Looking for a new job? Make this one tweak on LinkedIn

Most people miss this one big tweak on LinkedIn when looking for a new job because they are focusing on bulking up their page rather than tactical tweaks.

Everyone knows that you need to update your LinkedIn profile when you are looking for a new job (by the way, don't just wait until you need a new job, do it now!), but in the process of bulking up their profile they miss what hiring managers care the most about: job history.

Job seekers will usually make sure their work history is complete, they will fill in all of the things they did at their past jobs and even write a lengthy description. However, this is not what hiring managers ever look at in their first pass, because all of these things are buried under "read more." on LinkedIn.

Just like physical resumes, hiring managers and recruiters only give a person a quick 10-30 second look before deciding whether they want to consider that individual. In the case of LinkedIn, they are skimming even faster because they don’t have the benefit of applicant software that already screened out people that are not a fit.

They are proactively looking at profiles based on a query they put into the search and they need to go fast because they are looking for needles in an ever-increasing haystack.

The big thing that recruiters and hiring managers see that first glance at a profile is the company name and job title. You don't have much control now over the names of the companies but you CAN and absolutely SHOULD adjust the job title. This is big and bolded and is all the reader is looking at before clicking deeper or to the next profile.

Just because your previous employer called you an "online marketer" doesn't mean that this is the title that you should keep on LinkedIn. You can append specifics to the title or update it to what might be more reflective of what you did.

In this case, a better title might be "Online marketer, paid marketing team leader." At a first glance, this would grab the attention of a hiring manager seeking a paid marketing leader whereas the previous title would get tossed on the rejection stack.

As another example, if you led a sales team and promoted your company's products but your title was Sales VP of Mid-Market North America because your previous employer thought it looked good in the org chart or helped close deals, this might not mean much to a hiring manager looking for a sales leader that can motivate a team while also representing the company at events. An updated job title would be "Sales VP, Mentor to dozens of employees, Product Evangelist."

Obviously, don't add things that you didn't do, and don't promote yourself when you didn't actually have that title, but there's no reason not to add descriptors into the job title that will cause a hiring manager to give your profile a deeper look.

Everyone knows that you should cater a resume to a job description, but this is how you get attention before you even know about the job description.

If I can help you hire new employees or find a new role, please add yourself to my job board!