How to Optimize your LinkedIn Profile to Tell a Cohesive Story

Rushing the job application process is like rushing a relationship. You can take something that would have been great and completely ruin it ( I’ve done this many times with both jobs and relationships).

The truth is that time is one of the most underutilized pieces of the job application process.

What I learned during my 14-month job seeking process is that if you can exercise some patience you can 10x your results overnight.

How to use your LinkedIn better to land a job

First, you'll want to go through LinkedIn and find three roles you’d like to apply for. 

Then, you'll pick one that you’d like to apply for first.

Tailor your LinkedIn to reflect that one role perfectly. This means writing a great LinkedIn summary, getting your LinkedIn profile to All-Star status, and if need be, changing your previous titles slightly or omitting some of them completely.

Here’s an example of what my LinkedIn profile’s roles were when I first started applying to Content Marketing Manager positions:

And here’s how I modified the titles so that they tell a more cohesive story, but still were honest to the original jobs I did:

As you can see, jobs that were unrelated to a Content Marketing Manager’s duties I just got rid of. 

As we discuss in the Accelerated Resume course, Hiring Managers have literally thousands of applicants to get through so I don’t want to waste their time reading about irrelevant experience.

You can also see that I changed one of my titles from Project Manager (which was my official title) to Content Manager. Since I was managing projects that still involved making content, this was still an accurate descriptor, but it will look more cohesive.

(You can view my current LinkedIn here to see how I’ve modified it since)

The most important thing to keep in mind when redoing your LinkedIn is that it tells a single linear story.

You want to have a progression of titles that shows how you’ve gotten better and better at doing the role you’re applying for.

How to use your LinkedIn strategically

Since you can’t send multiple LinkedIn profiles to multiple roles, you need to have the discipline to send your one perfect LinkedIn profile only to one perfect role at a time.

To do this, I created a scheduled rotation of applying to different roles at different times. In my case, I wanted to apply to the following roles:

1. Content Marketing Manager (CMM)
2. Social Media Manager (SMM)
3. Video Producer (VP)

Here’s what the schedule looked like:

January: apply to CMM roles

February: wait for CMM interviews

March: apply to SMM roles

April: wait for SMM interviews

May: apply to VP roles

June: wait for VP interviews

The obvious downside to this system is that you might find roles open up that you can’t apply to because you’re still waiting on other applications to get through the interview phase.

Learn to have the patience and courage to wait it out.

It’s a sacrifice worth making, I know because I’ve tested it.

As soon as I customized my LinkedIn profile to only one role, I instantly saw more success during the interview process. Going through this exercise also showed me that my Content Marketing Manager experience was far stronger than my Social Media Manager experience so I quickly decided to give up on going for those roles.

That left me with just rotating between applying for Content Marketing Manager roles and Video Producer roles.

The Results

Mixed LinkedIn Profile:

I spent 8 months chasing roles with a mixed LinkedIn profile only to get turned down by the 2nd or 3rd interview when executives start really digging into your profile.

Specialized LinkedIn Profile:

In 4 months I managed to land 4 final-round interviews and offers for 3 different positions.

You can learn more about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile in the Accelerated Resume Course.

Read more resume and interview best practices on The GHYC Blog.