I Worked at LinkedIn. Stop Making These Profile Mistakes [Part 2 of 2]

The way to make a post-valuable to your readers is to remove the broitry, you know, the short sentences. That's actually what it's called. It's called, you know. That's what we call it at LinkedIn. There's some questions of like, "Should you look to camera? Should you be looking away?" It's not that deep. I think firstly, have a photo. Have a photo that looks like you guys. This is also such insight or knowledge, but if you look at the profile on your phone, it helps if you are facing your profile. I mean, I've also had a profile photo where I'm facing off screen because I look bomb in the About section. Shree gave us tips on beginner, intermediate, and advanced. This is a really good candidate for beginner. I like the email address because it's better than nothing. Hello, welcome to my profile. My name is Shree Brookloo. I'm a podcast host and sort of co-founder. This is advanced. This is black diamond. It's a black diamond shape. This is double black diamond. This is advanced skier terrain. If you are currently writing LinkedIn posts and they're not engaging right now, figure out how you can deliver value. Let's make LinkedIn a place where we want to learn from each other. I'm Shree. I'm Jean. And where are the Tiger Sisters? We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. And we're a top 10 business podcast bringing late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. Hey Tiger fam. Welcome to our LinkedIn Masterclass part two. In part one, we talked all about writing an amazing LinkedIn about me, how to share more of your story, how to sell yourself, and how to become more search optimized. In this second part of this LinkedIn Masterclass, we're going to be going through real profiles that the Tiger fam submitted to us, giving constructive criticism and a bit of a roast so that everyone can have something to learn, take away, and implement to improve their own LinkedIn profile. And guys, stick around because it is not just everything to do. There's also a fun little section of what not to do where we look at a couple of posts from this subreddit called LinkedIn Lunatics that has some of the craziest LinkedIn posts you've ever seen. I know you guys have seen them. We're going to look at a couple of them together. And for context, I worked at LinkedIn for almost five years right after I graduated from college. So I worked on the LinkedIn profile team and the LinkedIn learning team. And finally, I also teach a course at Stanford's Business School basically every quarter on how to create an amazing LinkedIn profile. So you're looking at the LinkedIn expert who literally teaches the class about it. So you guys are in the right place. So let's dive in to this Masterclass part two. So a few weeks ago, I posted on my Instagram stories a call for the Tiger fam to submit their LinkedIn profiles to get roasted kindly by us on this episode. So all these profiles that we are going through today are people who've submitted their own profile. They want us to look at it. And there's going to be some constructive feedback that hopefully you guys can take away and apply to your own profiles after this conversation. So the first profile we're going to go into is Paul Agarwal. So my first comment was when we pulled this up, I asked you, okay, do you pronounce it Paul or Paul or what? And I would say there is a perhaps little known feature where you can actually put in the pronunciation of your name if you think there's any doubt on how to pronounce it. Yes, I use this feature on my own profile. You can record a little bit of a recording of how to pronounce your name. I've gotten feedback on it that it's helpful when people are trying to meet me for the first time or like they found my profile. How do you say my name? Is it Sherry? Is it Sherry? Is it Sherry? So I have my pronunciation on my profile and I think Paul or Paul, I'm so sorry, but yes, please forgive us for not pronouncing any of these names correctly, but you could make use of that feature. So the first thing that I see on this profile and if you are listening to this episode right now, we'll do our best to kind of explain the profile, but this episode is much better if you can watch it because we're pulling on screen examples so you can follow along. But so this person has a very long title at the very top of their profile and in my humble opinion, it is overdoing it. I think it reads this. They are a scholar, marketing plus strategy at this place, community builder, helping students stack scholarships, internships and following, and it's just very, very long. Engaging and connecting people wherever I land. Yeah, there's literally like six to seven disparate ideas all put together in their main title. In the main title. Yeah. Which some people, I think, see that as a strategy. What's your take on that? My take is that this is very valuable real estate, but it should only be like a few thoughts, not like six or seven, but I think like two or three max so that people can easily grok what you're about just from the title. This is super long. It borders on reading like a sentence rather than a few key items. So of the ones that they have, what would you say they should keep or take away or should they just totally restructure it to say something different? I think if we're going to work with what we have right now, we should remove probably the last, the last one, engaging and connecting people wherever I land. That is a very generic sentence that can be about anyone. And so one of the ethos is about your LinkedIn profile is that it should be one in a million, not one of a million, your profile and whatever you put on your profile should you know, one put together could only be about you, but engaging and connecting people wherever I land could be about a million people. So my first piece of feedback is to redo the title and make it more concise. I would say have two to three items in there at no more than three. And then what I would say that I like about their profile is that they have a great profile photo. I think the profile photo is very professional looking, but also just she has a beautiful warm smile. Yes. So I really like it. And then I think the other thing that I'm loving is that Paul really made use of the banner. I'm obsessed. This part is so so good. So for the banner, Paul put together all these kind of different photos of herself receiving accolades. And she also has some keywords on the banner. It says scholar, connector, activator. So I feel like this is a very underutilized feature, right? A thousand percent. The way that you have the way that I think about LinkedIn profiles is that every piece that is empty is a piece of real estate for you to use, right? So having a good about me, having a dialed title, making use of this banner like Paul did. I love how she's done it. She has her speaking at a podium. She is a speaker. I think that's very notable. Like you said, her photo is very professional. She's getting awards, certificates, hand shaking with people. I like seeing this because to me, my first impression is that she looks like a leader. She looks like a leader and she looks like someone who was responsible. She looks like a scholar, connector, activator. I'd say so. So I love that she's made use of this banner. Great job, Paul. Okay. So let's move on to example number two. This is for Adya and it says in her title, it says Stanford University co-founder at company name and then Diana Award 2024. I mean, this title is short because it has two to three, specifically three things. I would say reading this for me on first impression, I have no idea what the Diana Award 2024 is. I don't know if I would include that in the profile because it is so specific to something that I have no context in. I honestly like that she puts Stanford University in her title because right now she is a current student. I like scroll down to the bottom to verify this. She's a current student at Stanford and that is very much an information shortcut that people can understand that this woman is a student. She goes to a top university and she is entrepreneurial because she is a co-founder at a company. I like it. I like it. Okay. This part you're not going to like her about all it has is her email address. So I like the email address because it's better than nothing. It gives us, it's better than nothing. Better than nothing because it gives us important information to reach her. It's a call to action. It is to email her. Yes. We have her email if we want to reach her for any opportunities. However, there's nothing else about her and her about me. I would love Audia for you to write something in the first person about what you care about. Clearly, you are a founder of your own company and you've won an award. What is this award even about? I don't know what the Diana Award 2024 is. And I don't know what your startup is about but clearly you are entrepreneurial. You are passionate about something and a few sentences on what you care about what your mission is for your company. Your award winning and your award. Your mission is for your company. I think would go a really long way here. Yeah. I think this is a really good candidate for in part one. We talked about in the about section. Sheree gave us tips on beginner intermediate and advanced on like how you can improve your about. This is a really good candidate for beginner to just put together one really dialed sentence that hits on all the things that you talked about. That would level up her LinkedIn profile I think like 10x. Absolutely. And something that I really like about Audia's profile is that she includes a lot of her volunteering experiences. at the bottom. Yeah. I know that if you are a college student or if you are just starting out in your career, perhaps you're in high school and you're like what have I even put on my LinkedIn profile? If you don't have years and years of career experience, I think filling it out with your volunteer experiences throughout your life is a really really awesome way to start and can make your profile feel a lot richer if there isn't professional career experience. Yeah. I really even I think if you're a babysitter and that's the only thing you've done, I think you should put it on your LinkedIn profile. It shows responsibility. People are trusting you with their kids. That's a big deal in my mind. I think putting what you have is better than just leaving it blank. Absolutely. So she makes use of the volunteer section, the publication section, and honors and awards. I think that is a great place to start if you don't have professional career work experience yet. I also I'm glad you picked this profile to review because it is of a college student and it's showing you that at any point in your career, even if you haven't even officially graduated from college yet, you can use the LinkedIn profile and like yeah she's used a lot of sections of it already. Audia, I want to say I am so proud of you for creating this LinkedIn profile. I think it's an amazing, it's a great start and excited to see what else you add on and where your career goes. And congratulations on the Diana Award. Nicely done. So between Tiger Sisters podcast, our macho brand, our personal meetings, and the rest of life, how many meetings do you think we have in a week? I don't want to guess too many. I honestly can't even put a number on it at this point, but the worst part is not the meeting itself. It's actually all the follow-up work you have to do after the meeting. Yeah, cleaning up your meeting notes, trying to figure out who has which action item, what are the timelines and deadlines and all the bullet points coming out of every single meeting. And that's why we've been using granola lately, which is a AI powered notepad that is built for the way that real people actually meet. So here's how it works. You take rough notes like you would in any normal meeting and granola transcribes the meeting securely in the background. Then it turns everything into clean, structured, actually useful meeting notes when the meeting ends. So granola works through your device's audio, which means it integrates seamlessly with the video conferencing tools you're already using. If meetings are eating up your day, granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally for free at granola.ai/tiger sisters. That's granola.ai/tiger sisters to get your time back. Try it for free at granola.ai/tiger sisters already. Now back to the show. So Gene mentioned that there is that name pronunciation feature on LinkedIn. I've made complete use of it on my profile because you'll hear I've added a call to action in as well because I am so extra. And so this is an advanced tactic. This is very advanced because I'm using this feature and I added more to it. My name is Shari Brickloo. I'm a podcast host and startup co-founder. Follow me to learn more about venture capital, media, startups, and technology. I am a co-host founder. So I obviously made the most of, I don't know, like the 10 seconds that they gave me and stuffed a lot in there. Obviously I have my name pronunciation. I greeted someone. Some people use this, I think, very baseline to be like, to even have it, but to be like, Shari Brickloo. And like, that's fine because that's what it's supposed to be used for, the pronunciation. But if you're extra like me, you can slip a little something more in there and welcome someone, welcome to my profile. Like it makes it more personal. Like I am a person behind this profile. You want to work with me. I'm not clinical or like, you know, super robotic, professional, but like it is me. And obviously I say that, you know, I'm a co-host founder. I talk about these things. I have a call to action. I've inspired. This is advanced. This is very, this is black diamond. I am extra. I do the most. I worked at LinkedIn. I teach this class. Obviously I have to be advanced. But I think this is making the most of the real estate that they give you. Yeah. And, but it's a very simple thing that anyone could do in like five seconds. Yeah. Just record it. And I haven't changed mine for like years. But this is something that I think helps me stand out. I like it. Alrighty. So on to example number three, we have Wahita Aziz. And we're going to pull up the profile. And I'm just say some things that I really like. Firstly, she has a pronunciation of her name. Woo. Wahita Aziz. It's just nice to be able to put a voice to a face. You know, like I can kind of get a sense of who she is. Wahita has a stunning profile photo. I love the big smile. Looking straight to camera. There's some questions of like, should you look to camera? Should you be looking away? Like how should your LinkedIn profile feature like look? It's not that deep. Some people don't even have photos right now. Or they limit who can see their photos. But I think it is, if you want to be found, you want to be searched for. Have a photo that is visible to everyone. So it's a public image. Some like nit nit picking things. It helps if you're smiling in the photo. It helps if you're looking direct to camera. These are just some of the inside things I know from the profile team on how to have the best profile photo. Wait, they did like research. Yes. And of which profiles get the most clicks. And it is ones where people are smiling. They're looking direct to camera. I also, I mean, I've also not followed this advice. There was a sick photo of me where I'm not looking at the camera. I'm like looking away all artistically. Like you can follow this or not. But like this is what they say gets the most profile clicks. Yeah. Yes. Mine is looking away right now. Is it like just slightly away? It also helps. This is also such insight or knowledge. But if you look at the profile on your phone, it helps if you are facing your profile. Like right, right, where your chest is facing. Like don't be facing off screen. Or I mean, I've also had a profile photo where I'm facing off screen because I look bomb. But why didn't you flip it? I don't want my face to look weird. But like, I don't know. I like one side of my face. I don't know. It looked, but these are just the best practices you can choose whether or not to follow it. Yeah. I also love Wihita's title. I think this is a great example of what to do because it is super concise. And I know what she's about. I don't know what CFP is, but I'm going to guess that it is some sort of certification. It says she's a CFP financial planner, helping first generation wealth builders. Wow. That's that's a credibility and a mission right there. So I love to see that. Okay, Sherry, then what about Wihita's about me section? The first thing I'll say, it's very long. It's pretty long. It's paragraph after paragraph. So it's not super readable. I guess good thing is you haven't about me. I mean, your profile is like, yes, top tier already. There are eight paragraphs. I just counted. I think it's a little tough to read, Wihita. I would break it up into shorter paragraphs into sections, consider adding strategic emojis where they apply or even bullet points if that's easier for you to do. But like, making it easier to parse through, make me want to read your about me. Do you know what I mean? Because right now, it's just like a huge block of text. And there's nothing to like pull you through from like one paragraph to the next. Yeah. I think, you know, in my profile, if you look at my LinkedIn profile at the bottom, I have like a fun facts section. It's like, I create a title. It's okay if you have a longer about me, but perhaps this is just one idea. You can have different titles, subtitles, subtitles and the about me sections. So people, their eyes can follow it a little bit easier as they're reading. That's so tactical. That's a really good point. Wihita, I love your about me because it has so many quantitative features. You have numbers in there. You have 80 plus high net worth households, 124 trillion. I'm not really sure what the numbers mean right now because I'm just looking at the numbers. But you can see my eyes are drawn to the numbers. Yeah. I think that's another good point in that if you are writing a lot, it's helpful to have numbers because they just pop out when there's a lot of text. Absolutely. Right. So your eyes are drawn to the numbers. And that's actually just almost like a psychological tip. Yeah. I think I think that's a good one really. So your eyes can like you kind of said, like go from one thing to the next. You're drawn in. You're continuously drawn in. One nitpick I have about your about me is the change in third person to first person. So in the first paragraph, it is written in third person. And usually this is, it sounds very standard to me because I've seen so many LinkedIn profiles. This sounds like it was generated by the LinkedIn AI feature, which I think is fine to use. But your profile is so much stronger without it actually. So I would remove this section. You know, it kind of just summarizes your work experience, which people can see later in your profile. And it just adds like length to your about me that I don't think is necessary. So I would say stick to first person. The rest of your profile is super strong. And I love it. Great job. Great job. And rooting for you and your continued success. Okay, thank you, Professor Sheree, for reviewing all those examples. And thank you guys for submitting your LinkedIn profiles to us. I think it's fun to see how people are already like super advanced in certain areas. But even people who are the most advanced, there's always something to improve. And for people who are starting at the beginning, I think Sheree has given a lot of amazing tips on how to level up your profile. Yeah. Question I get often is like, what about the industry that I work in? Like what if it is, you know, I'm in a financial institution or, you know, I work in the military or something like, do I need a LinkedIn profile and how should I come across maybe my industry is a bit more traditional? I would say wherever you submit a resume and you add a little bit more about yourself, whether it's the end section of an actual printed resume or like a digital resume, like your LinkedIn profile is an outward presentation of you. And the way that you can stand out more to the person looking at it is better. The more you can stand out, the better. So even if you are, you know, working in banking or consulting and you're like, I am professional and I don't want to have any personality, I would push back against that. I would say even in your resume, your printed resume, your digital resume, you have more personality about yourself and what you care about. And I think that should be reflected in your LinkedIn as well. Hmm. Hot takes. Yes. So, thank you guys so much for submitting your profiles. We will move on to our next section of LinkedIn lunatics, where we'll go very briefly into some of the examples of what not to do, but more importantly, what to do if you are posting on LinkedIn. Hey TigerFam, take five seconds to subscribe to the Tiger Sisters podcast. When you subscribe, you are notified every single time a new episode drops. And if you are listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts, please rate us five stars and leave a comment about this podcast because it really helps people discover our content and it helps us to continue to make the show for you. Thanks. Okay, guys, we're going to start with some examples from this Reddit thread called LinkedIn lunatics of what not to do. So here's a post that this person wrote, "I stayed up for 72 hours straight. No seriously. We didn't even sleep." This past week, these people hosted a leadership boot camp in which we were tested to the limits. The results were life changing. I hit a new gear. I never thought possible. We worked till the job gets done. So I think the thing here, when you're posting on LinkedIn, the way to make a post valuable to your readers is to remove the broitry, you know, the short sentences, that's actually what it's called. It's called you know. Oh wow. So it has a real phrase. Yes, broitry. Broitry? Yes. I've never heard that in my life. Oh really? Because it's called LinkedIn broitry. Because a lot of bros are writing these like, "Short like, I did this, you know, it changed my life." But that's broitry. So you want to eliminate, I think in terms of the structure, the short sentences, because it comes off very AI. Yeah. And a lot of times when it's broitry, it is very much bragging. So I would say for your LinkedIn posts to make them the most valuable for your audience, and also to not show up on this Reddit thread, is to think to yourself, "I'm posting on LinkedIn. What can I teach my audience? What insight do I have to help someone move along in their career?" Yeah. And this is broitry, because it goes, "I hit a new gear. Twelve hour work days don't seem like much of a difficult task anymore." That's just weird. I mean, writers don't seem that daunting. It goes on. I mean, that's just kind of insufferable, right? Let's just be real. Whenever anyone reads that post, you're just like, "What the hell?" You're like, "Let's stop with the exaggeration, right, the hyperbole's, and also let's stop with the humble brags. If you're going to teach something, come from a place of earnest, delivering of value to the people who are reading your post. Otherwise, you might be blocked." Yeah. The comments are, someone says, "Over 72 hours is when you are supposed to go to the ER." Yeah, guys, don't worry 72 hours in a row. Just don't please. We also don't need to promote hustle culture on LinkedIn. I think there's a lot of that where people are like, "I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating. I'm such an intense founder of my start." I think we need more honest conversation about the realities of building a startup, and I think that's better than the hyperbolic posts. Hey, guys, it came to my attention that some of you don't know. We have a matcha brand. What? A matcha brand? Yes, because some of my friends were talking to me like, "Wait, you guys have a matcha brand, and it's called Sisters Matcha. Gina and I started it in October 2024, and it's something that means a lot to us, because I lived and worked on the farm where we source the matcha from." This matcha brand is our baby, and we are so passionate about it, and we really love everything that has gone into it. There's just so much love and passion that goes into our company, and we want to share it with you guys. We source from a small family farm just an hour and a half outside of Kyoto called Wazuka is the name of the town, and it's absolutely incredible. We've visited the farm. We've worked on the farm, and we're so excited to bring it to you. So you can find out more at sistersmatcha.com. That's sistersmatcha.com. Alrighty, now back to the show. Okay, I have another one. This one is kind of funny. This person posted a photo of their baby, and the title of this post on LinkedIn, Lunaticse says, "I had a baby. What that taught me about B2B?" What this person actually wrote is, "I had a baby this year. I only took three days of maternity leave before I was back in the office. CEOs and CTOs. Your code is your baby." This sounds like a joke to me. This actually sounds like not a person. And if you are a person, I'm concerned for you. I don't know. Seeing these posts that are super hyperbolic and also hustle, grind culture, I don't think it's healthy in the continuing discourse on LinkedIn. I mean, okay. If we were going to take this example and make it into what works, I think what this person is trying to do that some people do well, is they relate something from their personal life into work. And they use an example from their personal life and some sort of learning that they have and how it relates to the workplace as well. I think when done well, that can be good. I think it can be good. It's important to learn more about you and learn more about the personal side in addition to the professional side. I think it could be a great window into who you are. If done tactfully, but when it's like a very sort of like bald face way to like lead into a sort of empty lesson, it just doesn't feel good reading it. You're kind of just like, what? I love Pobel. But also like, let's be real, like we're real people, like writing these LinkedIn posts. There are real people reading your LinkedIn posts, like go in with the mindset of how can I deliver value. I'm not, you're not trying to brag. You're not trying to like, one up, you know, everyone else and say, look at how amazing I am. No, like what is the value or learning that you can give to your audience? What is your gift to your audience? And so do you think that's the number one sort of like leading principle that everyone should be adhering to when you're writing a LinkedIn post? Yeah. Try to deliver value. Deliver value. Yes. If you are scared to even start writing on LinkedIn, I would push you to consider how can you deliver value? How can you teach someone something? What insight do you have about an industry, about your career, about what you do that other people might not know that they would benefit from? So I think that should be the ethos. And if everyone is trying to approach LinkedIn in that way, what a valuable ecosystem where people can learn from each other instead of humble bragging and writing broetry and trying to dunk and one up each other. Like I think that's more for X and Twitter. I don't really consume that content, but like let's make LinkedIn a place where we want to learn from each other. Hmm. What a beautiful sentiment. This is not sponsored by LinkedIn, however, if LinkedIn is looking for a partnership, check out partnerships at TigerSisters.co. Once again, partnerships at TigerSisters.co. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of LinkedIn Masterclass Part 2. We went through profiles. We went through some to-do's and what not to do's for writing posts on LinkedIn. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure you subscribe to TigerSisters podcast. It only takes five seconds to do, and once you subscribe, you're notified every single time a new TigerSisters podcast episode drops. And guys, we have a newsletter. Make sure you sign up for our newsletter. You will see the link in our description, or you can find the link at TigerSistersPodcast.com. Thanks guys. We'll see you next time. Bye.