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This week I was briefed on a Head position for a global business with a big presence here in Asia.
I was very happy, these are the sort of briefs I love. Well formulated, strong budget and one of those roles that, when I send it to the right person, they immediately reply.
So I did what I always do. I went to LinkedIn and started my search.
In about 40 minutes, I reviewed 47 profiles. I reached out to only three of them.
I want to tell you exactly what happened in that 40 minutes.
(Want to know exactly what I'd see on yours? Get my honest take on your LinkedIn 👈)
The first 8 seconds.
When I open a profile I'm looking at three things almost simultaneously: the photo, the headline, and the first line of the About section. That's it.
That’s not by choice - it’s all LinkedIn gives me the opportunity to see.
The way the backend is structured on our recruitment portal - it’s the same for everyone - I am only given immediate exposure to this.
If those three things don't tell me immediately what this person does and why they're serious about it, I'm already thinking about clicking away.
This behaviour isn’t exclusive to me. It’s a deeply human flaw that is well documented in books like Paradox of Choice.
An abundance of options = decision fatigue = search for convenience.
I'm not being harsh. I'm on a deadline and I have 44 more profiles to check. So is every hiring manager who opens your page.
The first question I'm asking isn't 'are they qualified?' It's 'do they look like someone worth five more minutes of my time.’
To reach out to someone costs me time and money (LinkedIn charges for outreach through credits) and so I have to make sure my radar is well-honed towards the most likely sources of success.
Here's what made me close profiles within the first 8 seconds this week:
Generic headlines. "Marketing Professional | Open to Opportunities" tells me nothing. If I can't tell what you specifically do and who you do it for, I move on.
An About section that starts with "I am a results-driven professional with 8+ years of experience." I have read this sentence 10,000 times. It contains no information.
Lack of activity/updates - if your profile was last updated or active X years ago, there’s no indication that you’re online/active and that I’ll be able to reach you.
I wrote about this extensively on our Premium Piece, how to stand out in your applications beyond the cliche.
Disclaimer: I have no doubt that the people behind these profiles are good at their jobs. That's the part that makes this frustrating - the work quality and the profile quality have almost no relationship to each other.
The three that I reached out to were:
1) Clearly active and recently updated. If you’re active and looking, give me a sign! I want to know I’m reaching out to someone who’s engaged and likely to come back.
2) Had an abundance of clear and personalised information immediately available. My absolute dream is when someone spoon feeds me the information I want. It sounds simple but how clear is it actually on your profile?
3) Delivered the information to me without me having to search for it extensively. Make the Hiring Manager’s life easy. Deliver on your About section - it’s the first thing we see.
I have to play the game to get results and stick to what I know works. There’s also another side to this…
The AI layer that most people still aren't accounting for.
What I haven't told you yet: before I manually reviewed those 47 profiles, LinkedIn's search algorithm had already filtered out hundreds more based on keyword matching.
What might read well to a human - might not flag well with the tool that decides whether a human ever sees it.
The back-end prioritises exact keyword matching on titles which can be frustrating for profiles which might be more generalist.
Those are two different problems. And right now, a lot of profiles are failing at both.
One thing you can do today.
Read your headline and about section out loud. If it could belong to 500 other people in your field, rewrite it. A good version names what you do, who you do it for, and - if you can - what specifically makes your version of that skill worth paying for. It should feel like it could only be yours.
That's the standard I'm holding your profile to when other Hiring Managers and I open it. Thought you should know.
- Charlie
P.S. If you’re not hearing back on your applications, I’ll look at your LinkedIn today.
Most people have never had a recruiter be this direct with them. That's the point. I record a short video, you get a real answer.
Drop me a connect on LinkedIn!