Leveraging this LinkedIn field differentiates you from the competition.
For the last decade, job seekers have been conditioned to focus on accomplishments, measurable outcomes, and endorsements when demonstrating their professional worth. Highlighting these characteristics when applying for jobs has proven to be effective because they emphasize the indispensable qualities that differentiate you from the competition. But do these accomplishments sincerely represent your true value to the employer? I suspect there is more you want to say. You might think to yourself, “Oh, I’ll tell them all that in the interview.” That is, assuming you get invited to an interview. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to shine a light on the behind-the-scenes drivers that make you excel in jobs?
The answer is yes. The best vehicle to communicate your distinctive work-ready traits is your personal story. In your story, you can illuminate your ‘Why?’ to employers, as Simon Sinek describes in his famous TED Talk, ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action.’ Sinek defines our ‘Why?’ as “the compelling higher purpose that inspires us and acts as the source of all we do.” Unfortunately, there are not many places in the job search process that allow you to be authentic and communicate your ‘Why?’. To quickly highlight the qualities that differentiate you from the competition, the language used on your resume, cover letter, and online profiles can focus too much on measurable outcomes and not enough on personality. The major challenge with this approach is that content can be meaningless without context.
Context, as shared through our stories, is crucial to the way humans connect personally and professionally. In an ideal world, job seekers would be asked directly about their ‘Why?’ throughout the job search cycle. Due to time constraints and the pressure to fill positions, this rarely happens during the hiring process. However, there is at least one place that invites job seekers to share their stories: LinkedIn’s personal profile ‘About’ section.
LinkedIn’s ‘About’ section, what some call the summary section, is a place for job seekers to not only present career highlights but also communicate their unique stories. In this space, you can, as Forbes states, “cull info that hits the sweet spot between credibility and likability.”
Through personal reflections, histories, and autobiographies, job seekers can share with potential employers how their unique experiences have shaped their motivations, passions, and choices. These stories allow employers and recruiters to connect and relate to the job seeker in ways unachievable before the interview.
Here is a real-world example of how powerful sharing the ‘Why?’ can be when communicating the value you offer an employer. Names have been changed to honor privacy.
I worked with Amir on updating his LinkedIn profile to attract more employers and recruiters to his page. He desperately wanted to communicate his differentiator, his work drive, in the ‘About’ section. He communicated this characteristic by stating, “I am driven and hard-working, demonstrated by my 10 years at XYZ Company.” Not terrible, but not very persuasive either, as work tenure doesn’t directly reflect a strong work ethic. I knew he could do better. To help him create a more persuasive presentation of his ‘Why?’, I encouraged him to think more about when he first noticed that he had a strong work ethic and what circumstances created the need to work hard. I kept probing until I got the answer. What I learned was a much deeper and more meaningful story that was tremendously more convincing of his work drive than what was originally presented.
I recommended he replace his current qualification statement with his story; below is what he created.
“My strong drive is best exemplified by my unique story. At the age of four, I was adopted from a small village outside of Kathmandu, Nepal, where my birth family and I lived in a small home with dirt floors and no plumbing. My mother died when I was two, and my father was a mountaineering guide often away from home for long periods. With much sadness, my parents put me up for adoption to give me a good education and better employment opportunities. While I enjoyed my new life in America, I always felt deeply motivated to honor the second chance I was given. When I completed my Bachelor’s degree, I felt a huge sense of achievement and pride in serving as the first member of my birth family to get a college degree. Since then, I have continued to have a strong work drive to show my parents that their sacrifice was worth their efforts.”
What is more convincing, the statement he started with or the story he replaced it with? His heartfelt, sincere personal narrative had a lot more power than the dry statement he started with. While it is important to communicate your quantifiable outcome-driven statements to build credibility, it is equally, if not more, important to share your story to create likability. Give your audience a peek into your personal life. The goal should be to share just enough so that they can understand your story and your personal “Why?” as it relates to your desired career field. Sharing your ‘Why?’ will have a stronger impact on the reader and instantly create a connection, thus increasing your likability and giving you an even greater competitive advantage.