LinkedIn Profile & Bio

[00:00:00]
>> Jerome Hardaway: Now we're going to get into something that's not as code heavy but still important in your career, which is your LinkedIn and energizing it. LinkedIn, first, almost has a lot of resources for those who are either just getting out of college or getting in school for their premiums, as well as veterans.

[00:00:21]
I definitely recommend you take advantage of that stuff. And without further ado, we're gonna start there.
>> Jerome Hardaway: So, I'm gonna go ahead and show you live all the parts of the profile. So you have your header. One thing I did that I would do differently here, if you're a header or you're a banner, I wouldn't have my face there twice like a superhero.

[00:00:53]
But we are here now, it's kinda weird like, what a narcissist? But it's not, yeah, don't hate on me, it's cool. But, [LAUGH] so you have your banner, use that banner as a pitch, sell what you do. Your profile, always nice, happy profile picture. Now, people don't like people that scout, I had one.

[00:01:18]
My favorite veteran, Adrian Grim, he had a profile picture that I asked him, I was like, do you have a picture of you smiling? And he was like, that is me smiling. And I was like, boy, we are here for a very long time. [LAUGH] So that's one thing.

[00:01:40]
Now you see, everywhere that I can edit has a pencil at it. I can add my language that I prefer, my public profile. You get the option to change your profile URL on LinkedIn to match closer to your name or anything of that nature. I have mines, like I said, I'm boring, Jerome Hardaway.

[00:02:02]
Keep it professional. That way you don't have to, no one has a second, yes, just type in your name.
>> Jerome Hardaway: Here, have my settings, first name, my last name, pronouns. Now you can write with AI, you can post that in, press the button.
>> Jerome Hardaway: They sit there, they show you option 2, option 3, option 4.

[00:02:32]
I can revert it back to what I had cuz I like mine better. Shows current positions, education, location, everything you wanna do, you can also add a custom button, right? You edit your contact info, and you can edit your custom button. Let's say you want it right here, visit my website.

[00:02:54]
You showcase this at your portfolio right here, and it'll display on your post, your messages, and in the search results.
>> Jerome Hardaway: You can also turn it into a link, if you prefer.
>> Jerome Hardaway: So I call this the header space, and you can, right here. Now, there's a huge debate going on.

[00:03:19]
It's currently about whether you should use the open to work component when it comes to searching on LinkedIn. The data shows, yes, doesn't really matter how people feel and think. People who the data is stored internally from LinkedIn showcases the people who use open the to work, get jobs, which means you should be using it.

[00:03:47]
If you're in the market and you're trying to get work, I would never let the opinion of how people might feel like, this feels desperate or something like that, externally stop you from open on using a tool that lets people signal that, hey, yo, recruiters, hit me up, right?

[00:04:07]
Especially since there's so much talent out here, you have to be open and let people know that you are open, that you're open to work. For a time, I had it on myself just so I can ease the stigma for my troops. So I had open to work, even though I absolutely was not looking for anything, and having people ping me.

[00:04:29]
I'm like, no, I'm just putting on so people won't feel like jerks. Also, you can verify who you are with LinkedIn now. So I have this nice little silver verify badge. So in case somebody decides, for any reason, I don't know why they don't wanna be me, but they wanna be me on LinkedIn, of all places, catfishes drum on LinkedIn, cuz that's the place to do it.

[00:04:57]
[LAUGH] I can be like, no, look at the badge, that's not me, this is me, right? You can also add profile sections from here. You can have your core where you add your education, your positions, services. You can add a career break for those who have had career breaks, you can add skills, also recommended areas, and additional areas up here.

[00:05:20]
You can add test scores, patents, honors, and awards. I've never seen anyone add a test score on LinkedIn. I would not recommend you adding a test score unless you scored high and you are a Mensa, or something like that. I wouldn't do that, that's kinda weird. But definitely, add your volunteer experience and your publications.

[00:05:44]
If you have patents, add on them, that's super cool. I wanna patent one day, that's on my list of things to do, cuz I haven't done it yet. So let's get it back. Yeah, those are the steps you visit, make sure you have your button once they visit your website.

[00:06:04]
And here no more. Once you flush out your startup portfolio on your LinkedIn, this is one of my favorite features that I get to do. I get to save my LinkedIn as a PDF. Now I usually have my troops do this first on LinkedIn, and then they save as a PDF, and then we go through that PDF, and we make their resume from it.

[00:06:34]
If you're keeping up and cleaning up your LinkedIn, that is the cheat code to make your resume. Is go ahead, go to More, get your Save As PDF, your profile, and start ripping things out of LinkedIn and manicuring them, adding them to your resume. That gives you a very quick head start.

[00:06:54]
Of course, now you get the things that are private to your analytics, how many times you've been searched, how many impressions you get the past 7 days, they show you how many profile views. I don't know why people keep looking at my profile, I'm not out there in the market, it's kinda wild.

[00:07:11]
Every week I check this, and every week I'm like, people are actually listening to what I'm saying. So I just guess I need to talk to people, right? You have your resources, your network, as well as saved items. Show all four resources, your network, personal demographic information, activity, and saved items that you would have, where you can keep track of jobs, searches, and articles.

[00:07:33]
Definitely recommend, you go on a job hunt, do that, that helps you start with your data on the LinkedIn site. Now, you have your about. As you see, my about is about two paragraphs, right? I always try to keep it within two paragraphs, but I was gonna try to make it engaging, right?

[00:07:53]
This is a funnel, a part of your funnel for depth. Well, if someone gets here on LinkedIn, same thing when someone gets on GitHub, they're gonna be taking their time. So this is a HR manager has said, you're a good fit resource. So you need to put in more time that you would put in for your resume.

[00:08:18]
Cuz your resume, you're really trying to fight just the ATS, right? Your adversaries on the resume is workday, right? When you're here, the person that you're thinking about is, the developer team, you wanna go deep, more in depth with your work on here. Maybe another hiring manager just after you've got a good look or an engineering manager, right?

[00:08:47]
So this is where you start showcasing more of you, more of your personality. I have my top skills right here, I think they picked my top skills. And it's super cool that LinkedIn decided that I was good enough at RAG. I'm like, wow, that's cool. I've used RAG, I've done two RAG agent apps in my career.

[00:09:11]
So that's kinda wild. But it's like, hey, yo, you've done enough, this is cool. Top skills, Azure AI services, I do use that, Git, I use it everyday. LLM embeddings, use that everyday for past two years, trying to learn more of that. Python is pretty good, it showcases those skills.

[00:09:32]
They show your top skills, your endorsements, and where you use those, where I've used Git, and where I've used Azure AI services, or I use LLM embeddings, right? And I think that's where, cuz of my certifications, when we talked about certifications earlier, because I did those courses. And I did LLM embeddings before I added it as part of my skills.

[00:09:56]
>> Student: I see that you wrote you're about me, I think in the third person as opposed to first person. Do you generally recommend, or do you have a reason why you don't do it in the first person?
>> Jerome Hardaway: I tend to always write things in the third person, I don't have a reason for that.

[00:10:15]
I mean, especially when you're trying to, it just feels easier to sell yourself when you're writing in a third person versus in the first person. You're like, yo, I'm that man, I'm that guy, I'm him, right? Two fingers in the air, you just want Super Bowl, whatever number it is now, right?

[00:10:34]
That feel kinda weird, but when you're liking to third person, it feels a little more, you put some distance between you guys, less ego, more professional, right? You can think. It's a great exercise, it helps people frame it. Now, featured, this is where you want your projects, right?

[00:10:51]
This feature component is very underutilized, but it's very important. Even if you're new, you should still be putting things in your feature. If you don't have things in your feature that you can put in here, you need to be building things in your feature, right? This shows your story, right?

[00:11:14]
This is like your brag document, right? This part right here, it lets people know that, this person is doing things, they're building things. And this is what you want, you want to be able to showcase that. Even if you're not the person, even if you're not trying to be, [LAUGH] I've been called a micro-influencer, I don't know the term, I'm just a dude.

[00:11:41]
Even if you're not trying to be more out there and do more public work, your projects, they should still be featured, right? Any open source work should definitely be featured. If you're part of a user group and you lead that user group, especially on junior levels, we need more people on entry levels and stuff participate in these user groups so people can feed into these and grow their communities.

[00:12:08]
Don't hesitate, yeah, put that in your feature.