One LinkedIn profile update that landed this UX Designer 5 solid recruiter leads in 24 hours

Intro: [00:00:00] Hey, I’m Sarah Doty, a user researcher and product designer with 20 years of experience. In 2017, I noticed something a little ironic. UX and product people, despite being great at designing experiences for other people, often struggle to design their own careers. That’s why I created Career Strategy Lab and this podcast to help you navigate your UX job search, grow in your current role, and avoid skill and salary plateaus all in a chill and BS free way.

So whether you’re. Stuck in your job search or wondering what’s next in your UX career. You are in the right place.

I wanna read you a LinkedIn message I received just yesterday. Here’s what the person said. Just that tiny tweak on my LinkedIn profile, and I’ve received five solid recruiter leads. Yes, it is possible to have recruiters reach out to you in your UX job search, but that’s only gonna happen [00:01:00] if you.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile. So it’s a magnet for recruiters. So for context, what the heck was this workshop I taught and what changes did this person make to their LinkedIn profile? So the workshop I taught was all about the UX job search. I’ll tell you more about that at the end, or just check the show notes and you’ll see a link to get on the wait list for the next workshop.

But part of the workshop went into. Helping you understand the UX hiring process. So let’s think of recruiters and hiring managers, right? If they’re going through 50, 100, 200 plus applicants for each job they are hiring for. The question is, how do you stand out in this sea of candidates? And things that stand out are different from all of the other things, right?

Like regardless of what it is. The things that stand out are the things that are different from all the other candidates. So how do [00:02:00] you make yourself stand out from other candidates, especially in that early vetting process hiring journey, right? So what are people basing their decision to give you an interview or not, or frankly, even to click your LinkedIn profile or not, let’s.

Let’s maybe focus on just that part of the LinkedIn profile, right? When a recruiter or hiring manager is searching for candidates in LinkedIn recruiter or just on the main LinkedIn website, right? The main thing that they’re going to make their decision off of as to whether or not to click your profile in a list of 100, 200 or thousand or more candidates, right?

They’re going to base their decision. Oftentimes on your LinkedIn profile headline, and that is the text right below your name and go to your LinkedIn profile. Right now, you’re gonna see your LinkedIn profile headline, but keep in mind that that text that [00:03:00] appears below your name on your profile also appears in search results.

And so that is why it is extremely important. To give a lot of care and attention, detail and strategy to what you write in that headline. And in this case, this person that messaged me yesterday, they tweaked that headline and literally within 24 hours of tweaking that headline, they had five recruiters reach out to them.

So. How would your job search change if instead of you like constantly looking for jobs, et cetera, how would things feel if people were coming to you? Right, literally while you sleep? Potentially. That would be fricking awesome. So the first step to do that before you actually go update your LinkedIn headline, you have to do the work.

To [00:04:00] identify what to put in that headline, right? Because if you just put, I am Michael, a UX designer that wants to create products that change the world, that’s gonna sound like every other candidate and you will not stand out because that recruiter or hiring manager has read that sentence or variations of it all day long and it, they just tune out.

It’s like if you’ve been in the world of UX and product and the internet for a while. You remember that phrase, banner blindness, right? Where banner ads were all over the place. I mean, they still are. And as a result, people experience banner blindness, right? They just kind of tuned them out. And that’s also what I think is happening with recruiters and hiring managers when they see candidates with these vague, boring, kind of philosophical, LinkedIn headlines or about me statements.

They just kind of don’t pay attention because they’re like, oh, here’s another candidate who says they’re a designer that wants to change the world, right? So don’t [00:05:00] do that. To write a LinkedIn headline that actually stands out. You need to do the work to identify what makes you unique as a candidate.

What things from your past make you different than other people? That could be your past roles, your past work experience, your past life experience, whatever that is. So if you are stuck, not getting interviews or not getting job offers, but especially if you’re not getting interviews, starting with identifying that story about you and what makes you unique is really important.

And here’s another little thing I wanna tell you, is that in your UX job search, there’s really three things that you need to do well in order to stand out and get hired. Designing that story, your career story is one of those strategies. But imagine a Venn diagram. So design your career story is one of them, right?

But then you also need to market yourself, right? In the same way that a product has marketing materials. [00:06:00] You as a candidate need marketing materials and as a candidate, your marketing materials. The three most important ones are your resume, your portfolio, and your LinkedIn. Then that third strategy is really a sales strategy, right?

In the same way that products have sales strategies, you as a candidate need a sales strategy. And in your job search, the sales strategy is really all about relationships and how you leverage relationships, create relationships, and nurture those relationships before you need them. And here’s the thing about those three strategies.

You need all three of those things. In order to stand out and get hired, and let’s take this example of the person that just messaged me on LinkedIn, right? They were not getting interviews, they were not, um, standing out. They were not having recruiters message them. And why was that happening? Because their LinkedIn part of their marketing materials.[00:07:00]

Was not communicating a unique story about them, right? So they did not have two of the three legs of the stool that you need to stand out and get hired, meaning they did not have a strong design strategy. They did not have a strong marketing strategy. And who cares about the sales strategy? Because if they didn’t have the marketing strategy and design strategy, the sales strategy didn’t even matter, right?

So if you are curious about learning more about how these three strategies work in your job search signs that you might be lacking in one or more of these three strategies and how to develop a solid design, marketing and sales strategy for your UX job search, then I invite you to come join me for the next workshop, the same workshop that I just taught that this guy attended a few days ago.

But you can join me for the next workshop. Just get on the wait list@careerstrategylab.com slash workshop [00:08:00] and we will send you an email when we have the dates finalized for the next one, probably in the next two or three weeks. So, design strategy, marketing strategy, and sales strategy. And to loop back to the beginning of this episode, a reminder that this is not about making your job search, take another three months or longer.

Don’t focus on perfection because tiny, tiny changes can have a gigantic impact in your visibility as a candidate. Just as happened for this person, when they updated their LinkedIn profile headline and ended up with five recruiters, five solid recruiter leads, as that is literally what they said in less than 24 hours.

Also, I have another podcast episode. If you wanna learn more about writing a LinkedIn headline. That episode was actually way back episode 18 of the Career Strategy Podcast, and it was called [00:09:00] Avoid This Mistake When Writing Your LinkedIn Profile headline. We’ll link to it in the show notes also. Anyway, hope this gives you some confidence. Some positivity and some tangible things that you can change in your UX job search right now.

And don’t forget, if you wanna join me for our next live workshop, all about the UX job search, just go to career strategy lab.com/workshop and we’ll let you know when the next one is. All right, talk to you later.

Outro: Thanks so much for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Now make sure to follow so you don’t miss an episode, and you can check out all of our episodes@careerstrategylab.com slash podcasts now to learn more about how to apply UX and product strategy to advancing your career. Whether that means leveling up in your current role, getting a new role, getting freelance work, or just being ready for the unexpected, then I invite you to watch my free UX job search [00:10:00] workshop@careerstrategylab.com slash hired.

And please feel free to send me a DM on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you.

Post Roll: Hey there. Before I go, I wanna speak to you specifically if you’ve applied to 50, 100, 200 or more jobs and you haven’t secured an offer or interviews yet. First of all, I want you to know it’s not your fault. It is challenging out there and learning how to navigate the job, search, interviews, negotiation, et cetera.

It is not something that we are taught. Your boss is too busy to help you. Your friends just give you vague advice. Your family doesn’t really know how hiring in UX works. This is why I created my career strategy lab, UX job search accelerator. If you are tired of your DIY approach. Not leading to the results you want, then I challenge you to [00:11:00] consider.

Maybe it is time for a pivot, just like products pivot. Maybe your job search needs a pivot too. So head over to career strategy lab.com/apply to learn more or have a call with someone on my team or myself so we can answer all of your questions. Hope to talk to you soon.