#35 Eight profiles, one pattern

Last week I ran a small, paid workshop where I pulled up LinkedIn profiles live and gave direct feedback. Nine senior tech professionals. Ninety minutes. Nowhere to hide.

Every single one of them had a genuinely compelling story. Real experience. Strong track records. The kind of people who’ve built, launched, and led things that most companies would love to have on their team.

But in almost every case, that story wasn’t on the page yet.

The profiles weren’t bad. They were just... generic. The real differentiator — the thing that would make a recruiter stop scrolling or a hiring manager lean in — was buried under language that could describe anyone at their level.

I started asking everyone the same three questions before we looked at their profiles:

What do you want someone to take away about you in five seconds?

Does your profile currently say that?

Is there a thread connecting where you’ve been to where you’re going — or does it read like a list of jobs?

Most people could answer the first question immediately. Almost nobody could answer yes to the second two.

One attendee — a product leader — told me his thing was “I build great products.” We pushed on it until we got to what he actually does: he makes it so that when customers use the product, they spend more money. That’s specific. That’s hirable. But it was hiding behind three layers of abstraction.

Another person had a genuinely impressive career across finance and operations but their profile read like two separate people. The thread connecting those worlds — the thing that makes their combination rare and valuable — wasn’t anywhere on the page.

Every time, the real story was already there. It just needed to be surfaced.

If you’re curious about where your own profile sits, ask yourself those three questions. If you can’t answer yes to all of them, you know where to start.

And if you want the experience of having someone pull up your profile and tell you exactly what’s landing and what isn’t — I’m running the LinkedIn Live Diagnostic again soon. Send me a note at info@melfoxdhar.com

if you want to be first to have access when I open it up.

Chat soon,

Mel