4 LinkedIn Changes That Got Me 19 Recruiter Messages (No Applications) transcript

John got 19 messages from recruiters in 6 weeks and one of them turned into an offer at Citadel. Now, one of the biggest changes that did all of that was deleting two job titles off his LinkedIn profile. Now, before that, he'd sent over 200 applications and he heard nothing back. Now, he didn't go out and create new projects. He didn't try and get more experience. The only thing that changed was what he presented on his LinkedIn profile.

So, if you're applying to jobs and you're hearing nothing back, this is you as well. And the crazy thing is, you're not being rejected, you're just not being found. You're invisible to LinkedIn. And you're invisible to the recruiters that are paying to find you. So, I'm going to talk you through in this video the four changes that John made. So, firstly, it's the one job title rule that made him findable. Then, the four hard skills that decide which searches you turn up in.

Then, the two lines that stop you reading like everybody else. And then, the two secret settings that almost everybody gets wrong. So, I'm going to show you exactly behind the scenes how recruiters find candidates like you. So, here's what it actually does. So, when a recruiter opens LinkedIn Recruiter, they don't just scroll on a feed like you would do on LinkedIn. What they do is they run searches. And it works a bit like a search engine like Google, except the thing that's being searched is people like yourself.

Now, I ran a search last week for a financial analyst in London to do this video. And one profile came up first, and it wasn't because it looked pretty or nice, and it wasn't because of where they studied. On the right-hand side was a list of criteria for my searches. Two to four years in financial analyst, ticked. Bachelor's degree, ticked. Based in London, ticked. He ticked every single box. So, LinkedIn put him at the top, and I could draft him a message in about 3 seconds.

And here's the part that matters. In that search, I could only message 15 people at a time. And that's the whole business model. Recruiters pay a fortune for a limited number of messages. So, they spend them on the profiles that rank highly. So, if you're not in that top 15 list for a search, you're not going to get a message. And this is not about beating the ATS. The reason your applications get auto-rejected is something called knockout questions.

That's basically like the yes or no ones buried in the job description. Things like, do you need a visa sponsorship? Do you have 5 years of Python? Now, if you fail one of those, you're gone before a human ever opens it. Now, if you pass them all, then a human read your application. So, you're writing for people and for the search. And that's exactly how LinkedIn ranks your profile as well. So, let's get into change number one.

And this is the one that fixed everything for John. So, he was trying to be three things at once. He wanted to be a quant analyst. He also wanted to be a data analyst and he also tried to be an events manager at one point and that was sitting in his headline. Now, he was targeting three different job titles for one profile. So, when a recruiter searched for a quant analyst in London, the software on LinkedIn Recruiter saw somebody who was just partly, you know, one of many things rather than just one focused thing.

Which meant that he was never going to be in anybody's top 15 list. So, what he did is he repositioned his profile and he just focused on one job title literally everywhere. The headline, the about section, work experience, all of it pointing at the same thing. So, pick the one role you actually want and put the exact job title at the front of your headline. And I don't want you to put what you're doing right now. You know, you need to put what you actually want to be next.

And you need to use the real job title, the one that's printed on the job adverts. So, if the job description say data analyst, then you need to put data analyst word for word. Now, this works because your headline carries more weight in that search than any other field on your profile. It's the first thing that the software reads and the heaviest thing it scores. So, if you fix that headline, which is the one or two sentences below your profile, you've moved the needle more than everything else combined.

Now, change number two, this is the four hard skills, which are basically a maximum. So, once LinkedIn knows like what you are, it needs to know what you can actually do. And it only really cares about the hard skills. So, these are tools, languages, systems, methods. It doesn't care like that you're a great communicator or you're a strong team player. Nobody in the history of LinkedIn Recruiter has ever searched for a strong team player.

So, here's how you find yours. I want you to open five job descriptions for the exact role that you've picked. You need to write down every skill that shows up in at least three of them. And that is your list. And it isn't a guess, it's an actual language recruiters are typing into the search bar. So, for a data analyst, that's usually Python or SQL or Tableau. For a finance analyst, it would be Bloomberg, Excel, financial modeling.

So, you need to take four at the most and make sure you pick four maximum. If you end up listing 10, you rank properly for none of them and then it reads as just desperate. Then I want you to put those exact words in three places: your headline, your about section, and your skills list. And it needs to be the same words in all three. That repetition is what tells the search that you're genuine match rather than just someone who mentioned it once.

And one more thing as well on that is that this is what almost nobody does. You need to attach your CV to the feature section of your profile. So, LinkedIn Recruiter reads that document, it pulls the text straight out of it, and then it stacks it on top of your experience that you've typed in on LinkedIn. So, both sets of text become searchable. So, every single keyword sitting in your CV quietly becomes another way for somebody to find you.

Now, change number three is say how you do it and why it matters. So, by this point, you're findable. This is the part that makes a recruiter actually open the message box once they've found you because they can still scan your profile for about 10 seconds before they decide. So, John's structure was three parts. So, he put what he does, which was the job title, how he does it, which is, you know, the methods, the things like DCF analysis and valuation modeling, and then the why, [snorts] which is basically one line on the problem that you wanted to solve.

So, his headline ended up reading roughly like this. Quant analyst, Python, SQL, statistical modeling, and then sort of like a short line about pricing risk in emerging markets. Now, let's compare that to what most of the profiles say that get ignored. They would put something like aspiring data analyst, open to all opportunities, motivated and driven professional seeking new challenges. Now, aspiring is the worst one of them all.

So, aspiring tells the recruiter you've never actually done the job and it's kind of the first three words that they read. So, they open it and all the opportunities tell them that you've got no idea what you want and that you've got no really idea of what to offer. Now, your about section does the same job, but with just a bit more space. So, you need to include five short paragraphs: where you started, what shifted, what you're doing now, and what you're looking for next.

You need to run the same keywords throughout it. Then, I want you to read it out loud and ask yourself whether any other candidate could have written it word for word. Now, if they could, it's too generic. So, you need to rewrite it until it sounds unique. Now, change number four is then two settings, and both of them get done wrong every single time. So, the first one is open to work. So, there's two versions of open to work.

There's the green banner that wraps around your photo where the whole world can see that you're basically unemployable. And then, there's the recruiter only version, which basically is invisible to the public. You need to use the recruiter only version. Never put the green banner. The green banner tells a recruiter you've been on the market a while, nobody else has really wanted you. Now, the recruiters only setting does exactly the same job, but just quietly, and it drops that sort of green banner that you see on your profile picture.

Now, the second setting isn't really a setting. It's actually a habit. So, there's a filter in LinkedIn Recruiter for candidates that were active in the last 7 days, and recruiters lean on it constantly because a profile that hasn't moved in sort of 8 months usually belongs to somebody who's already got a job or they're not active. So, you need to change something on your profile every week. So, that could be a skill.

It could be sharpening one bullet point on your experience. You could even just reorder your top three skills so they match what you're actually going after every single week. Now, that change is going to take 1 or 2 minutes, and it keeps you inside that filter. And remember to turn off the open to work setting the day you accept the offer because otherwise recruiters would just keep finding you for months and months afterwards.

So, that is what John changed. He put one job title, he put four hard skills, a clear how and why explained, and then those two settings changes. Now, 6 weeks later, this was his inbox. He got 19 messages from recruiters. And the amazing part is is that he didn't even contact a single one of them. Now, before all of these changes, he'd sent over 200 applications. After he made those crucial LinkedIn changes, he sent about 12 applications, and those 12 applications turned into 10 interviews.

Now, nine of those interviews interestingly came from the recruiters messaging him rather than him applying. And eventually, one of those interviews became an offer at Citadel. And remember, John didn't invent more experience. He didn't put in more skills. He just targeted one specific job title. So, here's what you need to do today. Go on open LinkedIn right now and just read your own headline back to yourself. If it says aspiring or open to opportunities or anything generic that doesn't focus on one title, you found the reason recruiters can't message you.

So, I want you to delete it. Put your target job title first, add the three to four real skills after it, and that is literally a two three-minute job and it puts you ahead of most people that you're competing against. Now, if you fixed all four of those things and you're still not getting found, then there's something else in your search that is the bottleneck and it's worth knowing exactly what it is before you start spending another month just guessing and applying to job.

And that is what the diagnostic in my free mini course is for. And what it does is it scores where you actually stand and it tells you what's costing you interviews right now. And the link is in the description below for you to fill out for free today. But if you'd rather just tell me, you know, what your headline says, then you can also message me on LinkedIn.