April 4, 2024
10: How to Write a LinkedIn Experience Entry That Answers 3 Key Questions
Based on his experience as an executive recruiter at a top firm, Doug Lester offers a strategic perspective focused on crafting a concise, helpful LinkedIn Experience entry. Emphasizing an intended reader's requirements, Doug offers a straightforward approach to writing a LinkedIn Experience entry that focuses on answering the three key questions that executive recruiters (and hiring managers) need the answers to.
This episode is the third in a series focused on writing an effective LinkedIn profile that clearly conveys your personal narrative. If you haven't already listened to the first two episodes, you can find them here.
8: How to Communicate Your Narrative in Your LinkedIn Headline
9: How to Write a LinkedIn About Section That Supports Your Narrative
And here are the three key questions mentioned in the episode that you need to answer in a LinkedIn Experience entry:
- What is, or was, the scale and scope of your responsibilities?
- What is, or was, the impact of your work? (include a story of a challenge overcome, if you can)
- What are, or were, your people and/or stakeholder management responsibilities? (think creatively, this doesn't just have to be direct reports)
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Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.828
If someone were to ask you to talk about your current job or your previous one, if you happen to be between jobs, what would you say?
00:00:08.218 --> 00:00:10.529
And how long would it take you to say it?
00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:17.338
In my experience as an executive recruiter and then an executive and career coach, it could take a long time.
00:00:17.881 --> 00:00:24.661
But when you get someone reading your Experience entries on LinkedIn, their attention span is probably pretty limited.
00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:34.951
So as a mid or senior-level leader, how do you keep your Experience entries brief and to the point while still doing your work justice?
00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:48.149
Stick around, and I'll share how my experience as an executive recruiter led me to a simple and brief approach to writing LinkedIn Experience entries that will leave your reader wanting more.
00:01:27.189 --> 00:01:34.540
If you haven't listened to the previous two episodes about crafting a compelling LinkedIn profile, then you might want to do that now.
00:01:34.989 --> 00:01:43.540
They're called How to Communicate Your Narrative in Your LinkedIn Headline and How to Write a LinkedIn About that Supports Your Narrative.
00:01:43.870 --> 00:01:45.489
I'll link to them in the show notes.
00:01:46.150 --> 00:01:55.480
In this episode, I'll be making references to your LinkedIn Headline and About section that might not make complete sense if you haven't listened to those episodes.
00:01:56.003 --> 00:02:04.582
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'm going to remind you that, up to now, we've made some claims about your work in your LinkedIn Headline.
00:02:05.123 --> 00:02:10.823
You've told your reader what you do, the context you do it in, and the impact of your work.
00:02:11.302 --> 00:02:20.423
Then in your About section you expanded upon those ideas or claims about yourself and made light reference to actual work you've done.
00:02:21.112 --> 00:02:27.622
Much like an ad, you've made some claims and then you've given your reader a reason to believe that those claims are true.
00:02:28.133 --> 00:02:39.203
You've also made sure you use the keywords your target might be searching for, whether that target reader is an executive recruiter, a corporate recruiter or a hiring manager.
00:02:39.854 --> 00:02:52.093
Let's be optimistic and assume that your reader is intrigued enough by your Headline and About section that they scroll down the page and check out some of the compelling work experience you've referenced in your About section.
00:02:52.633 --> 00:02:58.843
This is where I think my experience as an executive recruiter is going to help give you an edge.
00:02:59.341 --> 00:03:05.411
Whenever I was first learning about the work experience of a potential candidate, I needed to know three things.
00:03:05.950 --> 00:03:08.080
Let's say that candidate is you.
00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:14.080
Here are the three things I need to know about each of your jobs, including your current one.
00:03:14.814 --> 00:03:18.085
What is the scale and scope of your responsibilities?
00:03:18.836 --> 00:03:21.235
What is the impact of your work?
00:03:21.888 --> 00:03:26.743
And what are your people or your stakeholder management responsibilities?
00:03:27.080 --> 00:03:33.020
If we're talking about a past job, then obviously you can put those three questions in past tense.
00:03:33.710 --> 00:03:36.069
Now, I can't take full credit for this framework.
00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:47.860
I learned it by watching my former boss and good friend, Jack Gorman, who is a partner at Isaacson, Miller, a top executive search firm that hires senior leaders for mission-driven organizations.
00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:50.860
We worked together for almost four years.
00:03:51.219 --> 00:03:52.780
So, thank you, Jack.
00:03:53.431 --> 00:03:56.760
Now let's dive a little deeper into these three questions.
00:03:57.112 --> 00:03:59.513
There's a reason I needed to know these things.
00:03:59.901 --> 00:04:07.251
And I'd make a case that anyone considering you as a potential candidate for a role would need the answers to these three questions.
00:04:08.040 --> 00:04:11.491
First, we're talking about the scale and scope of your responsibilities.
00:04:11.881 --> 00:04:15.031
The reason for this question should be pretty obvious.
00:04:15.330 --> 00:04:20.880
I need to know if the work you're currently doing or have done in the past is similar to what I'm hiring for.
00:04:21.091 --> 00:04:22.141
That's the scope.
00:04:22.670 --> 00:04:33.216
And I not only need to know if it's similar or relevant, I need to know if it's at the same scale or was at the same scale as the role I'm hiring for.
00:04:33.725 --> 00:04:39.809
Or not so far below it that this new job, wouldn't be too much of a jump in responsibility.
00:04:40.264 --> 00:04:43.024
And scale can be measured in a variety of ways.
00:04:43.355 --> 00:04:49.535
Some obvious measures are quantitative like dollars sold or raised or units sold.
00:04:49.990 --> 00:04:55.180
Or they can be more qualitative, like strategic importance or public visibility.
00:04:55.550 --> 00:05:02.060
You'll have to decide what type of scale measures are relevant for your particular type of work and your industry.
00:05:02.653 --> 00:05:08.803
And let's talk about why getting a quick fix on this information is so important for executive recruiters.
00:05:09.374 --> 00:05:22.355
If you're familiar with some of the writing on my blog about executive recruiters, you'll know that they tend to be a little risk averse and it's because searches are often guaranteed for a period of time.
00:05:22.865 --> 00:05:32.875
Let's say that I'm currently working as an executive recruiter, and I place you in a job, and then you don't work out in the first year and it's not the client's fault.
00:05:33.362 --> 00:05:37.312
Then, I'm on the hook to redo that search for free.
00:05:37.851 --> 00:05:40.942
I won't get into the details of why that's a bad thing.
00:05:41.002 --> 00:05:49.252
It should be pretty obvious, and I'll cover the nuance of it in another episode, perhaps, but let's just say that it's a recruiter's nightmare.
00:05:49.672 --> 00:06:02.781
So I need to know that your work is relevant or big or weighty enough in whatever ways are important for my client's opportunity that you'll have a good chance of being successful once I place you.
00:06:03.425 --> 00:06:14.016
The second question I asked, what is the impact of your work, or in other words, how are things different because you were in the role, is also about relevance.
00:06:14.677 --> 00:06:25.627
When people are hiring for a senior level role, most of the people I work with are in mid or senior-level roles, and those were the types of roles I failed as an executive recruiter.
00:06:26.137 --> 00:06:45.067
When people are hiring for roles like that, they're usually hiring a person to help them overcome a challenge that they're facing, whether that's because a business or organization has hit a roadblock, they might need a change in strategy, or perhaps it's something else equally important.
00:06:45.540 --> 00:06:51.661
So answering the question about impact is all about stories of challenges overcome.
00:06:52.141 --> 00:06:57.961
What challenge or challenges have you helped your current or previous employers overcome?
00:06:58.411 --> 00:07:12.324
And are they similar enough to the challenges my client is facing that I could reasonably present you as a person or perhaps the person who could help them overcome the challenges they're facing now?
00:07:13.048 --> 00:07:17.668
And the last question was about people and stakeholder management responsibility.
00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:32.750
As a recruiter, more often than not, my colleagues and I decided not to pursue people as candidates because the opportunity with our client or clients would have been too much of a leap in people and stakeholder management responsibility.
00:07:33.110 --> 00:07:37.730
So help the recruiter out and give them that information straight up.
00:07:38.120 --> 00:07:42.410
Tell them how many people you manage or managed, directly or indirectly.
00:07:42.709 --> 00:07:53.665
If you were the lead on a cross-functional team, give your reader or that recruiter a sense of how broadly your team reached across the organization and at what levels.
00:07:54.055 --> 00:07:58.795
And if you present regularly to members of the C-suite, then include that, too.
00:07:58.915 --> 00:07:59.694
It's important.
00:08:00.144 --> 00:08:08.004
People and stakeholder management doesn't just have to be limited to the people you have direct hiring and firing responsibility for.
00:08:08.567 --> 00:08:11.057
Now you may be wondering if the order matters.
00:08:11.627 --> 00:08:18.016
Do you need to provide the answers to these questions in the same order for each of your LinkedIn Experience entries?
00:08:18.286 --> 00:08:21.857
Well, you don't have to, but why wouldn't you?
00:08:22.396 --> 00:08:30.857
If each of your Experience entries provides roughly the same information in the same order, it makes it a lot easier for your reader.
00:08:31.187 --> 00:08:38.657
And that's the person you want to reach out to you, get to know you, and potentially hire you or recommend that you be hired.
00:08:39.106 --> 00:08:41.567
Why not make it easier for them?
00:08:42.331 --> 00:08:46.650
So let's work on a couple of examples to make this a little more real.
00:08:47.307 --> 00:08:58.317
In the previous episode, we wrote a LinkedIn Headline and About section, or a sentence for an About section, for someone who works in tech and launches wearables.
00:08:58.797 --> 00:09:06.326
The Headline was, Introducing Advances in Wearables To Drive Growth and Help People Live Healthier Lives.
00:09:06.777 --> 00:09:17.994
And the example sentence for the About was, Working on the Apple Watch, I led a cross-functional team that sourced technologically-advanced components on tight timelines.
00:09:18.504 --> 00:09:31.591
We were able to launch first-to-market functionality that enabled high-performance athletes and average consumers to track three key health and performance indicators not found in competitive products.
00:09:32.081 --> 00:09:39.400
So as an example, let's draft an Experience entry for the role where, let's say, you worked on the Apple Watch.
00:09:39.750 --> 00:09:43.500
And we can skip past the job title for the Experience entry.
00:09:43.860 --> 00:09:51.697
Honestly, I don't think it matters too much, because we can still answer the three questions that your reader needs the answers to.
00:09:52.344 --> 00:09:58.043
The first question is, What is, or was, the scale and scope of your responsibilities?
00:09:58.693 --> 00:10:05.413
Now you'll have to indulge me, because I'm just going to make some of this up, including the numbers, for the purpose of illustration.
00:10:05.984 --> 00:10:12.933
But let's say your LinkedIn Experience entry for the job working on the Apple Watch goes something like this...
00:10:13.756 --> 00:10:17.115
Leading high-visibility new product launches and updates.
00:10:17.326 --> 00:10:24.615
I had primary responsibility for delivering over $2 billion in annual revenue for the Apple Watch line.
00:10:25.125 --> 00:10:40.729
Overcoming shortages and recurring delays while sourcing components critical to the latest advances in wearables, I led a cross-functional team spanning most major functions in the company to deliver a high-quality product, on time, to Apple's customers.
00:10:41.269 --> 00:10:48.078
I directly managed a team of three direct reports and 24 people in total, including dotted-line reports.
00:10:48.558 --> 00:10:54.438
I regularly presented annual plans and progress updates to Apple's senior leadership team.
00:10:55.099 --> 00:10:56.119
So there you go.
00:10:56.538 --> 00:11:00.469
. Four sentences and 85 words, if I'm counting correctly.
00:11:00.859 --> 00:11:03.198
Pretty brief, and of course, made up.
00:11:03.828 --> 00:11:09.168
But you may have noticed that even a short paragraph can answer the three critical questions.
00:11:09.798 --> 00:11:14.538
The scale and scope of the responsibilities you had in that role are pretty clear.
00:11:14.928 --> 00:11:23.839
You were responsible for leading launches and updates for the Apple Watch that represented over$2 billion in annual revenue.
00:11:24.318 --> 00:11:27.552
We know what you did, and we know how big it was.
00:11:28.402 --> 00:11:30.442
The impact of your work is also there.
00:11:30.501 --> 00:11:38.932
You were able to deliver those launches and updates with technological advances on time despite facing supply chain shortages.
00:11:39.351 --> 00:11:44.902
Notice that there's a story, even if it's brief, about a challenge overcome.
00:11:45.381 --> 00:11:46.402
That's important.
00:11:46.701 --> 00:11:56.048
Almost every job has challenges that you need to overcome in order to deliver value to a company, a consumer, a customer or a client.
00:11:56.899 --> 00:12:00.619
And we know what your people and stakeholder management responsibilities were.
00:12:00.979 --> 00:12:10.609
I included mention of a mix of direct reports, indirect reports and key interactions with others in the company, especially with senior leaders.
00:12:11.359 --> 00:12:23.769
As a recruiter and even earlier as a hiring manager at Johnson& Johnson for Neutrogena, this was probably enough information to get a potential candidate past an initial screen.
00:12:24.369 --> 00:12:31.778
In other words, this is typically the minimum information you need to convey in order to get a foot in the door.
00:12:32.208 --> 00:12:39.889
So make it easy on your reader to decide whether or not your experience is relevant for the role they're looking to fill or hire for.
00:12:40.346 --> 00:12:44.846
And if the answer is, it's not, then it's good to figure that out early.
00:12:45.206 --> 00:12:51.355
It saves your reader time, and it saves you time and potentially a little heartache.
00:12:52.109 --> 00:12:54.749
So what about your LinkedIn Experience entries?
00:12:55.096 --> 00:13:01.485
If you were to read through them, does each entry answer the three questions in roughly the same order?
00:13:01.678 --> 00:13:04.259
And here they are again for good measure.
00:13:04.808 --> 00:13:05.619
Number one.
00:13:06.259 --> 00:13:10.099
What is, or was, the scale and scope of your responsibilities?
00:13:10.849 --> 00:13:11.688
Number two.
00:13:12.109 --> 00:13:15.168
What is, or was, the impact of your work?
00:13:15.438 --> 00:13:23.658
Or in other words, what challenge or challenges did you need to overcome to deliver value to your company and its stakeholders?
00:13:24.528 --> 00:13:25.458
And number three.
00:13:25.879 --> 00:13:31.519
What are, or were, your people and/or stakeholder management responsibilities?
00:13:32.119 --> 00:13:37.489
And remember to think creatively here, we're not just talking about direct reports.
00:13:38.139 --> 00:13:45.946
If your entries don't clearly answer these three questions, then I'd suggest you consider rewriting them.
00:13:46.586 --> 00:13:48.806
And here's a bonus tip before we sign off.
00:13:49.225 --> 00:14:04.436
Once you've rewritten your LinkedIn Experience entries, you can transfer them over to your resume as the short paragraphs that sit below your company name and your title and above the bullets that typically include your achievements in a role.
00:14:04.792 --> 00:14:10.881
So not only will you be sprucing up your LinkedIn profile, you'll be getting a headstart on a resume refresh.
00:14:11.182 --> 00:14:25.539
Can't beat that! And if you run into roadblocks or get a bad case of writer's block, consider signing up for a Career Strategy Session with me at careernarratives.com/strategy.
00:14:26.883 --> 00:14:42.302
We'll do a little collaborative writing, and you'll be on your way to a LinkedIn profile that is not only compelling but gives me, or any reader, plenty of reasons to believe the claims you're making about yourself in your Headline and your About section.
00:14:43.352 --> 00:14:44.133
See you soon.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.828
If someone were to ask you to talk about your current job or your previous one, if you happen to be between jobs, what would you say?
00:00:08.218 --> 00:00:10.529
And how long would it take you to say it?
00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:17.338
In my experience as an executive recruiter and then an executive and career coach, it could take a long time.
00:00:17.881 --> 00:00:24.661
But when you get someone reading your Experience entries on LinkedIn, their attention span is probably pretty limited.
00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:34.951
So as a mid or senior-level leader, how do you keep your Experience entries brief and to the point while still doing your work justice?
00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:48.149
Stick around, and I'll share how my experience as an executive recruiter led me to a simple and brief approach to writing LinkedIn Experience entries that will leave your reader wanting more.
00:01:27.189 --> 00:01:34.540
If you haven't listened to the previous two episodes about crafting a compelling LinkedIn profile, then you might want to do that now.
00:01:34.989 --> 00:01:43.540
They're called How to Communicate Your Narrative in Your LinkedIn Headline and How to Write a LinkedIn About that Supports Your Narrative.
00:01:43.870 --> 00:01:45.489
I'll link to them in the show notes.
00:01:46.150 --> 00:01:55.480
In this episode, I'll be making references to your LinkedIn Headline and About section that might not make complete sense if you haven't listened to those episodes.
00:01:56.003 --> 00:02:04.582
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'm going to remind you that, up to now, we've made some claims about your work in your LinkedIn Headline.
00:02:05.123 --> 00:02:10.823
You've told your reader what you do, the context you do it in, and the impact of your work.
00:02:11.302 --> 00:02:20.423
Then in your About section you expanded upon those ideas or claims about yourself and made light reference to actual work you've done.
00:02:21.112 --> 00:02:27.622
Much like an ad, you've made some claims and then you've given your reader a reason to believe that those claims are true.
00:02:28.133 --> 00:02:39.203
You've also made sure you use the keywords your target might be searching for, whether that target reader is an executive recruiter, a corporate recruiter or a hiring manager.
00:02:39.854 --> 00:02:52.093
Let's be optimistic and assume that your reader is intrigued enough by your Headline and About section that they scroll down the page and check out some of the compelling work experience you've referenced in your About section.
00:02:52.633 --> 00:02:58.843
This is where I think my experience as an executive recruiter is going to help give you an edge.
00:02:59.341 --> 00:03:05.411
Whenever I was first learning about the work experience of a potential candidate, I needed to know three things.
00:03:05.950 --> 00:03:08.080
Let's say that candidate is you.
00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:14.080
Here are the three things I need to know about each of your jobs, including your current one.
00:03:14.814 --> 00:03:18.085
What is the scale and scope of your responsibilities?
00:03:18.836 --> 00:03:21.235
What is the impact of your work?
00:03:21.888 --> 00:03:26.743
And what are your people or your stakeholder management responsibilities?
00:03:27.080 --> 00:03:33.020
If we're talking about a past job, then obviously you can put those three questions in past tense.
00:03:33.710 --> 00:03:36.069
Now, I can't take full credit for this framework.
00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:47.860
I learned it by watching my former boss and good friend, Jack Gorman, who is a partner at Isaacson, Miller, a top executive search firm that hires senior leaders for mission-driven organizations.
00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:50.860
We worked together for almost four years.
00:03:51.219 --> 00:03:52.780
So, thank you, Jack.
00:03:53.431 --> 00:03:56.760
Now let's dive a little deeper into these three questions.
00:03:57.112 --> 00:03:59.513
There's a reason I needed to know these things.
00:03:59.901 --> 00:04:07.251
And I'd make a case that anyone considering you as a potential candidate for a role would need the answers to these three questions.
00:04:08.040 --> 00:04:11.491
First, we're talking about the scale and scope of your responsibilities.
00:04:11.881 --> 00:04:15.031
The reason for this question should be pretty obvious.
00:04:15.330 --> 00:04:20.880
I need to know if the work you're currently doing or have done in the past is similar to what I'm hiring for.
00:04:21.091 --> 00:04:22.141
That's the scope.
00:04:22.670 --> 00:04:33.216
And I not only need to know if it's similar or relevant, I need to know if it's at the same scale or was at the same scale as the role I'm hiring for.
00:04:33.725 --> 00:04:39.809
Or not so far below it that this new job, wouldn't be too much of a jump in responsibility.
00:04:40.264 --> 00:04:43.024
And scale can be measured in a variety of ways.
00:04:43.355 --> 00:04:49.535
Some obvious measures are quantitative like dollars sold or raised or units sold.
00:04:49.990 --> 00:04:55.180
Or they can be more qualitative, like strategic importance or public visibility.
00:04:55.550 --> 00:05:02.060
You'll have to decide what type of scale measures are relevant for your particular type of work and your industry.
00:05:02.653 --> 00:05:08.803
And let's talk about why getting a quick fix on this information is so important for executive recruiters.
00:05:09.374 --> 00:05:22.355
If you're familiar with some of the writing on my blog about executive recruiters, you'll know that they tend to be a little risk averse and it's because searches are often guaranteed for a period of time.
00:05:22.865 --> 00:05:32.875
Let's say that I'm currently working as an executive recruiter, and I place you in a job, and then you don't work out in the first year and it's not the client's fault.
00:05:33.362 --> 00:05:37.312
Then, I'm on the hook to redo that search for free.
00:05:37.851 --> 00:05:40.942
I won't get into the details of why that's a bad thing.
00:05:41.002 --> 00:05:49.252
It should be pretty obvious, and I'll cover the nuance of it in another episode, perhaps, but let's just say that it's a recruiter's nightmare.
00:05:49.672 --> 00:06:02.781
So I need to know that your work is relevant or big or weighty enough in whatever ways are important for my client's opportunity that you'll have a good chance of being successful once I place you.
00:06:03.425 --> 00:06:14.016
The second question I asked, what is the impact of your work, or in other words, how are things different because you were in the role, is also about relevance.
00:06:14.677 --> 00:06:25.627
When people are hiring for a senior level role, most of the people I work with are in mid or senior-level roles, and those were the types of roles I failed as an executive recruiter.
00:06:26.137 --> 00:06:45.067
When people are hiring for roles like that, they're usually hiring a person to help them overcome a challenge that they're facing, whether that's because a business or organization has hit a roadblock, they might need a change in strategy, or perhaps it's something else equally important.
00:06:45.540 --> 00:06:51.661
So answering the question about impact is all about stories of challenges overcome.
00:06:52.141 --> 00:06:57.961
What challenge or challenges have you helped your current or previous employers overcome?
00:06:58.411 --> 00:07:12.324
And are they similar enough to the challenges my client is facing that I could reasonably present you as a person or perhaps the person who could help them overcome the challenges they're facing now?
00:07:13.048 --> 00:07:17.668
And the last question was about people and stakeholder management responsibility.
00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:32.750
As a recruiter, more often than not, my colleagues and I decided not to pursue people as candidates because the opportunity with our client or clients would have been too much of a leap in people and stakeholder management responsibility.
00:07:33.110 --> 00:07:37.730
So help the recruiter out and give them that information straight up.
00:07:38.120 --> 00:07:42.410
Tell them how many people you manage or managed, directly or indirectly.
00:07:42.709 --> 00:07:53.665
If you were the lead on a cross-functional team, give your reader or that recruiter a sense of how broadly your team reached across the organization and at what levels.
00:07:54.055 --> 00:07:58.795
And if you present regularly to members of the C-suite, then include that, too.
00:07:58.915 --> 00:07:59.694
It's important.
00:08:00.144 --> 00:08:08.004
People and stakeholder management doesn't just have to be limited to the people you have direct hiring and firing responsibility for.
00:08:08.567 --> 00:08:11.057
Now you may be wondering if the order matters.
00:08:11.627 --> 00:08:18.016
Do you need to provide the answers to these questions in the same order for each of your LinkedIn Experience entries?
00:08:18.286 --> 00:08:21.857
Well, you don't have to, but why wouldn't you?
00:08:22.396 --> 00:08:30.857
If each of your Experience entries provides roughly the same information in the same order, it makes it a lot easier for your reader.
00:08:31.187 --> 00:08:38.657
And that's the person you want to reach out to you, get to know you, and potentially hire you or recommend that you be hired.
00:08:39.106 --> 00:08:41.567
Why not make it easier for them?
00:08:42.331 --> 00:08:46.650
So let's work on a couple of examples to make this a little more real.
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In the previous episode, we wrote a LinkedIn Headline and About section, or a sentence for an About section, for someone who works in tech and launches wearables.
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The Headline was, Introducing Advances in Wearables To Drive Growth and Help People Live Healthier Lives.
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And the example sentence for the About was, Working on the Apple Watch, I led a cross-functional team that sourced technologically-advanced components on tight timelines.
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We were able to launch first-to-market functionality that enabled high-performance athletes and average consumers to track three key health and performance indicators not found in competitive products.
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So as an example, let's draft an Experience entry for the role where, let's say, you worked on the Apple Watch.
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And we can skip past the job title for the Experience entry.
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Honestly, I don't think it matters too much, because we can still answer the three questions that your reader needs the answers to.
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The first question is, What is, or was, the scale and scope of your responsibilities?
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Now you'll have to indulge me, because I'm just going to make some of this up, including the numbers, for the purpose of illustration.
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But let's say your LinkedIn Experience entry for the job working on the Apple Watch goes something like this...
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Leading high-visibility new product launches and updates.
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I had primary responsibility for delivering over $2 billion in annual revenue for the Apple Watch line.
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Overcoming shortages and recurring delays while sourcing components critical to the latest advances in wearables, I led a cross-functional team spanning most major functions in the company to deliver a high-quality product, on time, to Apple's customers.
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I directly managed a team of three direct reports and 24 people in total, including dotted-line reports.
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I regularly presented annual plans and progress updates to Apple's senior leadership team.
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So there you go.
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. Four sentences and 85 words, if I'm counting correctly.
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Pretty brief, and of course, made up.
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But you may have noticed that even a short paragraph can answer the three critical questions.
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The scale and scope of the responsibilities you had in that role are pretty clear.
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You were responsible for leading launches and updates for the Apple Watch that represented over$2 billion in annual revenue.
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We know what you did, and we know how big it was.
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The impact of your work is also there.
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You were able to deliver those launches and updates with technological advances on time despite facing supply chain shortages.
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Notice that there's a story, even if it's brief, about a challenge overcome.
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That's important.
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Almost every job has challenges that you need to overcome in order to deliver value to a company, a consumer, a customer or a client.
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And we know what your people and stakeholder management responsibilities were.
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I included mention of a mix of direct reports, indirect reports and key interactions with others in the company, especially with senior leaders.
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As a recruiter and even earlier as a hiring manager at Johnson& Johnson for Neutrogena, this was probably enough information to get a potential candidate past an initial screen.
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In other words, this is typically the minimum information you need to convey in order to get a foot in the door.
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So make it easy on your reader to decide whether or not your experience is relevant for the role they're looking to fill or hire for.
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And if the answer is, it's not, then it's good to figure that out early.
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It saves your reader time, and it saves you time and potentially a little heartache.
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So what about your LinkedIn Experience entries?
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If you were to read through them, does each entry answer the three questions in roughly the same order?
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And here they are again for good measure.
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Number one.
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What is, or was, the scale and scope of your responsibilities?
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Number two.
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What is, or was, the impact of your work?
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Or in other words, what challenge or challenges did you need to overcome to deliver value to your company and its stakeholders?
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And number three.
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What are, or were, your people and/or stakeholder management responsibilities?
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And remember to think creatively here, we're not just talking about direct reports.
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If your entries don't clearly answer these three questions, then I'd suggest you consider rewriting them.
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And here's a bonus tip before we sign off.
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Once you've rewritten your LinkedIn Experience entries, you can transfer them over to your resume as the short paragraphs that sit below your company name and your title and above the bullets that typically include your achievements in a role.
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So not only will you be sprucing up your LinkedIn profile, you'll be getting a headstart on a resume refresh.
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Can't beat that! And if you run into roadblocks or get a bad case of writer's block, consider signing up for a Career Strategy Session with me at careernarratives.com/strategy.
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We'll do a little collaborative writing, and you'll be on your way to a LinkedIn profile that is not only compelling but gives me, or any reader, plenty of reasons to believe the claims you're making about yourself in your Headline and your About section.
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See you soon.
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