LinkedIn profiles that convert

Greg Wyatt • February 21, 2024

This is an article in four parts:

  1. An analogy to help you understand how people with hiring responsibility consume your content

  2. How this relates to your LinkedIn profile and other documents

  3. An exercise you can do now

  4. Practical takeaways

This has a bit of danger of overwhelm; however, it’s important to understand the context and mindset behind searching for candidates so that you can help a hiring process make the right decision.

By hiring process, I mean anyone from recruiter and hiring manager, to agency, to a peer who can advocate for you, to a fellow job seeker that happens to know about a vacancy you are suitable for.

Help us help you through your content.

Part 1 - an Amazon (job) search

When I buy a commodity item on Amazon there are two stages to my buying process.

I know what I want, and I have to find an acceptable shortlist of possibilities, and then decide on what to buy.

As a sweaty runner that clocks up 60-70km a week, I go through Bluetooth Headphones like you wouldn’t believe.

I’m also deaf in one ear and can’t tell the difference in varying sound formats.

So my context is a little different to the normal buyer, although likely no more different than most are to another.

A search on “Bluetooth headphones” brings up over 2,000 results, which is hardly manageable, so I change the search to “waterproof Bluetooth headphones” and filter by:

£15-£30; in ear; Prime; running.

125 results. Much better.

Now I scan down the list and I ignore Sponsored, I’m not sure why.

Click on the first one with a relevant headline, promising 50hrs playtime, and skim past all the marketing twaddle. Who cares what they say - what do their buyers think?

I go straight to the three-star reviews (my hack for avoiding paid reviews) because they are generally good with caveats, then click away.

One of the three-star reviews says they were offered a discount to change it to five. That’s BS that turns me right off.

I click through a few more products and buy one. The decent guarantee swung it for me.

I didn’t get past the first 40 results.

Now think about your own commodity purchases, where you have to do a differing levels of research to get what you need.

What kind of search criteria do you use?

How do you filter?

What informs your decision to buy?

Perhaps you already know what you want to buy, having researched buyers’ guides, YouTube videos and users’ forums, and are just sourcing the best price.

Or maybe you just need something adequate, and literally anything above an acceptable threshold will do - 5 minutes and done.

These are examples of a buyer’s journey across a transactional process.

Which isn’t far removed from how recruiters might search for candidates.

Not just on LinkedIn, but through other channels too.

Part 2 - bringing it back to your job search

LinkedIn and Amazon - what’s the difference?

In a hiring process, they are both volume, transactional marketplaces that allow searches and filters to create an appropriate shortlist to read through.

As with a product on Amazon, your LinkedIn profile is one of many that fit broadly similar criteria and might be found at any stage in a recruitment process.

  • From a search through the Recruiter Licence

  • Out of curiosity from a comment or post you wrote

  • Checking it out on receipt of an application

  • Because you were recommended

  • Because you worked at a certain company

In the same way customers might visit a product page on Amazon, so too might someone hiring visit your profile.

This means that it doesn’t have to just stand on its own merits, it has to corroborate and support any other documentation a reader might have come across:

  • Your CV or application

  • Your LinkedIn posts and comments

  • Something you did that’s in the public domain - an interview, video, article

Where there’s a conflict, such as an overly customised CV that contradicts your LinkedIn profile - that can be a problem.

Assuming your contents all support each other, the aim is to prompt an action.

Unlike an Amazon purchase, you aren’t expecting a sale, simply for the right people to start a conversation that meets your goals.

But to convert interest into an action, first, you have to be found.

Think about an Amazon product page and the process you go through to buy - what do you typically read and in which order?

It’s probably something like <home page - search - list of product headlines>. Then my reading journey on a product page is <headline - price - delivery - three star reviews - buy now>.

How does your profile page cater to the reading psychology of a recruiter?

While a recruiter likely has access to the Recruiter Licence, you probably don’t, so I’ll write this in a way you can emulate, as a standard or Premium Member. (You can look at public user guides if you are interested, such as here )

A standard search might go across <home page - search - list of profile headlines>. Then the reading psychology of someone who wants to read everything (!) is:

  • #Open to Work banner (your choice and no discussion today on its merits)

  • Headline

  • Banner

  • Location / Contact details (depending on connection and privacy settings)

  • Activity / Featured Section / About (the order depends on whether you have Creator mode or not)

  • Experience

  • Education

  • Projects

  • Skills

  • Recommendations

Unlike Amazon reviews though, I rarely look at recommendations, as if I’m still interested by that point I’ll just get in touch.

You can also download your profile as a PDF, which looks like a CV / resume with contact details, headline, summary and experience.

In both your profile and the downloadable PDF, your headline and summary/About are going to be read before your experience (career history) is.

It goes to follow that’s where a lot of the decision to contact you will come from.

While the career section is important, if an attention-short reader doesn’t get that far, it won’t help convert interest.

Part 3 - an exercise to guide your approach to updating your profile

Imagine you’ve been promoted and you are tasked with recruiting your replacement.

The rules are that you are only allowed to search for candidates on LinkedIn through your standard membership.

You only have 10 minutes to run a search, and 20 minutes to form a shortlist of 3 top candidates from the results.

Location and salary don’t matter for now.

It’s likely you’ll search on your job titles, job specific skills and qualifications.

What do the results look like?

Pick your three favourite profiles from the results.

Now compare them against your own profile, step by step through the points in part 2.

Would you make your own shortlist based purely on the content?

If not, what is it about their profiles that is preferrable and how can you emulate the same in your profile?

What is it in their content that has converted you from being a passive reader to having them on your imaginary shortlist?

Part 4 - actionable points to update your profile (and CV too)

You want people with hiring authority to look at your profile and from there want to contact you.

And you should assume the people doing so are the weakest link in the chain.

Because if you cater to them, you also cater to more competent people in process.

How can you help them see you as a candidate of choice?

4.1 a punchy headline that says what you do and how you can help. The first four words count - think about those Amazon product headlines. If you don’t read further than the first four words, you’ll never know what you missed. Check out how other people’s headlines look on your mobile phone, when on their profile or if they are replying to a comment on a post - lead with relevance.

Scrap “I help companies by” because it’s meaningless. Start with your job title, then add a flourish or context. “CTO - scale-up deep techs. Equity backed and privately owned. £20m to £120m in three years”

4.2 banner - it’s free advertising real estate! Use canva; include your contact details in case a reader doesn’t have access through your account

4.3 make it really easy to contact you by phone or email, put it in multiple spots

4.4. About section - who do you help and how? What are your key skills and achievements? Keep it concise and focused on your ideal audience - move away from the ‘responsibilities led’ approach to CVs that get copied onto LinkedIn. Show context.

4.5 While your career section is further down, and may not even be read, it should still be fully populated and credible.

4.5 How can you highlight posts, videos and articles to support your candidacy? The Featured Section is a great facility in Creator mode.

4.6 Key words. Recruiters search on key words. Think about all the job adverts and required skills you’ve read - does your LinkedIn profile show these suitably? Of course these need to be true, but think about how differing acronyms and terminology may mean the same thing.

4.7 Personal branding. How can you showcase your personality in your words? Your about section is a form of elevator pitch. While it highlight your professional credibility, you can also show your personal qualities. What your most passionate about and best at? Lead with that.

4.8 It’s not about you. It’s about the needs of your reader - tell us what we need to know to make an informed decision on your candidacy. Answer the questions that we should have through your content.

4.9 Keep it simple and authentic.

4.10 If there’s something you want us to know, make it clear. This could be anything from the job you want, to part-time status, to highlighting a recommendation you are proud of.

I've mentioned ‘CV too’ as the same principles that let you get found apply here.

Principles that are used in SEO - read up on how Google prioritises expertise, experience, authorativeness and trustworthiness and they apply to how readers consume your content too.

Googling isn't just about key words, nor is your own LinkedIn profile.

As with the previous articles, this is both long and not detailed enough, but I hope is a good lens through which to think about what your readers need from your profile.

You are unique, even if your role is common. Help us see why you are the one person for the job, and you’ll get more interest for that one job you need.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

Jump the shark. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 13

By Greg Wyatt • January 29, 2026
May 2023 You’ve heard the phrase, I take it – “jump the shark”? It’s the moment when one surprising or absurd experience can indicate a rapid descent into rubbishness and obscurity. When it’s time to get off the bus. Typically in media. Jumping the Shark comes from an episode of Happy Days in which the Fonz does a water ski jump over a shark. 👈 Aaaaay. 👉 A sign creators have run out of ideas, or can’t be bothered to come up with fresh ones. In movies, sequelitis is a good example of this – an unnecessary sequel done to make some cash, in the hope the audience doesn’t care about its quality. Sometimes they become dead horses to flog, such as the missteps that are any Terminator film after 2. It’s an issue that can lead to consumers abandoning what they were doing, with such a precipitous drop in engagement that the thing itself is then cancelled. Partly because of breaking trust in what was expected to happen next. And because it’s a sign that the disbelief that was temporarily suspended has come crashing down. If you don’t believe that your current poor experience will lead to further, better experiences, why would you bother? Once you’ve had your fingers burnt, how hard is it to find that trust in similar experiences? It doesn’t have to be a single vein of experience for all to be affected. Watch one dodgy superhero movie and how does it whet your appetite for the next? You didn’t see The Eternals? Lucky you. Or how about that time we had really bad service at Café Rouge, a sign of new management that didn’t care, and we never went again? Just me? Did they sauter par-dessus le requin? Here’s the rub – it matters less that these experiences have jumped the shark. It matters more what the experience means for expectation. So it is in candidate experience. It’s not just the experience you provide that tempers expectations – it’s the cumulated experience of other processes that creates an assumption of what might be expected of yours. If you’re starting from a low trust point, what will it take for your process to ‘jump the shark’ and lose, not just an engaged audience, but those brilliant candidates that might only have considered talking to you if their experience hadn’t been off-putting? Not fair, is it, that the experience provided by other poor recruitment processes might affect what people expect of yours? Their experiences aren’t in your control, the experience you provide is. Of my 700 or so calls with exec job seekers, since The Pandemic: Lockdown Pt 1, many described the candidate experience touchpoints that led to them deciding not to proceed with an application. These were calls that were purely about job search strategy, and not people I could place. However, one benefit for me is that they are the Gemba , and I get to hear their direct experiences outside of my recruitment processes. Experiences such as - ‘£Competitive salary’ in an advert or DM, which they know full well means a lowball offer every time, because it happened to them once or twice, or perhaps it was just a LinkedIn post they read. Maybe it isn’t your problem at all, maybe your £competitive is upper 1% - how does their experience inform their assumptions? Or when adverts lend ambiguity to generic words, what meaning do they find, no matter how far from the truth? How the arrogance of a one-sided interview process affects their interest. The apparent narcissism in many outreaches in recruitment (unamazing, isn’t it, that bad outreach can close doors, rather than open them). Those ATS ‘duplicate your CV’ data entry beasts? Fool me once… Instances that are the catalysts for them withdrawing. I’d find myself telling them to look past these experiences, because a poor process can hide a good job. It’s a common theme in my jobseeker posts, such as a recent one offering a counterpoint to the virality that is “COVER LETTERS DON’T M4TT£R agree?” Experiences that may not be meant by the employer, or even thought of as necessarily bad, yet are drivers for decisions and behaviour. I can only appeal to these job seekers through my posts and calls. What about those other jobseekers who I’m not aware of, who’ve only experienced nonsense advice? What about those people who aren’t jobseekers? What about those people who think they love their roles? What about all those great candidates who won’t put up with bad experiences? The more sceptical they are, and the further they are from the need for a new role, the less bullshit they’ll put up with. What happens when an otherwise acceptable process presents something unpalatable? Might this jumping the shark mean they go no further? Every time the experience you provide doesn’t put their needs front and centre or if it’s correlated to their bad experiences…. these can prevent otherwise willing candidates from progressing with your process, whether that’s an advert they don’t apply to, a job they don’t start, or everything in between. Decisions that may stem from false assumptions of what a bad experience will mean. Instead, look to these ‘bad experience’ touchpoints as opportunities to do better: instead of £competitive, either state a salary or a legitimate reason why you can’t disclose salary (e.g. “see below” if limited by a job board field and “we negotiate a fair salary based on the contribution of the successful candidate, and don’t want to limit compensation by a band”) instead of a 1-way interrogation… an interview instead of radio silence when there’s no news - an update to say there’s no update, and ‘How are things with you by the way?’ instead of Apply Now via our Applicant Torture Sadistificator, ‘drop me a line if you have any questions’ or ‘don’t worry if you don’t have an updated CV - we’ll sort that later’. Opportunity from adversity. And why you can look at bad experiences other processes provide as a chance to do better. With the benefit that, if you eliminate poor experience, you'll lose fewer candidates unnecessarily, including those ideal ones you never knew about. Bad experiences are the yin to good experience’s yang and both are key parts of the E that is Experience in the AIDE framework. The good is for next time. Thanks for reading.  Regards, Greg

How To Network For A Job - Jobseeker Basics XIV

By Greg Wyatt • January 26, 2026
The following is Chapter 42 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . In a sense it's a microcosm of how any commercial activity can see a better return - which is to put the needs of the person you are appealing to above your own. It feels counterintuitive, especially when you have a burning need, but you can see the problem of NOT doing this simply by looking at 99% of job adverts: We are. We need. We want. What you'll do for us. What you might get in return. Capped off by the classic "don't call us, we'll call you." If you didn't need a job, how would you respond to that kind of advert? In the same vein, if you want networking to pay off, how will your contact's life improve by your contact? What's in it for them? 42 - How to network for a job Who are the two types of people you remember at networking events? For me two types stand out. One will be the instant pitch networker. This might work if you happen to be in need right now of what they have to offer or if mutual selling is your goal. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it’s a selling activity pretending to be networking. If you want to sell, go and overtly sell rather than disguise it with subterfuge. Lest we mark your face and avoid you where possible in future. The second is the one who gets to know you, shows interest and tries to add to your experience. You share ideas, and there’s no push to buy something. They believe that through building the relationship when you have a problem they can solve, you’ll think to go to them. It’s a relationship built on reciprocity. One where if you always build something together there is reason to keep in touch. And where the outcome is what you need if the right elements come together: right person, right time, right message, right place, right offering, right price. Job search networking is no different. The purpose of networking in a job search is to build a network where you are seen as a go-to solution should a suitable problem come up. In this case the problem you solve is a vacancy. Either because your active network is recruiting, or because they advocate for you when someone they know is recruiting. It is always a two-way conversation you both benefit from. Knowledge sharing, sounding board, see how you’re doing - because of what the relationship brings to you both. It is not contacting someone only to ask for a job or a recommendation. A one-way conversation that relies on lucky timing. That second approach can be effective as a type of direct sales rather than networking. If you get it wrong it may even work against you. How would you feel if someone asked to network with you, when it became clear they want you to do something for them? You might get lucky and network with someone who is recruiting now - more likely is that you nurture that relationship over time. If your goal is only to ask for help each networking opportunity will have a low chance of success. While if your goal is to nurture a relationship that may produce a lead, you’ll only have constructive outcomes. This makes it sensible to start by building a network with people that already know you: Former direct colleagues and company colleagues Industry leaders and peers Recruiters you have employed or applied through Don’t forget the friends you aren’t in regular touch with - there is no shame in being out of work and it would be a shame if they didn’t think of you when aware of a suitable opening. These people are a priority because they know you, your capability and your approach and trust has already been built. Whereas networking with people you don't know requires helping them come to know and trust you. Networking with people you know is the most overlooked tactic by the exec job seekers I talk to (followed by personal branding). These are the same people who see the hidden jobs market as where their next role is, yet overlook what’s in front of them. If you are looking for a new role on the quiet - networking is a go-to approach that invites proactive contact to you. Networking with people who know people you know, then people in a similar domain, then people outside of this domain - these are in decreasing order of priority. Let's not forget the other type of networking. Talking to fellow job seekers is a great way to share your pain, take a load off your shoulders, bounce ideas off each other, and hold each other accountable. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to find the right people if you haven't kept in touch directly. Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a conduit to conversation. It isn’t the conversation itself. Speaking in real life is where networking shines because while you might build a facsimile of a relationship in text, it's no replacement for a fluid conversation. Whether by phone and video calls, real life meetups, business events, seminars, conferences, expos, or in my case - on dog walks and waiting outside of the school gates. Both these last two have led to friends and business for me though the latter hasn’t been available since 2021. Networking isn’t 'What can I get out of it?' Instead, ‘What’s in it for them?’ The difference is the same as those ransom list job adverts compared to the rare one that speaks to you personally. How can you build on this relationship by keeping in touch? Networking is systematic, periodic and iterative: Map out your real life career network. Revisit anyone you’ve ever worked with and where Find them on LinkedIn Get in touch ‘I was thinking about our time at xxx. Perhaps we could reconnect - would be great to catch up’ If they don’t reply, because life can be busy, diarise a follow up What could be of interest to them? A LinkedIn post might be a reason to catch up When you look up your contact’s profile look at the companies they’ve worked at. They worked there for a reason, which may be because of a common capability to you Research these companies. Are there people in relevant roles worth introducing yourself to? Maybe the company looks a fit with your aspirations - worth getting in touch with someone who may be a hiring manager or relevant recruiter? Maybe they aren’t recruiting now. Someone to keep in touch with because of mutual interests. Click on Job on their company page, then "I'm interested" - this helps for many reasons, including flagging your interest as a potential employee Keep iterating your network and find new companies as you look at new contacts. This is one way we map the market in recruitment to headhunt candidates - you can mirror this with your networking The more proactive networking you build into your job search, the luckier you might get. While you might need to nurture a sizeable network and there are no guarantees, think about the other virtues of networking - how does that compare to endless unreplied applications? I often hear from job seekers who found their next role through networking. This includes those who got the job because of their network even though hundreds of applicants were vying for it. While this may be unfair on the applicants sometimes you can make unfair work for you. It can be effective at any level.