Avoid this mistake when writing your LinkedIn profile headline

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. What most people don’t understand about their LinkedIn headline is that you have to Treat it like a web page.

Sarah Doody [00:00:44]: And for a web page to get noticed and gain visibility in search engines, The web page has to be optimized for the right keywords. Maybe you’ve heard of search engine optimization, and your LinkedIn is no different. LinkedIn is a search engine that recruiters and hiring managers use to find candidates. And if your profile or your web page is not optimized, it will be harder for those recruiters and hiring managers to find you. Today, I’m gonna share a small tweak to your LinkedIn profile that could take you as little as 5 minutes, but might take you a little longer depending on whether or not you have a decent personal elevator pitch or what I often refer to as a career compass statement, and we’ll talk more about that in another episode. But today, I am going to give you a few tips to create a quick version of this elevator pitch that you can use on your LinkedIn profile so you can stand out to hiring managers and recruiters. Alright. So the other day, I was on LinkedIn, and I saw a profile that stopped me in my tracks and not because the profile was Good.

Sarah Doody [00:02:00]: This person who I will keep anonymous, they worked as a user experience or UX researcher. And on their LinkedIn profile, their headline, which is the text that appears directly below your name, Their headline said something of the following, and I’m slightly tweaking this. It said, husband, storyteller, football Fanatic research nut milkshake lover. The problem here with this headline is that it doesn’t focus on what this person does Specifically, they are UX researcher. It only mentioned research once, and it said research Not. This is not a good elevator pitch, and this sure as heck is not optimized for the keywords that recruiters and hiring managers might be using to search for a UX researcher on LinkedIn. Right? Someone looking to hire a UX researcher is not typing in milkshake lover, research nut, or even researcher who likes football, into the candidate search in LinkedIn recruiter. Some people really try too hard to show their personality and human side on their LinkedIn profile, and I want you to know your LinkedIn headline is absolutely not the place to do this.

Sarah Doody [00:03:25]: If you have a headline that mentions your love of milkshakes or football or your kids or hobbies or your pets or whatever. You’re actually reducing the chances of showing up in search results. You wanna save that personality type stuff for your about section of your LinkedIn profile, or better yet, just so your personality and human things about you come through in interviews because you do not wanna have a headline like this. You’re not going to get hired with a milkshake headline. How can we fix milkshake guys LinkedIn headline. What could we do to help this person write a headline that has more relevant keywords and highlights unique traits, skills, and experience and help them stand out from other candidates. So first of all, we know this person is a UX researcher, but what else could go in the headline? So here’s some things to think about as you think about your headline. You could put the number of years of experience that you have.

Sarah Doody [00:04:29]: You could put industries you have experience in. You could put specific types of products you’ve worked on, like business to business, SaaS, enterprise, business to consumer, whatever it is. You could do areas of focus within your actual field. So this person is a researcher, but do they focus more on quantitative, Qualitative? That would be good information. You could also highlight any relevant education. Maybe this person has a master’s in human computer interaction, or a degree in psychology. That would all be great information to put in the headline. If we were to rewrite this person’s LinkedIn headline, here’s just 1 version.

Sarah Doody [00:05:08]: Now we could write this a 100 different ways. This is just My hot take for this podcast. Alright. So UX researcher with 10 years of experience doing mixed methods research in finance and health care with a focus on usability testing and ethnographic interviews. So let’s break that down. First of all, UX researcher with 10 years of experience. Okay. Immediately, we know this person has 10 years of experience.

Sarah Doody [00:05:37]: We don’t have to wait until we scroll down the LinkedIn page of their profile to see that. Next, doing mixed methods research. Okay. We’re getting a sense of what type of research does this person have experience in. Then it goes on to say in finance and health care. Okay. Now we know some industries they have experience in, and this is especially useful if this person might be applying to health care, or finance companies. If I’m a recruiter at one of those companies, it’s going to jump out, and I’m gonna be excited that they have experience already in my industry.

Sarah Doody [00:06:14]: And then lastly, with a focus on usability testing and ethnographic interviews. Okay. This is awesome. Getting even more specific about the type of research this person has experienced doing and adding specific skills and keywords that a recruiter or hiring manager might be typing in to LinkedIn recruiter. So together in 1 succinct and clear sentence, This headline tells us a lot about the person. So let me read it again. UX researcher with 10 years of experience doing mixed methods research in finance and health care with a focus on usability testing and ethnographic interviews versus what they had, which is husband, storyteller, football fanatic, research nut, milkshake lover. See the difference? I know I’m kinda making a joke about this, but this is a variation of a real profile I saw on LinkedIn.

Sarah Doody [00:07:12]: And you gotta put yourself in the shoes of someone who is hiring for, in this case, a UX researcher position. What words, what skills, what phrases would but you type into the search box in LinkedIn recruiter to find that person. You’re not typing in football or milkshakes. This is how you have to think if you want to be successful at being found and standing out on Linked in. Okay. That is it for today. This would be an awesome time to hit pause right now, maybe rewind, relisten to that profile, headline we just wrote, and try and write your own. Now a few quick things to keep in mind.

Sarah Doody [00:07:51]: 1, use keywords and phrases that recruiters or hiring managers would use to find a candidate with your skill set. 2, keep the personal stuff out of your headline. Recruiters and hiring managers aren’t searching for words like husband, milkshake, cats, running, travel junkie, etcetera. Right? Save that stuff for the interviews or the small talk. And 3, treat this creation of your LinkedIn headline like SEO exercise and use best practices that you would apply to SEO of a web page to your LinkedIn headline and the entire LinkedIn profile. And if you do a rewrite of your headline, I would love to see it. So feel free to mention or tag me on social media. Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast.

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