what's up everybody welcome back to the career coaching series i'm alex your career coach and we are uvaro today we are talking about personalizing your linkedin and why it's so impactful to be able to put yourself forward on a platform like linkedin to ensure your job search to get people to network with you and to realistically make a really boss strategy around your career now what are we really doing today we are focusing in-depthly on these small tidbits of information called the career coaching series to be able to have you understand what it is that we do here what ubarrow is and why it's super cool to become a part of our career success company now we provide training and education whether that's courses workshops things like this we do have one-on-one coaching with myself and our two other coaches we've got a paid residency program that allows you to go ahead and work at some of our employer partners really really try and dive in to understand if you are jiving with sales we've got deferred tuition career services consistently as long as you're a member and lifetime support so please definitely if you have any questions come chat with either myself you can message me directly on linkedin or you can go to our sales new sales team go to our website and you'll be able to filter to somebody there who can help you right away now getting into it what are we covering so this is going to arm you realistically with the skills that you need to connect to potential employers but be really confident and have a lot of conviction in the information you're displaying dispelling on a platform like linkedin this has millions and millions and millions of users and hot tip employers will actually look at your linkedin really before your resume okay so why why does that happen now we're going to go through how to stand out from the crowd of course considerations when choosing eye catching profile and background images creating compelling content your about me section or your summary and a couple other things that i just really want you to hone in on and highlight throughout here okay so i'm gonna actually just go ahead and stop sharing my screen so i can just talk to you directly but the first thing is first linkedin is a place where so many people use to either use as a resume realistically a real-time resume but to network with multiple other people not just in their one location but everywhere globally right it's an incredible way to be able to find out who you are naturally connected with through your current network how that connects you to what are called second degree connections right that you would have to connect with but are very very connected to your other connections and then points it out to third connections that you might not know at all or have any idea who they are but it's like a suggestion platform for you to be able to network accordingly now linkedin is a powerhouse tool for not just your career but to actually go ahead and use in your sales strategy in the current jobs that you're going to be getting in the tech industry as well you would be shocked at how many sales professionals whether it's ser vr or ae or customer success managers ceos founders use linkedin daily to be able to find the information that they need to connect with the right people to market their company to market themselves or to just get ideas across now the most important thing that you need to consider when you are doing a search for maybe its people within a company let's say when that search string pulls up a bunch of people let's say you are looking for a company like ivaro and we've got 60 people who work here you are going to see a lot of individuals with lots of different backgrounds but the first thing that you do see before even clicking into their profile is the headline now we've talked about headlines before we've done a workshop here in the career coaching series back last year i believe it was focusing on a similar topic but that is linkedin in itself now the headline i want to get a little bit more nitty gritty with you so you understand not just how to make a good one but how it's being perceived from other people's lenses now if i'm doing a quick search and i'm saying okay i am looking for a uh senior manager of a sales company at a company like uvara i'm gonna go okay evaro and sales manager in the search bar and it's gonna pull up some people there are some folks that pull up and say senior manager at uvaro in their headline and you'll be able to see that but maybe there's somebody else who says senior manager at uvaro with a pipe break and then really bad skateboarder or um music aficionado or former cfl football player something like that tell me let's just stop and think about it for a second tell me what you would probably gravitate a little bit more towards well you might say alex both of them because they're both matches but when you see something of what's called delight right that really bad skateboarder or that former cfl player um i forget what the other one i just said was but if you see that and you and you click it it's actually acting as a bit of that i don't want to say the word click bait but kind of because you are naturally gravitating towards something someone does that's outside of work that's a fun fact or a hobby or something that's really interesting on average i get for the people who actually write me a note on uh like a connection request and they write me a note when they're connecting with me on linkedin it's probably about 85 to 90 of the time people mention fly fishing i've got fly fishing television show host in my headline along with career coach right this is what i do these are the other things that i do as well and that i really love and live by and so what this does if you start doing that other people are going to start doing that as well and it's going to give you a easier way to be able to connect with somebody because they're putting more of themself out there okay so really consider putting something interesting about yourself in the headline as well because again in that search string we're looking for people at uvaro senior manager it's the first thing people see without even having to click in your profile and so it is that oh i'm picking that one it's a natural way to get people involved in your profile isn't that fascinating okay so you can do a lot of dividers take a look excuse me disclaimer i have really bad allergies today and so if i sneeze or if i cough a little bit i apologize but if you go ahead and you look at my linkedin profile you will see that i've got career coach with what's called a pipe that divides that thought and then i have fly fishing guide with another pipe this is just a way to really beautifully uh space out what you're putting on your headline you don't have to just put one thing you can put three like me you can put a couple four or five but you want to make sure that they are concise it's engaging and you're not just laying out every single thing now the pipe button took me forever to find for some reason i don't know but it is right under the delete button so everybody right now go take a look at your delete button and the button below has that one kind of line that up and down that is the pipe that you would do on your linkedin profile to separate thought okay career coach really bad skateboarder uh senior manager uh former cfl player cool now next the summary everybody knows about the summary we always talk about it we're always talking about the about me section oh this is so so important how so stressful how do i write a good about me on linkedin now linkedin's a little bit easier than your resume right your resume if you have an about me section which you should we'll talk about that later if you have an about me section on your resume it needs to be incredibly short concise and engaging because you have very few lines you've got maybe three to four okay and so that's hard to be able to condense and engage somebody within that because we naturally want to just say you know professionally who we are and what we do but we want to add that little bit of sprinkle spice to show who we are outside of work as well now linkedin is a bit of a gift because that summary page or section is longer so you can make it 8 10 12 paragraphs long and so that's exciting but remember that can also get a little bit tough because people might not read the full length if you've got like a 800 word essay on who you are on linkedin no one's going to read that full thing okay we just need to accept that but if we parse out our information in a really good way maybe it's by paragraphs bullets a couple emojis thrown in there for delight but most importantly being able to story tell who you are and how it connects back to what it is that you do okay so for example alex parks in my summary i would start with when was the last time you've ever stood in the middle of a roaring river have you ever done that if you have please reach out i would love to talk to you where am i going with this i am a fly fishing guide somebody who spends a lot of time ensuring people can have a good time and enter a new hobby and feel safe and like they can actually catch something that they cannot see within a river that is tumbling around them and it might feel a little unstable how does this connect back to being a career coach well let me tell you i am a career coach and i help people grasp something that they need to do to elevate themselves to present themselves to a company to ensure them that they can do what they've set out to do it's the same thing whether you're in a river or a near the river of your career but that is me and i definitely want to talk to you please connect something like that right that is pretty short pretty concise and it's engaging because it's hey i do this thing outside of work that i really love hey i'm a career coach for work this is how they connect this is how they intersect but i want you to watch back if you can on uh after we finish up here watch back and write some notes on how i presented that information right it was really focused on have you done this picture this let me tell you why this is connected right you are physically telling a story and talking to people who you can't see but are there okay and so you we need to really focus the summary on building out that voice and that tone the nice thing about this is that you're not just saying it right you can write it and you can practice and you can um you know get feedback from coaches like myself or matt or paolo right you can do all of these things and control what you put out there now what everybody forgets and please don't you can change your linkedin profile every day if you'd like right it's ever-changing it's dynamic right and you should treat it that way there is no ah finally got my linkedin done you are changing rapidly throughout your career throughout the days you learn new things we've got people who come through you borrow that are like i just learned how to use a vidyard video to prospect i'm gonna do that on my linkedin boom and then they go in and change everything about their linkedin because they're learning new things okay so please ensure that you can test test test everything that you do and get feedback on your current network it's that exciting okay so your summary very important focus on connecting who you are outside of work what you do for work and how that connects and intersects make sure you're working on your tone and your delivery to actually tell a story to an audience pretend that they're there and we'll see what happens if you want to know more about this please reach out to me on linkedin ask me some questions and i would love to chat now last thing okay this is the one that gets people a little bit nervous and that's okay but how do we actually move forward and stand out right and we want to talk about the featured section i believe it's right under your summary but you can move these things but the featured section is so important because you can feature whether it's an article you've written or a video that you've posted or something like a website that you have and it will feature itself right on your linkedin profile under the about me which is where i think the most appropriate place where it is okay and so why is this so important let's say you were ready to make a video let's say using vidyard we love them you're ready to make a video and you want to introduce yourself to your network maybe it's been a little while or you haven't done it yet but you want to just do a quick recording and go hi everybody i'm alex i just wanted to reach out to this whole network that i've got and say i have entered into becoming a career coach and i am overwhelmingly excited to be able to connect with you i would love to hear about who you are what makes you who you are why you are the way that you are please reach out can't wait to talk something like that right you don't have that's just me yours will be different this could be a basic tell me about yourself this could be hey i have a question for everybody i've learned how to do video prospecting have any of you guys done it i'd love to understand what that looked like if you do something like that and you post it on linkedin like a regular post you can then feature that post what does that do rewind back to the beginning of that example and i went hi everybody vidyard is so fantastic because your thumbnail can be dynamic okay and so when you feature that post it will then pop up on your profile and so under the summary is you and your face going like this hi what that's amazing now you can do that with your profile picture as well and you can do a quick like reel on your profile picture through your mobile okay to make that dynamic that's very similar to what instagram does but i want you to take it one step further because this way you are actually going and reaching out to your network you are posting something and starting to work those muscles and you can feature that so people can see it over and over and over again and can continue to engage with that post because they see it on your profile maybe it was from months and months and months ago okay but they also get to see another version of you going like this and waving so they click into that the most important thing is that people click to see more or they click your profile they click to see more and then they click a link that you offer to them to see who you are now why is this impactful to employers employers are so used to just getting messages and just reading emails from candidates no one ever sends a video and no one ever ever puts a video on their linkedin profile and so if you go ahead and you've maybe got an interview booked and then you go oh i'm meeting with the ceo and the um vp of sales say or senior manager you connect with them on linkedin they take a look at your linkedin profile and then they can actually see who you are they can see how you chat you chat and your energy and and be that much more set up to bring you in and understand who you are because you've already showcased it that is a superpower and i really want everybody to do their best to try okay that was a lot right we focus on headline summary feature we go hey headline you can see me right away it's the first thing that you see so i better make it interesting the summary telling a story being able to enrapture an audience right let me tell you why this is the way it is or i'm the way i am or why what i do is connected to who i am and then all of a sudden under that they've got a featured video of you going hey how are you i wanted to tell you a little bit more about me because i think it's hard just reading a lot of text i'm alex i'm a fly fishing guide i'm a career coach and i am a whole lot sometimes let me explain if you can try that and test and test and test you will go with connections with engagement and i will just be absolutely blown away and i want to see all of these linkedin profiles coming at me connecting with me and letting me know what has gone on and how you did that now i do have a quick q a so i'm going to loop back here um the main question realistically this doesn't really have a lot to do with the three things that we just covered but i have a lot of people asking me and again somebody has asked me here as well about the easy apply okay linkedin is fascinating because it got it's gotten it has millions and millions of users and millions and millions of jobs and opportunities and it's got this fun fancy feature called easy apply right it just takes your linkedin profile zips it over to whoever posted it and you are there and people can can see your application now i want you to avoid that as much as possible okay easy apply is no different than applying online when you go into a vortex of people who have just gone ahead like this and go apply apply apply apply without putting a lot of effort and thought into how do you actually go ahead and stand out okay now that's a problem right easy apply is just that it's easy but really how often are things in life easy if you're doing all this work to really soup up your linkedin your headline your summary you're going to feature something you're putting yourself out there then you must match that energy and put yourself out there and either prospect that manager send them a quick connection request and when they connect say hey thank you so much for connecting i am so excited to chat with you a little bit more about what it is that you're doing i've been hearing incredible things i've actually gone ahead and made you a quick video it's pasted here below i think it's way better to actually hear from me instead of just reading a bunch of text if you do that you will be shocked at what's to come okay so match that energy stay away from easy apply do everything you can to get in front of the right people so they can see how wonderful you are that's how you're going to make an impact and how linkedin will serve you instead of you just having to serve things to linkedin okay awesome thank you guys so much this is always fun right i love love love talking about all of the things that you can do to really enrapture and rock and roll with your career and so if you have any more questions please feel free to reach out to me directly or take a look at some of these events that are coming up we've got more information obviously url.com course our next event step into tech two-hour tech sales master class every wednesday six to eight pm est again these are people who are coming and industry experts to talk to you a little bit about why tech and sales in particular um is unbelievable and unstoppable right now in this market so we definitely want you to attend and let us know what you think my next event with you is going to be office hours with uvaro wednesday june 22nd at 12 p.m live on youtube and that's eastern standard time um it's on live on youtube and linkedin i'm gonna be with sheila and uh she is our our head of of instruction programming and development and she is unbelievable and so hopefully you can see us together just laughing away answering some really fun questions that you guys have so please come on out and ask ask ask this next live tutorial will be wednesday july 13th at 12 p.m est please come and hang out with me again you guys are fantastic have a really really great one and we'll see you next time you