot of people find LinkedIn really scary. But it doesn't need to be. And like I said, if once we have a conversation and if you do, if we decide it's the right fit for you to have you join my program, you're going to get pushed a little bit, right, Arlene, to get pushed into using, to use LinkedIn on a frequent basis. Okay, I appreciate everybody coming out during this holiday week. Anybody need anything else today? All right, as I always say, thank you, rock stars. Talk to everybody soon. Bye-bye.