How to use one LinkedIn profile for multiple jobs

LinkedIn profiles are hard to get right.

This is because while you can have multiple resumes and, as we discussed in previous chapters, using a multi-resume strategy is definitely a best practice, you only get one LinkedIn profile.

Most job seekers who have a good amount of experience struggle with fitting all their experience into a cohesive unified story on LinkedIn. Although a hiring manager will see your resume and might be impressed, if your LinkedIn isn't consistent then you’re really just setting yourself up for failure down the line.

This was definitely true for me.

When I was applying for jobs, I spent months tailoring each of my resumes to multiple positions to make each of one personalized. As a result, I got interviews.

I got a lot of interviews.

And I failed a lot of interviews.

Even on interviews that seemed to go well, I would inevitably get an email telling me that they’ve decided to proceed with another candidate.

Sound familiar?

I knew I was missing a piece of the puzzle, I just couldn’t figure out what it was.

The LinkedIn hack that actually worked

What should you put in your LinkedIn?

What should you leave out?

The single biggest problem with LinkedIn is that you only get one profile.

While one LinkedIn profile might be great if you’re a recent college graduate with just a couple of jobs and internships under your belt, for anyone with substantially more experience this presents a problem.

Humans are amazing.

We can do so many things and we have so many skills. The mistake that most job seekers make is that they think that they should include all of their jobs and skills in their profile. More is better right?

Wrong.

Adding all your jobs to your LinkedIn profile will absolutely guarantee you won’t get a job. It’s best to think of job seeking as a presentation.

Rather than presenting an idea, you are presenting a role.

That’s a key word.

You aren’t presenting a person, you are presenting a role.

The company you’re applying to is trying to fill a role, and yes while they may love that you have kids or that you volunteer at a pet shelter, their #1 concern is how to fill that role.

So here’s where the modern job application process gets a bit tricky.

You want to apply to multiple roles, but you only get one LinkedIn profile.

It can be very tempting at this point to make a “master profile” that fits all roles that you’re applying for. But just like with a good beverage, nobody likes something that’s watered down and doesn’t know what it is.

If I’m looking for a nice Malbec and you offer me a red-white-pinot-malbec-rose-chardonnay blend…well you know where this is going.

The lesson is: don’t dilute yourself.

There’s a popular saying in sales and marketing:

“If you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.”

The same goes for LinkedIn. You want to tell one cohesive story that makes a strong case for one role.

How to master LinkedIn using the 4th dimension.

Time (the 4th dimension) is one of the most underutilized pieces of the job application process. It’s understandable that if you’re searching for a job, you want to get the process over with in as little time as possible.

This a trap that most people (including myself) fall for.

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).

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

Here’s how it works:

After you’ve gone through and found three roles you’d like to apply for (we covered this in Chapter 1), pick one that you’d like to apply for first.

Tailor your LinkedIn to reflect that one role perfectly. If need be, change your previous titles slightly or omit 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 I’ve talked about before, 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.

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

TAKEAWAYS

This can be a difficult strategy to use when you're desperate for a job, but it can be well worthwhile. Often times slowing down and approaching job hunting strategically can lead to faster results than rushing and spamming out applications with a sub-par LinkedIn profile.

The most important thing to take away from this post though is not to dilute yourself. If you're an experienced candidate, don't feel like you have to put all your previous jobs on your profile.

This will not make you seem like an "interesting, well rounded candidate." It will most likely confuse the hiring manager and when they compare your profile against someone who is ultra dedicated to just one role, they'll always go with the safer pick.

Regardless of how you apply this strategy to your LinkedIn profile just remember:

"If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one."