Think of your résumé as a handshake, LinkedIn as a broadcast

The higher you ascend in rank and authority, the more what you share is used as a test of your professional judgment.

As such, let’s calibrate how you view your résumé, your LinkedIn profile, and any other career-supporting brand elements.

By extension, let’s also begin rethinking and changing your narrative in terms of how you see yourself as an active, stealth, or passive job seeker.

View your résumé as a handshake

By that, I mean that what you share in your résumé—while not confidential or proprietary—is still potentially sensitive.

We’ll be elucidating clarity and weaving keywords in your résumé, LinkedIn profile, and board / executive bio, but as architects of your leadership story, we need to stand as guardians of your professional judgment, so everything we write needs to land on the page with that guiding principle in mind.

On the other side of your job search sits a sea of readers, each with their own requirements and opinions.

From in-house hiring committees, recruiters, and SMEs, to contingency and retained search recruiters, to the 100+ ATS developers worldwide who contract without a global standard their résumé ingestion online platforms to companies and job boards, to the black hole of job boards that famously mar what could be an efficient and enjoyable job search experience.

Indeed, few hiring stakeholders on the other side of your job search are concerned with the sensitivity surrounding your career story and future intentions. Never post your résumé online without knowing your unique pros and cons.

Since we’re connected at the hip by way of Zoom to be sure your materials are written in your voice and with your intentions, the overtime won’t come as a surprise.

You’d be surprised how inaccurately and wrongly copy can be written when written alone, regardless of your seniority, which is a tragedy when you finally find yourself needing to discuss or defend why your résumé says X.

LinkedIn was launched, effectively, as an online résumé.

It is not, however, merely an online résumé, and I’d advocate that it is not a résumé at all .

In fact, LinkedIn can a subtly powerful tool for business that, when positioned and used thoughtfully, can bring a host of benefits to each profile owner.

I generally position clients’ profiles as a tool for business, with underpinnings, subtleties, and dog whistles that let them passively attract opportunities — in broad daylight. Meaning there are two things going on: the “happy where I am” public face that everyone in your life but hiring entities will need to see; and then the “but I’m want to be findable for the right roles and opportunities.”