The Salesforce Career Show

LinkedIn Complainers + Easy Strategies to Elevate Your Profile Like a Pro

• Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant • Season 2 • Episode 52

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Josh goes off on job hunters who complain about LinkedIn citing a recent article from SFGate. He attempts to set the record straight on the benefits of the platform, the hypocrisy of anti-capitalists in America, and the risks of whining to reporters or the public at large when you're on the job hunt. The show helps you unlock the secrets to turbocharging your LinkedIn presence with our co-host, Vanessa Grant, on this episode of the Salesforce Career Show. Vanessa reveals invaluable strategies for optimizing your profile and personal brand, from crafting compelling headlines to designing eye-catching banners. We delve into exciting job opportunities in the HealthCloud and Enterprise Architect domains and discuss the thriving health and life sciences community within Salesforce. Tune in for practical advice tailored to elevate your LinkedIn game and propel your career forward.

Feeling overwhelmed by LinkedIn's algorithm changes and the flood of content? We tackle common frustrations faced by laid-off tech workers and share actionable tips to control your feed, enhance post visibility, and optimize your LinkedIn usage. Learn about the importance of engaging content like bi-weekly newsletters to maintain visibility in a competitive job market. Our expert insights on LinkedIn analytics will help you make informed decisions to boost your profile's reach and engagement.

Your LinkedIn profile picture and banner can make a world of difference. Discover how to take the perfect photo, design a cohesive banner showcasing your achievements, and craft headlines that reflect your current position and future aspirations. We provide detailed advice on making your profile stand out, from using bright colors and high contrast to leveraging LinkedIn Premium features for job seekers. Don't miss out on our expert guidance to make your LinkedIn profile a powerful tool in your career advancement arsenal.

Josh Matthews:

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, we can just roll. Everyone's good to go Do it. Do it, get it done. Here we go. Salesforce Career Show.

Announcer:

And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It's the Salesforce Career Show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant.

Josh Matthews:

And a very special episode too, because today is all about LinkedIn. We've got special guests not so special, super special, not so special Vanessa Grant. Vanessa Grant's going to be walking through a number of different ways that you can get the most out of LinkedIn. We've also got Peter in the house, Janine's in the house, I see Michael, I see Steven, I see Martha a bunch of you that I can't see and more joining the room all the time. A couple of quick announcements we have at the Salesforce Recruitcom these are not all posted yet.

Josh Matthews:

We have two different architect roles. Okay, One is in HealthCloud and it's awesome, and it's with a guy I know. We've had lunch together. He's a great dude and it pays very well. They've got a nice fun culture. If you have even done a single project in HealthCloud and you are an exceptional solutions architect, then we want to hear from you. More specifically, Steven Greger wants to hear from you and you can. An exceptional solutions architect, then we want to hear from you. More specifically, Steven Greger wants to hear from you and you can reach him, Steven, with a V at thesalesforcerecruitercom, so check that out. We also have an enterprise architect position open right now.

Vanessa Grant:

There actually is, I think, a fairly active health and life sciences community in the Salesforce ecosystem. I know they have a pretty active LinkedIn group and isn't there going to be? We're in all that, yeah, yeah. You yeah, and then there's going to be like you're, you're going to life sciences dreaming or something coming up right, that's the plan.

Josh Matthews:

You know, I, I, I talked to my client. He's one of the sponsors. I talked to him this morning. Peter's convinced me, shannon's convinced me, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to be going that's in October in Philadelphia.

Vanessa Grant:

Cool, I just wanted to throw this in because it's also good for her.

Peter Ganza:

And make sure sorry, josh, make sure you use the code I gave you, because then you know I get something from the LSD team.

Josh Matthews:

Oh, yeah, whatever, sure you got it. I'll probably just going to give Shannon a call. It's a thousand bucks off. Oh well, okay. Well then, in that case, yes, I will definitely be using that code.

Vanessa Grant:

So maybe they should rebrand so that they're not the LSD team anymore.

Peter Ganza:

I tried to, I tried to bring that up and, yeah, I just I didn't know what to say, but it is what it is.

Josh Matthews:

I'll just say that it is Guys, I've got a couple more things I want to say and then we'll start the chit-chat. Okay, one of the things I want to share that I am absolutely loving having guests on this show, but I equally love not having guests on this show, and I'll tell you why. When Vanessa and I reflect back on our clubhouse days, those were the same days as COVID days. Okay, we spent the vast majority of our time. It was typically a 90 minutes, sometimes a two hour show, and all we did was field questions and I love that. Did you like that, vanessa?

Vanessa Grant:

It was like my favorite. I learned so much just from even just thinking through some of these questions.

Josh Matthews:

Yes. So this is a call out. If you are a podcast listener, please send us a message on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on my email, josh, at the salesforcerecruitercom, send in your questions, we'll get them answered. We even prefer people attending the live show Now. If you don't like Elon Musk and you don't like X boo-hoo to you because you're missing out on the most awesome Salesforce live show in the universe, it's this one. So join again, re-sign up, come to the show, ask your questions, get some incredible, very expensive advice, but it's totally free to you, okay, and it's specific and tailored to you.

Josh Matthews:

I liken this to like I. I'm getting back into golf right now. I can sit there and I can watch videos on YouTube all day long about golf swings and course management, but it's not the same as when I go down and I hang out with Rick Martino, my pro, and he actually watches my swing and can correct specifically what's going on with me so I can improve my score, not hold up the game, because I do kind of suck, and everybody has more fun. So getting that personalized, that personalized high touch and group think around what challenges you're facing. You can achieve that all by coming to the live programs. They are on X. They're at 530 Eastern 230 Pacific. They are every other Wednesday, and so today is Wednesday, what like the 31st, so we'll be back on the 13th or whatever it is Okay. So make sure you come to that show, and if you can't make it, it's not the end of the world. Just send me or Vanessa your questions. We miss it. We love that stuff. We want to help you, so let's roll.

Josh Matthews:

Okay, vanessa, you've got some really insightful experience helping people with LinkedIn, but I wonder first if we can just have a little mini discussion before we start helping everyone with this. I wonder if we could have just a little bit of a mildly controversial conversation about an article that I read today. It was published in SFGate. It was sent to me by my Aunt, candy, who lives in the Bay Area. She's got magical timing because I got this about an hour ago and it was really interesting. The tagline is a cesspool excuse me, quote, quote a cesspool Laid off. California tech workers are sick to death of LinkedIn. Tech workers hate the Bay Area company's site, but more than ever they need it. Okay, who here has experienced or come across someone who's just like oh, linkedin, I hate it? Anyone?

Josh Matthews:

I mean always, that would be the first. Okay, I'm getting. Okay. So I heard always from Vanessa Look, linkedin has about a billion users. I've been on it forever. I was right around the millionth user, okay, and it's been around for a long time. It is the largest, most powerful, most comprehensive job board that exists on planet earth. Someone is getting hired from LinkedIn. I think it's every six minutes, something like that. There's so many users. There's about 220 million users in the United States. Now, if we've got what roughly 350, 380 million people, I can't remember. That's a lot of people. That basically means almost every single adult is using LinkedIn.

Josh Matthews:

But what some of these people have complained about? I know one of them said something along the lines of like it's all just like businessy speak and businessy garbage type stuff. It's like, well, yeah, it's a business site chump. I heard a lot of people on this article and, by the way, you can check it out Just go to sfcom. Forward slash tech, forward slash article, forward slash LinkedIn. Dash laid, dash off. Dash California dash workers. Look, you can just Google it SFGate LinkedIn cesspool.

Josh Matthews:

They interviewed 10 people for this thing and these people are basically saying look, it's a necessary evil. One person called it a capitalistic hellscape. I mean, boo-hoo to you. I'm sorry I'm going to rant. Boo-hoo to you. Go cry me a river. It's for business people. What did you think you were going to get?

Josh Matthews:

Here's the other thing. You don't have to go on it if you don't want to. Here's the other thing that you can do. You can get really good at it and then reap more rewards faster, instead of whining to a reporter. Okay, I mean, it's just completely ridiculous, this article and the way people feel. Now I understand. These people are unhappy. They're not working, they got laid off, they're frustrated and during the course of their business, they're having to spend hours a day, or at least hours a week, navigating what can feel like a very complex, oft times overwhelming platform with a lot of information. But, as Vanessa is going to share with you in just a moment, here you are actually in control of your feed.

Josh Matthews:

Okay, people post stuff you don't want to see. You don't have to watch it. You don't have to look at it. You don't have to complain about it either. You can just kind of move on. Now. It did have some really interesting points. It talked about a lot of people doing tons of humble bragging on there and I get it. That can be a little bit exhausting, but so what? What's it to you? Why do you care? Move on, I will tell you too. I had a conversation with my head of marketing today about what's going on with LinkedIn, because the algorithms have changed. Did you know this, Vanessa?

Vanessa Grant:

The LinkedIn algorithm. I did read about it in the article about how it's trying to boost more expert voices and career advice, rather than the humblebrags due to the complaints.

Josh Matthews:

Sure, there you go, okay. Well, I did a little research today using my favorite research tool, which is perplexityai, and here's what I found, because I posted some stuff. I'm like what's going on? This is a video. I should have like 3000 impressions already and instead there were like 600 or 700. I did another post. It got 400 impressions. It should have gotten 3000 over a week. And it's like what's going on. Okay, so here's what it said Reduced visibility for posts with links.

Josh Matthews:

We always knew that, fair enough. Emphasis on high engagement in the first hour. So what this means, guys. This is why and Vanessa will get to this, but I just want to point it out real quick this is why, if you really want something to circulate, you really should be tagging people in your post so that they can see it and like it very quickly. Or you just tell everybody hey, everybody in my office, whatever it is like, go ahead and like it, share it.

Josh Matthews:

Prioritization of personal connections I'm going to skip around here. Formatting, readability, relevance of user interests, spam and low quality content filtering Okay, here's the thing that it didn't say. Even things like running polls aren't getting the same kind of love that they were a little bit before. What's actually going on big time right now is these like hey, we want you to respond to this article as an expert in your field, and these are basically like LinkedIn, ai written articles and then they just want a lot of people to comment on it to get the circulation up. The problem is, nobody reads those, right? Nobody reads those except for those who are commenting on it because they're hoping someone will connect with them.

Josh Matthews:

But the thing that I realized because I looked at our analytics today on our link and I was guided through that by my expert, rachel Minion, over at Rockstar they're incredible. If you need a marketing company, they are fantastic. And she said look at the spikes. Josh and I took a look and you know what they were. They were our bi-weekly newsletters, which, by the way, you can subscribe to. If you don't know how, look on my profile, you can go ahead and subscribe.

Josh Matthews:

There's great articles, great information. It's getting produced twice a month, but those things are going crazy and meanwhile, everything else has been a little bit muted down. So it's very interesting for me because all at once, in one day, we've got this one article of these complainers okay, people complaining about capitalism while they're looking for a job. Please get over it. And then we've got these algorithm changes and then actual proof of the algorithm changes in my own business. So I thought that was really fascinating. I just want to start the first couple of minutes of the show with that, and now we're going to go into some awesome information, unless we want to talk about this for a couple more minutes.

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah's. Talk about it for a minute because I think it's important to. So one of the frustrations, at least that I've been hearing on my side of things when I talk to folks that are in the Salesforce ecosystem looking to get work, is you know, geez, the market's tough right now. What does that mean? The market's tough right now. What does that mean and I think for me, a lot of what that means is that a resume and a couple transferable skills are probably not enough to get a job, like it was maybe back in 2021, where every other company was doing a massive digital transformation using Salesforce, and one of those big differentiators, I think, and almost kind of mandatory at this point, is having to use LinkedIn. For me, I don't look at LinkedIn, as you know, kind of like oh, it's what a cesspool it is. I mean, it's just kind of part of what looking for a tech job, especially a Salesforce job, in 2024 looks like. Just like back in the day it used to be cover letters and resumes and then all of a sudden it turned into Monster and Indeed and then now having a LinkedIn presence is just what it looks like in 2024.

Vanessa Grant:

Regardless of if Even if you do find a job through a recruiter or through Indeed or through whatever everybody's asking for your LinkedIn profile. People put their LinkedIn profiles on their resumes. I just don't think that it's something that is optional anymore if you are looking to get ahead in your career. That's my two cents on it. So, yeah, is it okay if people complain about it? Yeah, people are going to complain about resumes too and having to go through interview processes. It's all a slog sometimes. There are some people that derive joy from LinkedIn. I sometimes derive joy from LinkedIn, but I, you know, I think it doesn't like. It also serves a purpose and sometimes it does require work. Just like your resume requires work, just like interview prep requires work. It's work sometimes.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, it's work, but don't complain to a reporter, because I'm going to tell you something Kyle Cole and whoever else, it was, mark, something or other they were all dudes. Mark Harris, I'll never hire you If I saw that a potential candidate for one of my clients was one of those people willing to bitch about what they have to do to find a job. To a reporter like SFGate It'd be like forget it, you're out of here. Or that you complained about capitalism. Sorry, sorry, you don't like it. I know an island about 100 miles from me that would probably take you, called Cuba. Go have fun over there. I heard the food is terrible. That doesn't mean it's all terrible, but that's what I heard. So go over there, okay, and you can see what it's like to not live in a capitalistic society. Have fun, sorry, I'm I'm kind of tired of this stuff.

Josh Matthews:

I'm so exhausted by this kind of people who are capitalists and consumers and want bigger houses. I mean, this is the same generation that thinks that they need $400,000 a year to be happy, okay, and they say things like this online. It's like grow up big babies. Have you guys heard me like this before? Because this is actually how I am uncapped, because it's like how do you really feel, josh? I'm exhausted by all the whingers and all the whiners and all the complainers. Guess what? We're all in it together, folks. You're not. You know, one person complained that someone posted on LinkedIn that they were really sad and frustrated that they had to let go of so many people, right?

Vanessa Grant:

Yes, the crying CEO. Even I heard of that one.

Josh Matthews:

And I'm not even referring to the crying CEO. There's another guy who talked about it but yeah, that's a big feature in here, right. But it's like they're really sorry. And the person was like, yeah, but did you take $0 salary so that you could keep workers? It's like, are you a moron, sorry, are you a moron? This is, they're running a company Like they have to save the company.

Josh Matthews:

We went through this 18, 19 months ago, in December of 22, when Salesforce laid off 10,000 people. Horrible experience for so many people. Heart goes out to you. It's not fun. We're empathetic to everyone losing a job, struggling financially or finding it difficult to get up on their feet Guess what. That's why we've got this show. Okay, it's free, free advice, so we care, right.

Josh Matthews:

But where I kind of draw the line is when you start blaming every CEO for your situation. You entered into a contract, an agreement. You signed it. You knew what the risks were. You probably didn't investigate them enough. You probably had no sense of what's coming down the pike in the economy. You might not have saved enough money to get through two or three or four months that you need to. Instead, you bought that new Nissan with the wing on the back. Okay, you took that ski trip right Instead of socking it away for a rainy day. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear you complain about CEOs that didn't let you keep your job. They'd keep you if they could. If the money's not coming in, the money can't go out, and if the company folds, then nobody gets a job, not even the CEO who risked everything to launch it. Risked everything, bet their house on it, bet their future on it. And what risk did you take? Ui developer None, you showed up.

Josh Matthews:

So I'm just over it. I'm tired of the whingers. Time to grow up, people, and if you want to grow up right now, you can learn how to fall back in love with LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. I have so many friends on there. I love hearing from smart people. I love learning on the platform. I love being able to stay in touch with people that without that platform, there's no way. There's no way we would ever stay in touch. I'm not on Facebook, I'm barely on X. Okay, there's no way. If not, but for LinkedIn, my life would be deprived not only of my business, not only would I be struggling right now to find people, place people, find clients to support and help them. Help them grow their business and change their lives. I couldn't do that and I couldn't stay in touch with a lot of old friends. So hate it if you will, but you can always go in and get off. You can always get off of it. You know, go be a farmer, they don't need LinkedIn.

Vanessa Grant:

Okay, oh my gosh, josh, I'm I'm horrified. I'm looking on your LinkedIn right now. Did I just miss your birthday last week? Yeah?

Josh Matthews:

you did, it's okay.

Vanessa Grant:

Happy birthday, Josh.

Josh Matthews:

Thank you. Hey, look, don't worry about it. It was a great day. Casey and I couldn't be together that day, unfortunately, but she made it very special. I woke up to a green you know like breakfast shake hand delivered and throughout the day all these wonderful presents rolled in flowers, whiskey and cake at night, like she really made it special. So thank you, casey, who's listening right now. I appreciate you carving out some time. I know you got a crazy day today, busy, busy day, so we appreciate you jumping on here. But yeah, it was a special, special birthday and an interesting birthday. Now I know Peter's had his hand up for a while, so I got a call on Peter and then we'll we'll dive into the meaty stuff. Thanks for listening to me rant. Everybody don't hate me because I'm being truthful. If you don't agree with me, that's okay. Stay tuned. Maybe you'll agree with Vanessa. She's got smart things to say. Go for it, Peter.

Peter Ganza:

I'm going to be as succinct as possible because I could go on, like you, all the rant or not, it doesn't matter. Let me just say a few things. I joined LinkedIn in March 2005. And whatever opinions you have about this, that or the other thing, I personally, in my case, would not have gotten the bulk of the job that I've had without LinkedIn and specifically my LinkedIn profile, because it's something you have to put time into. I tell so many people, at least put an hour a week if you can. I'm like everybody else here. I'm on LinkedIn all day long because I wouldn't have got hired at Salesforce I wouldn't literally I wouldn't have got probably the last five positions that I've had without my LinkedIn and specifically my LinkedIn profile and everything around that. Honestly, I love it, like you, and I mean, like I said, for me, I couldn't live without it.

Josh Matthews:

I think it's incredible. It's an incredible platform. I mean that they came up with this and for what it is doing for the world at large is absolutely, undeniably incredible, is absolutely undeniably incredible. If you would rather have to go log in to Dice, monster, indeed, hot Jobs and 10 other platforms and monitor all 10 of them, that's your choice. Feel free to go ahead. I don't think that you'll be nearly as successful as just spending a little bit of time on a singular platform. And Peter put it great. Peter put it great. Like you got five jobs through it. I mean, I've. The majority of people that we've placed have come through it. It's a really wonderful platform.

Josh Matthews:

And if you're concerned, if you're not working and you're complaining that you have to spend so much time on it, it's like, well, you're not working, what else are you going to do, right? I mean, how much do you care about your next job? So, spend time, don't complain about it. Okay, I'm done ranting, I will. I'm just going to keep it all happy. I'm not going to refer to any of these horrible quoters, all these people that I would never hire or never send to my clients ever again. And, by the way, just words of wisdom. Don't do this. If you are looking for a job, don't complain about looking for a job publicly. Talk to your friends, complain to them, but keep it offline for crying out loud.

Vanessa Grant:

I think that's like an interesting cause, it's. So I actually am more into your take now that it's not specific to LinkedIn. Like, just if you're in the process of looking for a job, don't complain about looking for a job. But all right, here I'm going to hear I'll, I'll, I'll ask you, I guess, a slightly different question. I'll ask you, I guess, a slightly different question.

Vanessa Grant:

So a lot of folks actually share about their job search on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, and that's not always hey, what am I looking for? Or hey, I lost my job, guys, and those are kind of the standard posts, but mostly like along the way, like hey, I applied to this many jobs. Or oh man, I'm really struggling today with motivation because, you know, I'm feeling kind of beat down because of the search. Or oh, it's strange that I'm seeing this on a lot of profiles Like, oh, that's kind of crazy. You know, it's an entry-level role that's looking for five plus years experience, adding commentary along the way and also sharing what they learn along the way.

Vanessa Grant:

How do you feel about that? Because there is an element of complaint, but I also feel like there's some authenticity to that as well. You know, as long as you're not losing sight of, like, I think it's all right. I guess my take would be that I don't have a problem, as long as you're not coming across like, oh, I'm too good for this. I think it's more, it's more of a. It's okay to share your journey and I think if you make your journey particularly compelling, it'll actually draw more eyeballs to the fact that you are actually on that journey and what you're looking for.

Josh Matthews:

Well, yeah, you're not wrong. Like the crying CEO doubled his. You know everyone didn't like no one liked his post, but it he doubled his followers because of that post. Right, so you're not wrong. It can definitely grow your network. I think it's like this.

Josh Matthews:

I'm not saying keep it positive, I'm just saying don't go negative. Right, you just have to imagine that someone like me, who's looking at someone like you and I'm going to make a decision that will either open a door or keep it shut and locked forever. Okay, that's the deal. And you have to assume that people like me in this world we do have pretty good judgment and we use that judgment. We use information that we find on candidates to make the call. Is this someone that we are going to stick our neck out for a client based on? You know?

Josh Matthews:

Maybe, all things being equal, maybe maybe Michael and Anita are both up for the same job, okay, and Anita, you know, doesn't have a lot of posts. They're sort of, you know, maybe not overly consequential I'm not saying that about you, anita, but like, maybe there's, like it's pretty vanilla, and maybe Michael is really passionate, but some of his posts kind of demonstrate that he doesn't actually care if a potential employer is reading this, when the potential employers people like me actually do care and will screen someone out for publicly whining about stuff, bitching about a platform or things like that. People don't like to hire complainers, right? People like to hire people who are confident, that are ready to get work done, that can suck it up buttercup and move forward. And when they're going to whinge or complain, I like to think about Saving Private Ryan. You remember that movie, vanessa?

Vanessa Grant:

Vaguely.

Josh Matthews:

Vaguely. Okay, anyone else here, throw me a little thumbs up. Saving Private Ryan is a sort of an adventure story based on a World War II D-Day and a group of guys, anyway Day and a group of guys, anyway the captain, captain Miller, played by Tom Hanks, and someone was kind of whinging and complaining to him. They were in some burnt out, bombed out church or something like that at night. And the guy asked him he's like hey, captain, like how come you never, you know how come you don't ever complain? I never hear you complain about like all this horror that we're going through, right. And he said well, here's the deal. Shit rolls uphill. You complain to me and I complain to my boss. I'm not going to complain to you.

Josh Matthews:

It just doesn't work like that. So it's nothing wrong with complaining, it's like swearing, it gets it out. It's like therapy, it gets it out. These are all good things, but when you're putting something out there that can't be erased or can't be undone or can be screenshotted or can go viral and make you look, maybe, it will just simply make you look not like, not who you really are. Now you've been soundbited. We all know what that looks like when someone gets inappropriately soundbited right. The media loves to do that because it creates clicks and sells advertising. So just be careful. It's inappropriately soundbited right. The media loves to do that because it creates clicks and sells advertising. So just be careful. It's okay to be a little bit vanilla when you're hunting for a job. Okay, if you are a badass and no one can touch you and you don't worry about what people think, do whatever you want. I support that 100%. I'm just saying you're going to reduce your chances of getting hired if you're a bit of a complainer publicly. That's all.

Vanessa Grant:

Right on All right.

Josh Matthews:

All right.

Vanessa Grant:

Shall we talk a little bit about LinkedIn.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, part two. Okay, the fun part, the nice part, the helpful and educational part. Here we go. Vanessa Grant LinkedIn Off you go, young lady.

Vanessa Grant:

All right. Well, I mean, this isn't just going to be me. It's a conversation here, but something that I tend to do, especially when I'm working with somebody on a one-on-one basis, is to look at their LinkedIn and start adjusting it from the top down. Now, I'm not saying that my LinkedIn is like the be-all, end-all of LinkedIn. I have a job, so I don't, you know, maybe I've kind of, but certainly, you know, there are a few good examples that I'd like to show and just want to start conversations on the different pieces that you can adjust. That I think, and I would love to have a conversation on how much we actually think it would make a difference or not make a difference.

Josh Matthews:

Sounds good.

Vanessa Grant:

Cool, so I'm going to start directly at the top. So first off, let's start at the URL. I don't know if a lot of folks know this. I assume when people are creating their LinkedIn, or if they created a LinkedIn ages ago, they just kind of took whatever the name was. But I actually do think that there is some value into having people be able to find your brand. So I guess I've kind of rolled with real Vanessa Grant on all of my socials. But you can actually go in and customize your LinkedIn URL.

Josh Matthews:

That's right.

Vanessa Grant:

And that's actually one of the things that I look for. You know, when I'm looking at somebody's LinkedIn, I'll say, okay, how much effort have you actually put into this? And the URLs is often a place where I can go oh yeah, you didn't really put a whole lot of effort into this.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, I mean it's not going to keep like, you know, it's a good point. I've never really looked at it because I don't really care, because some people just they're not into LinkedIn. They're like, look, dude, I'm an architect, look, dude, I'm an architect, I'm busy, I got five kids. You know, come on and fair enough, right, you and I, I mean we're, you know, we're in the public and we're doing shows like this and doing speeches and presentations and things like that. We're going to spend a little bit more time and be a little bit more careful. But I do think it certainly makes it a lot easier for people and it takes about 10 seconds.

Vanessa Grant:

Takes about 10 seconds. But what I think probably doesn't take 10 seconds and I guess I'll throw it out there is how do you pick a good name that you're going to basically build your career brand on? Is it just going to be your first name last name? Is it a first initial last name? Should it be like you're the Josh Force? Should you throw some Salesforce stuff in there to kind of demonstrate your dedication to this particular craft, just throwing it out there for discussion?

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, I I've got an opinion on this, which is I think you should, for the most part, keep it to your name when possible. People have midlife crises. They change jobs, they change careers, they change industries. Industries collapse Right, and then you're stuck with this. You know, handle that, maybe isn't relevant anymore, right, and now maybe, yeah, you can go back and change it. But then what about all those emails that you sent out that had your LinkedIn on it? What about all those resumes that you sent out that have your LinkedIn URL on it? They're all now defunct. So I would go real vanilla. I would just use your real name, or some version of your real name, if possible. If you know that you're dyed in the wool, like whatever, you're lead singer of Motley Crue and you're going to be in Motley Crue, you know, till the day you die, that's fine. But everyone else, I don't know. I would, I would, I would lean more towards just keep it to your name.

Vanessa Grant:

Cool, and just throwing in how your URL at the top is also makes it easy for people to find your public URL. So if I say, oh yeah, just look for real Vanessa grant, it's a lot easier to Google LinkedIn real Vanessa grant than it is to Google LinkedIn Vanessa grant. Seven, three, seven, you know, whatever you know string of letters and numbers that LinkedIn will throw in there.

Josh Matthews:

Well, like, if you're, if you're registering for trailhead and you're going to put in all your socials, you don't have to pull it up and copy paste. You just know it's. You know forward slash, I N forward slash, josh Matthews, whatever.

Vanessa Grant:

And this is more of a question I would say for you. I know as a user. Linkedin is going to push premium all the time because it wants my like 47 bucks a month, or whatever it might be. Maybe rates have gone up. What do you think? As far as from the recruiting side, the value is of premium. Do you actually care if somebody's premium? Does it put those people in front of you more often?

Josh Matthews:

I don't know. I mean, I haven't been on premium in 18 years, right, Like 15 years. I have no idea what it does anymore. I think that they get. What do you get? A few extra messages. You can do some in-mails and things like that. Vanessa, what do you think?

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, you get more in-mails per month, but you also get more profile views.

Josh Matthews:

Okay. So look, if you're on the job hunt yeah, I mean, if it was, if it was $500 a month, I'd say do it Right, because and you guys have heard me say this ad nauseum for the last three and a half years give yourself every advantage you can. Right Like, you're better off paying the 45 bucks a month and canceling your max subscription for the month If it's that tight. Put the dollars where they're going to pay. Pay for you know where they're going to serve you. So, yeah, I think it's worth it. I mean, if it gives you some sort of advantage, absolutely spend the money.

Josh Matthews:

I'd go so far as to say anyone who's really serious I mean really serious about getting in contact with the best people for the best jobs and to develop the best kind of network that they possibly can. I'd spring the 120 bucks and get Sales Navigator. You'll get even more in mails and really robust search, you know, for about 120 bucks a month. I mean, think about what you're spending 100 bucks on in a month and figure out if there's something in there that you could live without, right, you know, could you stop doing Postmates two times a month? And now guess what? Now you've got one of the most absolutely powerful search tools in the world, which is Sales Navigator, and you can run massively robust searches to really narrow down your search. Protect your time, be more efficient. Right Communicate with the people that matter, the people that are going to make a substantial difference in your career, your success, your financial success and your happiness down the road. Of course it's worth it. Long answer short question.

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, no, that thought that's. That's why I asked, I think. I think it's an important conversation to have with yourself, especially if you're on the job hunt.

Josh Matthews:

So we started at the top down. We started with the URL. We're talking about paying for services. This is good stuff. I like it.

Vanessa Grant:

Next up is I will. I wanted to chat a little bit about creator mode. So when you're trying to think about the, the types of profiles that you're going to have on LinkedIn, there's really two major ones If you're mostly a job seeker as opposed to promoting business. So if you look at Peter Ganza, he's got services and stuff up on there I may have. Well, hopefully I didn't script the last name.

Josh Matthews:

Oh, every time I say it, you got it right, it's Ganza Not Gonza, like I say Silly New England accent.

Vanessa Grant:

Every time it's good. So there's creator mode and there's not creator mode, and when we switch to creator mode, like on mine, I am in creator mode, which means that my little sections are going to be a little bit adjusted, I'm going to have my featured stuff listed up top a little bit higher and it's also going to default to people being able to follow me as opposed to being able to connect with me. And I think one of the mistakes that a lot of people make when they're initially rebranding their LinkedIn because they're going on the job search is going oh, creator mode, maybe I'll get more people to look at my LinkedIn. I don't think that's a great idea unless you have a, unless you are actually a content creator just because it does prevent people from actually connecting with you.

Josh Matthews:

Well, it doesn't. You just have to dig further. So what you have to do is you have to click the more button I believe it's more and then you have to go scroll down and then you have to click connect there. So it's there, it's just hidden. It's three it's just extra clicks though. Yeah, it's two extra clicks.

Vanessa Grant:

It adds friction to the connection. Yes, yes, and so I would discourage that because you want it to be as easy as possible for people to connect with you. That's my two cents on creative mode. I don't think it's worth it, unless you were actually trying to promote content.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, and look, I saw what happened to yours. I mean, you're at almost, you're probably going to hit 15,000 followers this week. I hit 18,000 last week. It's, you know, it's pretty awesome. I mean, you get an extra three, four or 5,000 connections not even connections followers people who are paying attention to you so you can be of influence, or maybe they just like the things that you know. Whatever you're sharing is either entertaining or is supporting whatever they're experiencing or in their career.

Peter Ganza:

I think it's a really great idea. I just got to the hairdressers. I wanted to say, Vanessa, there's actually four things you get or can get with creator mode, and the follow option that you mentioned is one of those off the top of my head. I don't know what the other three are but thanks for jumping in for that. Well, I also got a good chance to interrupt you, which is awesome, but anyway, I'm going to get my hair date. I'm still here, Okay man.

Vanessa Grant:

All right.

Josh Matthews:

We want pictures by the way. We want pictures by the way we want to. We want to before and after. Make sure you take a before picture. We want a before after picture up on either LinkedIn or X after this Okay. Yeah, and an updated profile photo for your LinkedIn yes, and this time we want you to face, we want you to be facing to your left. Okay, that's a really cool little trick on your profile pictures.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, face to your left, either look straight on or look to the left. So you guys ever watch those Like I don't have any tattoos. I don't have any tattoos, okay, but I've watched. I've consumed enough ink masters in my life to know that one of the key rules of tattooing is that when you get a tattoo of a person let's say you get a portrait on your arm you never have that person facing backwards. Maybe you get a picture, a portrait on your arm you never have that person facing backwards. Maybe you get a picture of someone on your chest. You don't have that person facing your armpit. You have them pointed towards your heart right, always pointed to the inside, and, as we know, profile pictures align on the left side of LinkedIn, and so you want to be looking where all your information is. It's just a gentle little thing, that doesn't? It's so subtle. No, one's not going to get a job because you're looking right.

Vanessa Grant:

Okay, hey, we're going for detail, Like if you were trying to optimize the wazoo. This is you know.

Josh Matthews:

Yes, look towards where the majority of the information is, otherwise you're looking off the page at their plugin. Computer speaker Right.

Vanessa Grant:

I'm kind of looking off the page on mine.

Josh Matthews:

I think you're looking right at the camera. I like it, I like your picture a lot, right? Thanks Go, if you go to mine. Right, if you jump onto mine Okay. So then you'll see, yeah, I can see Right. So that's on purpose, that's not an accident, that that's the direction I'm looking.

Vanessa Grant:

No, I love it and you know what let's. Why don't we move into profile photos? I think you know, I think it's. It's a good conversation and my experience has been a lot of times like people's first LinkedIn profile photos will be like they were at a wedding and it was the first time they they seen a professional photographer in like three years. So they're like okay, cool, that'll be my LinkedIn profile photo.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, tuxedo with, with the bride cut off Nice.

Vanessa Grant:

And then it's, sometimes it's like black and white yeah.

Josh Matthews:

How about this one? How about this one Sitting on a cliff with their dog looking out at the sunset? Thanks, or you could do the Indian one. You know the Indian one, right?

Vanessa Grant:

What's the Indian one?

Josh Matthews:

Oh, it's almost all northern Indians. This is not racist guys, this is just true. Just Google around, look at it, you'll see. It's mostly young men. They always have sunglasses on.

Vanessa Grant:

Oh, sunglasses and a suit.

Josh Matthews:

And a suit and they're staring at the sunset, Like all of them. It's. It's just a cultural thing. It's like cool.

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, the trends on on on LinkedIn photos. Yeah, well, let's hear from the recruiter what do you like to see? You know, when you're looking at a profile photo and I'm happy to throw in my two cents on like things that I tend to encourage people to do.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, I like to see their face. So that's one, and it should be in color, that's two, and they should look moderately friendly. I'm not saying you have to have a big shit-eating grin, that's nice, but you don't have to, it's okay. There are a lot of cultures in America and some of those cultures, you know, smiling is not an option, right? I mean, if you're living in the United States and you came from Ukraine or Russia, chances are you don't have a big, toothy grin because that's just not the culture there, right? So that's fine. But you just want to look competent? Just look competent. Look like you know, look easy.

Vanessa Grant:

I like I do like your profile photo quite a bit, peter. You've got a great one too to folks is to think about the type of job role that you are looking for and then see how your photo is going to stand out among the other folks that are in there. So right now I'm in LinkedIn. I'm looking for Salesforce admin. I'm just going to say Los Angeles, because why not? Just what a search might be, and I think a good way to understand the impact of your LinkedIn profile photo is to start searching for the people that pop up. And when you're scrolling through, which are the ones that stand out to you? Is it the black and white ones? Is it the color ones? I tend to think that ones that have big pops of color. That's why I've got my bright green. But I think high contrast, yes, tends to stand out, it does, and so got my bright green, but I think high contrast tends to stand out, it does.

Vanessa Grant:

And so when you're scrolling, just kind of see where your eye goes and try and mimic the ones that your eye starts going towards, and that would be my two cents with the photo. But I'm also with you. You want something that's going to be accurate to what you look like. I like high contrast. I like your. Your comment about you know should look on the should be looking slightly towards the. Wait, hold on to your left.

Josh Matthews:

Yes, the subjects yeah.

Vanessa Grant:

So you should be looking at your LinkedIn profile or straight on.

Josh Matthews:

That's fine, or straight on I heard. I heard it's better for men to look not directly at the camera, to look a little bit off, and it might be better for women to look directly at the camera. I heard that once. I don't know if it's true. I really don't know, but I heard it, so it's either true or not.

Vanessa Grant:

So do you have any preference on like black and white versus color? I tend to think that color will stand out more.

Josh Matthews:

Never do black and white. Black and white is for romance. It's romantic, it's a romantic picture. You know Paris in the rain not LinkedIn.

Vanessa Grant:

I'm with you, yeah. The other thing that I would say, which I think is not maybe not specific to profile photos, but right below your profile photo there's a little area where, if you're on mobile, you can actually leave a little 10-second voice message. Now LinkedIn tends to make it as like hey, this is where you say your name. So right now I'm on Jodi Herbeck's profile and if I click on hers it just has her saying her name, so that you know how it's pronounced. They give you 10 seconds there. I tend to think that it's a nice little 10-second intro where you can say I'm a Salesforce business analyst in the Los Angeles area currently working for blah, blah, blah or whatever it is, or currently looking for this, that and the other thing Very nice to meet you, please connect with me. Whatever, it is a good 10-second way to kind of Just a little extra thing. I don't know that any business are going to get hired from that. Yeah.

Vanessa Grant:

But an opportunity on your LinkedIn above the fold, because I think the above the fold space is the most important to show off your personality a little bit. I love that. So if you're on mobile, throw in your 10-second blurb. It can't hurt. It will take you 10 seconds.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, it's elevator pitch, and if you need help, just use AI. This is what I do here. Upload your resume. Here's what I do here. I'm looking for a job. This is the kind of job I want. I need a. I need a. You know six or seven. Second elevator pitch Give me 10 examples. Pick the one that sounds most like you and that makes the most sense, and off you go. This is not brain science. You don't have to be overly creative or overthink this.

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, then I want to touch on the cover.

Josh Matthews:

The banner.

Vanessa Grant:

The banner Bruce Banner. So for me, what I've always heard is that your cover should be basically representative of all. Right, I guess I'll say a couple of things. One your cover is above the fold. I think it is a huge piece of real estate on your LinkedIn that people often throw away. If it is not representing you in a certain way, how you want to be represented, then you are not using it effectively. So if you're selling services, you should have your services all written up there so they don't have to scroll down the fold to actually find out what it is that you're offering. Yeah, For me, my stuff has the Salesforce career show and all of my speaking engagements you look at. You don't even have to look at any of the words on my LinkedIn page without going, oh, she's probably an expert in something, Cause it looks like she's an expert.

Josh Matthews:

And she's probably super fun.

Vanessa Grant:

And I'm super fun too.

Josh Matthews:

That's what I get from your profile for sure, from your, from your, above the fold, competent, fun, engaged, happy out there doing stuff, keeping it real. I love it.

Vanessa Grant:

Thank you. And so another common one which we'll see a lot of times. I'm going to go on to Janine's. Sorry, janine, I'm going to call you out, as the kind of more common cover that I see in LinkedIn for Salesforce professionals tends to be kind of like I actually started out with it which is the show off all the certifications.

Peter Ganza:

Sure.

Vanessa Grant:

So get all the badges. When you get a certification, they give you a really nice PNG file, I think it is of what the badge looks like. You can slap together a nice LinkedIn cover or banner from those and, again, just another way to demonstrate where you're at in your career, how decorated you are An easy kind of visual. Okay, wow, all right. Wow, she's got PMP certifications for project management, she's Slack certified, she's a five-star ranger and she's got all these certifications and that's.

Vanessa Grant:

You know, as somebody who would be looking at somebody else when I'm trying to gauge where they're at in their career, that's a good spot for me to look at. I don't even have to look at any text, so I tend to like those. I think maybe sometimes. I think it maybe is not Because there are a lot of them, it might. I think it. It maybe is not because there are a lot of them. It might not necessarily stand out as much as it did like maybe three or four years ago, but I still think it's. It's still pretty impactful if you know if, if you don't have something else going, you know going on or other great photos that you might be able to put in or maybe do a combination of all of it, or it's just worked.

Josh Matthews:

So who cares? Right, like that's the other thing worked. So who cares? Right, like that's the other thing? It's like, yeah, people are hitting me up for connections every day, so why am I going to change it?

Vanessa Grant:

Right, because that's a real thing.

Josh Matthews:

You know, yeah, look, when you're creating a banner, I recommend just go to Canva, right? Or you can pay someone 10 bucks, 15 bucks, 20 bucks on Fiverr to say, hey look, I need a banner. It's what I'm all about, this is what I want it to look like. Make it sharp for me. If you don't have the design skills, just pay someone it's literally 10 bucks or you can just get something for free. You know, just Google LinkedIn banners copy it, throw it on Canva Sorry, I meant Google, pull it off Google, throw it onto Canva and then, just, you know, put in some cool words. One of the things I like about what Janine's done is she's got a coordinating color, her sport coat that she's wearing. It ties in with the kind of aqua, blue, sort of teal colors in the banner. And if you go to mine, you'll see that and this was on purpose that the background color in my profile circle matches the color of my banner. So it feels and looks like it's all together, like it's put together, like a nice suit, right.

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, yeah, I like that, yeah, so I do think putting in your certifications is a nice thing. I think, ultimately, at the end of the day, what you want from your banner is what is it saying about you? And if you're just throwing in like a sunset, right Like your favorite mountain range. I just don't think it's serving.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, or like tech, like little glowing tech wires from like a zoomed in computer chip or like whatever.

Vanessa Grant:

Or if you're literally Googling LinkedIn tech banner and describing the first thing, which a lot of people do.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, look, anything. I'll say this anything is better than the gray. You know anything is better than the gray. You know anything is better than the default. Right that if you just use the default banner it's not a good look.

Josh Matthews:

Now I don't really care. It's not like I'm going to make a big judgment call on a candidate because of their banner too much. But if I'm looking at I'm looking for busy enterprise level architects and they don't have any kind of fancy banner, I literally don't care. But if I'm looking at solution architects or people who are, or salespeople, people who are customer facing, aes, rvps and this sort of thing, or leadership, and there's nothing going on there, then I just feel like, well, that's a missed that, that's a missed opportunity. That speaks to their judgment. It's not the end of the world, but it goes in the back of my head and then I'm now. My spidey senses are alert for other judgment calls. I hope that doesn't sound too picky. Some people might tear me apart for saying that, but you don't have my job, so you know so just leave it at that.

Vanessa Grant:

I'll throw one to you, Josh, that I actually tend to point people to as like a really good example of a great cover Not Salesforce guy, but more of a Tableau guy. But there's a guy named Christian Bordeaux Christian just with a C-H and Bordeaux B-O-U-R-D-E-A-U. He works at Amazon Prime, so you could probably even just Google him. He's got like 23,000 followers.

Peter Ganza:

Yeah.

Vanessa Grant:

I adore his banner. Maybe he doesn't need to throw his name on it, but I love that his banner includes a real quick thing about where he was previously at and also shows his competencies right there very, Very graphically. Like you don't need again, you don't need to see anything else on his LinkedIn, you could. You could just look at his banner and know who he is.

Josh Matthews:

It's super dope.

Vanessa Grant:

He's giving you the pitch.

Josh Matthews:

It's super dope. I love this. I love this banner. It literally says prime video that's where he works, prime video above his head, and then previously at, and then in gray, you know, nike, netflix, warner brothers and so, and PlayStation right, so in Activision, blizzard, so really well-known gaming or athletic or media companies and it's like, oh, okay, I get it. And then the yeah, you're right. And then he goes back to color for the databases, etl and orchestration and reporting and a data professor at UCLA, keynote speaker Like this is this is great and his name's nice and bright. The only thing I would say is hey, it's a great picture. It's a great photo. You're facing the wrong direction.

Vanessa Grant:

That's all I would say yeah, facing the wrong direction Right.

Josh Matthews:

I want to make a comment about pictures. To images also get it updated. Did get it updated because if it like, it's always a weird thing. I noticed this when I had my big stash right and people would book an appointment with me and then I jump on and I've got this big mustache and they're like oh wow, I look totally different. Right, try to look like you look. Try to look like you look. If it's been five years, it's time to update it.

Josh Matthews:

Sorry, you don't like your weight anymore, or you got a pimple last week, or you preferred your haircut from before, it doesn't matter, no one cares, okay, no one cares. Just, we want, when you're going to meet people, what we want is a representation of what they can expect. Now, right, and that should be. That should tie in. Now, right, and that should tie in. I've seen a lot of images on here where they put their photo on 10, 12 years ago and it was already a 10 or 12-year-old picture, right, so they've edited it down. So you think you're about to interview a 30-year-old and they come on and they're past retirement age. Not that that's a bad thing, but it feels disingenuous. It feels like I'm getting tricked, right, not in a horrible way. It's just like come on, get it together. You never want to put thoughts in someone's head that you might be hiding something, right? So just put it all out there.

Vanessa Grant:

So, to piggyback off of that, how do you feel about the new kind of trend of a lot of folks doing AI?

Josh Matthews:

profile photos. I got no problem with it and I'll tell you and I'll prove it my image is a AI photo, oh, okay, okay, it's a composite. I paid 50 bucks and I spent two hours going through this stuff, doing the photos and tweaking everything. It's an AI photo, okay, because I just don't have the lighting equipment here and I didn't want to go spend 200 bucks like I did for my previous photo, which was up for years, or at least two or three years, and before that I'd spent two 300 bucks on a professional photo. I just didn't want to do any of that.

Josh Matthews:

And guess what? That image of me, that's actually what I look like, okay. So it's not. It's not like anything's being hidden, it's just I was able to, you know, pick the lighting a little bit better and my wild you know hair curls, like weren't, were a little bit more tame. You know what I mean. I don't have a problem with it at all.

Josh Matthews:

I can tell you that was one photo, that was one image, out of about you know 300 examples anything that looked like it was trying to make me look too thin or more handsome or more powerful or actually strengthening my jaw. So I actually don't need help with that. Like I didn't want to look like a superhero Okay, like I wanted to look like me, and so I just sort of need help with that. I didn't want to look like a superhero, I wanted to look like me, and so I just sort of narrowed it down to the five or six that literally looked the most like me but had a nice quality to it, a nice finish to it. That's what I picked, oh, interesting and you didn't even know.

Vanessa Grant:

Isn't that cool, so it works. I didn't. I just thought you turned up the high contrast.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, and you hung out with me in person multiple times in multiple different cities and it never came to mind, because that's actually what I look like. So use AI if it's what you look like.

Vanessa Grant:

Cool, I like that advice. I mean I had also heard, like before AI came along, like if you were looking to get more professional type photos without spending professional type photo money, without spending professional type photo money, jcpenney still does those, you know, kind of like back in the school portrait mode portrait photos. I wouldn't Would do it. No, steven, you wouldn't do it, and then like adjust, and then maybe adjust contrast a little.

Josh Matthews:

Nope, steven, did it? Remember that, steven?

Josh Matthews:

You know, so, yeah, steven did it. I wouldn't do it. Steven's picture. Isn't that a great picture of Steven? We can see him. He's listening right now. Isn't that a great picture? He used the same product that I used. That's what Steven looks like in real life, but the JC Penney photos had them all washed out. It wasn't good. And then you're like it just wasn't good. No offense, steven, but we both opted for this same product and we went through it and, you know, picked out, picked out the ones that looked most like us and and yeah, so I would, I would never do JC Penney. You're better off doing portrait mode on your friend's iPhone 15. You're going to get a better picture that way. Right Then going to.

Vanessa Grant:

JC Penney. Yeah, I think technology has improved so much that, yeah, portrait mode's probably the way if you can't do the AI. But I like the idea of like the okay to do AI, just to have something that stands out but looks like you, janine, just changed her ex photo to cat ladies and For Kamala Speak your mind, janine.

Josh Matthews:

Speak your mind. That's hysterical. That's hysterical, all right, sorry to digress. Well, this is great. You know, we're an hour into the show and we have so far gotten one and a half inches down into the LinkedIn profile.

Vanessa Grant:

But it's the most important one and a half inches in my opinion it is.

Josh Matthews:

Should we?

Vanessa Grant:

talk about taglines.

Josh Matthews:

I agree. Should we talk about taglines Okay?

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, you mean the headline.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, whatever it's called, yeah, yes.

Vanessa Grant:

The thing where you get to say, I would say let's, let's get through this section and then we'll we'll call it a day until the next one, but I, I think so we've got our names, the you know name pronouns, it's you know whatever makes sense there. One quick thing that I would touch on is when you're doing your, it's called the intro section, which is where your name and your LinkedIn headline goes. One of the see that there are going to be a lot of people who will just again throw away that headline by just writing Salesforce admin in their headline, so not taking that opportunity to stand out, or they'll just throw their current title in, which is even kind of worse if you're looking for it. Like, what's your current title? Like, I think it's now my take on the headline. Use up as much space as you want, but you also want it to be a bit memorable. Again, it's your headline, so it's your elevator pitch to, to, to who you are. But I think it's also a really good spot to talk about where you want to be.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, let's talk. Can we get like yours? Yours, yes, okay. So yours says 10X certified Salesforce, business analyst and product owner. And then what do you call those big bars? I never. They're called pipes, pipes, okay, thank you. Okay, keyboard illiterate here. Then pipe MBA, pipe, csm, pipe, df22 and DF23 speaker soon to be.

Josh Matthews:

Now you can just say DF22, through 24 speaker, right Mentor advisor. Social media darling that's my favorite thing on your whole thing. Social media darling that's my favorite thing on your whole. Little elevator pitch Enjoys, quote, unquote messes and solving problems with technical solutions and process improvements. I think it's awesome. I mean you get a lot of information out of that and that, combined with a big smile and the really cool banner, it's like I'm looking at this and guess what? I know you. This is you. This is you. It's authentic.

Vanessa Grant:

And actually did I ever tell you the social media darling story? No, oh gosh. Yeah, there was a guy who called me out on LinkedIn, actually for this show, saying you know, don't believe the social media darlings out there. And just the guy had a bone to pick with me for whatever reason. I think he thought I was after his job and so I was like you know what? I'm not letting this asshat on again LinkedIn for talking like takeover.

Josh Matthews:

That cesspool of 1 billion people.

Vanessa Grant:

You know what. You know what you want to call me social media darling, I'll own it. I'll own it. So I own it now. It's mine. So it has now become a part of my headline and, oh man, it got under his skin so badly that I started using it.

Josh Matthews:

I think that's awesome.

Vanessa Grant:

So yeah, there's the story behind me. Calling myself a social media darling is actually, you know. It's one of those things, though, that people have picked up on, and I still get messages about people saying you know, oh so you like solving messes? Well, have I got a mess for you? But it's great for the line of work that I'm in, you know have.

Josh Matthews:

I got a mess for you, but it's great for the line of work that I'm in. You know. I think it's terrific. And something I just realized too is on your actual profile picture you're wearing your hashtag.

Vanessa Grant:

badass t-shirt, right? Yes, my badass BA shirt.

Josh Matthews:

So you're getting to say badass on LinkedIn right up front, but only if you lean into it and squint a little bit. I think that's cool.

Vanessa Grant:

Thanks. So so yeah, as far as the headlines. So another thing that I like to say about the headlines is don't have it just be where you are at in your current state. I think your headline also needs to be where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? Something that I've thrown on there and I learned this just from other folks that are kind of influencers in the LinkedIn community is I threw the word speaker on there before I'd ever spoken at any place. I can be a speaker without having ever spoken. That's just who I am who I want to be.

Josh Matthews:

You're speaking right now.

Vanessa Grant:

I'm speaking right now, you can throw Salesforce I think you can throw Salesforce admin on a headline as long as you're not saying, if that's the role that you are right now, that you want to be, that you're looking for, that is you. I don't think that that is a bad thing to throw on your headline as long as you're not twisting your experience to make it look like you're an admin when you're not.

Vanessa Grant:

But I think if you're a Salesforce admin or looking for that role, it's okay to throw that on your headline, as long as it's qualified.

Josh Matthews:

Let me ask you this. Let's say someone goes and gets their admin certification. Are they then an admin? Does the certification make you an admin or does having a job as an admin make you an admin?

Vanessa Grant:

I think that you can be a working admin and that's where it would be in your experience. But I think as far as your headline goes, it's who you aspire to be. Headlines for me are like where are you moving? What is your direction? What do you aspire to be, where you don't have to qualify your headline necessarily with the actual experience. If you want to look at somebody's actual experience, you look down in their experience section. I wouldn't put Salesforce admin there unless I was a working ad. That I think is not and I've seen that done over and over, like if people did, like hey, I did an experience cloud, I spun up a dev org and did something and I'm calling myself an admin now. That I'm uncomfortable with because that's not actual working experience. But I'm actually comfortable with folks doing it on a headline and they could qualify it with saying like aspiring Salesforce admin. I tend to just say get rid of the aspiring and just say you're a Salesforce admin and then let them, but give them a reason to scroll down more and go.

Josh Matthews:

Oh wait, but they don't actually have working experience as a Salesforce admin and I'll I'll say no, right, right, there are other styles Like. My style is a lot fewer words, right, yours is, I think, three lines deep, right, yeah, mine's, mine's pretty deep. Yeah, mine's short but punchy and it's just, and I, I like both styles, right. I mean, I do like your style because you're getting a lot of information in really quickly. My style is I'm just getting the most important information out in a really memorable, digestible way, right, so there's a thing about being sticky here, and sticky just means like you're going to remember it, right, hopefully you're going to remember it.

Josh Matthews:

So mine, I say I recruit Salesforce superstars and empower leaders to hire for success, and that's all it says. It almost all fits on one line, right, it's really clean, and I kind of like that. I kind of like that, but I like that for me. Like it's not for everybody, but saying what you do instead of your job title, I think that's really cool. That's my. You know, this is my elevator pitch. By the way, if you get trapped in an elevator and we're between floors, someone says, hey, what do you do? I recruit Salesforce superstars and power leaders to hire for success. Boom, now they know exactly what I do, right, not well. Power leaders to hire for success. Boom, now they know exactly what I do, right? Not well. I run a small business in the Salesforce ecosystem like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like I'm not going to do that right, we want to get punchy quick, but hot keep it memorable and get the message across fast.

Josh Matthews:

So that's just another style, I think. I think Peter's is similar. I'm going to pull his up here real quick. Let's see Steven Greger's. I help top Salesforce pros find exclusive opportunities. Okay, there's a couple of recruiters for you. Peter Ganza, ganza, ganza, which is it. Okay, helping Salesforce app exchange partners get more leads, it's good. And then it says Crowforce co-founder, and he's used some hashtags in here. I don't love that. You can put hashtags in your about section, right. The other thing is you can go all caps on this. So if I was Peter, I would say helping, I'd get rid of the hashtags. I'd say helping Salesforce app exchange partners, and then all caps get more leads right. That's what I would do. I think it would pop a little bit more. I'm being real picky here because there's nothing wrong with this In fact, there's nothing wrong with almost anyone's because it's up to you what you want to put on there. But yeah, some good recommendations. Do we want to go much deeper here, my friend Vanessa.

Vanessa Grant:

The only other. A couple other things that I just want to touch on real quick on this, since we're just to get through the intro section and then we'll call it a day would be on your right. You actually have the option of whether you want to include your current company right now or not, and I think when you're looking for a job, especially if you're maybe still working at the organization, maybe take that off. Or if you don't want to show off your school for some reason, you can take that off. Or if you, you know, don't want to show off your school for some reason, like you can take that off too, but make sure that the items on the right are actually serving you. Like if you're trying to do a hard pivot into a different industry entirely, or maybe it's a company that nobody's ever heard of or has, like a reputation. Like maybe leave that off for the the experience section and maybe just focus on the things that will be positives to your profile.

Josh Matthews:

That's interesting. I have a different take on that. I totally get your point, though. I totally get your point. If someone's working and they have their company listed, it's like okay, they're working. That says something to me, a positive thing. Now, if they're flipping burgers at McDonald's and trying to be to be a you know, salesforce admin, maybe not right, okay, fair enough. But if it's in the industry, if it's a relevant, if it's a relevant role to the kind of role that you want, I see only a benefit of having it up there. The one thing that you want to be careful of is when you if you are secretly searching for a new position, you're currently employed, you will want to go into your settings and adjust who gets to see what. When you make edits to your profile. I think the default is that when you make an edit, it just gets it's like an automatic post. It just gets pushed out there. So you want to turn that off. Just make your edits. Make your edits quietly, right.

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, and I'm not even talking about necessarily the experience section, like if you have a current position there, I would include it as well. I'm just talking about in your intro section, like to the right of your yeah, of your headline. That's the section I'm talking about, yeah.

Josh Matthews:

I mean, I I think it's good to have it up there, but but just because in a flash I can see, oh, this person's working right.

Vanessa Grant:

They're working.

Josh Matthews:

Okay, right, this is not dissimilar to how I feel about the open to work or hiring circles, the little purple and green circles around the profile pic, cause that's that's top of the, that's top of the fold, vanessa. We might want to just cover that again in like two minutes. What do you think?

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, yeah, I think it's important, go for it.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, I don't like it there you go.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, I don't like it at all Right now. It's got some benefits. People who are there, are recruiters out there. They are needing to hire people. They need to hire people really fast. Okay, it's a fast, quick process. Maybe they've been tasked with bringing on 20 contractors. And if you are open to work and it's you know your profile is marked that way and you're not working and you have that up, you may be found more easily by certain recruiters and certain companies.

Josh Matthews:

But, as we covered deeply about two episodes ago, there is a desire of hiring managers to hire people who are currently employed, or at least appear to be employed, and the reason for that is manifold. Some of the reasons are okay, like someone will have them. Okay, that's a start. You know to. There's an expectation of slightly greater honesty in the communications and in the recruiting process. With this person, someone who hasn't worked in six months, they're, they're on the dole, they're running out of money, they've maxed out their credit cards Guess what they'll do to get their next job Anything. And so it can send a mixed signal. Not a mixed signal, it can send a warning sign to some people. Well, they're not working, why aren't they working Now, if you're not working and you've got that circle up there and it's serving you.

Josh Matthews:

I think that's great and I don't think that there's absolutely anything wrong with being unemployed. I've been unemployed before. Okay, it happens, it happens and you get through it, so there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing to be ashamed of is what I'm trying to say, because sometimes people can really feel strong emotions and shame. There's a lot tied up with can I provide for myself? Can I provide for my family? What's going to happen to us? I'm taking care of my mom and how can I support her if I'm not working and my life is crumbling and this is horrible. So we can put a lot of shame on ourselves. This is not about shaming you. This is about giving you those small little two millimeter shifts and adjustments that are going to give you the best chance. And what we're doing here is we are activating what I like to call the blink mind. Who here has read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell?

Vanessa Grant:

Okay, just me. I have not. Okay, just me.

Josh Matthews:

All right, Give me the cliff notes. Okay, oh, Janine has Cat crazy cat lady has. All right, Janine's read it. So the idea with Blink is that in an instant you know you're powerful. Your brain is so powerful. It is so powerful. It's amazing. I love human brains. They're fantastic. It's so powerful. It can synthesize so much input, so much information so quickly and generate a synapse that you know creates an emotion and a feeling. Right, it just happens.

Josh Matthews:

And he starts off the book with someone who is responsible for authenticating ancient art okay, Ancient statues. And there was one statue when all of the oh God, like half-life readings to check how old the artifact actually is were good, right, that the paint was accurate from the time period and had the right again half-life and things like that and chemical makeup. But there was something about this thing and he's like he looks at it and it's just something off and he cannot define it, he cannot describe it, can't articulate it. This happens when we meet people. You ever meet someone and you're like I don't like that guy. How come? I don't know, I just get a funny feeling. All right, what was it? I don't know. It takes a lot of training to be able to boil it down and be able to say like, oh okay, it was his three flashing micro expressions of anger and disgust. And then it was also the way that you know, this guy was never looking at me, it was only he was. You know, I caught him staring at my girlfriend like, whatever, it is right. So this happens, but we might not be able to articulate it.

Josh Matthews:

So the blink is basically our gut, what's your gut feel? And so everyone's profile is going to give someone some sort of gut reaction. And then remember, don't try to be all things to everybody. You will be nothing to no one. You Don't try to be all things to everybody, you will be nothing to no one. You'll be nothing to anyone or no one. I can't, sorry, I need to go back to sixth grade and learn syntax here, but you want to create the most positive, confident impression as soon as possible.

Josh Matthews:

Right, and statistically, people want to hire people who are working, including yours truly. I just do. It makes my life easier. I just do Doesn't mean I don't. Sometimes, Of course, we hire people who aren't working and are in between jobs. Of course, and if someone's a better candidate and they're not, I'm not going to say no to a better candidate who's not working in favor of someone who is working and isn't as good a candidate. It's not like it. Ain't like that, folks right, it ain't like that. We're trying to create a massive, palpable initial impression. And you know, go read Blink, go listen to the audio book, pull up perplexity and say, please summarize Blink for me. There you go, You'll figure it out.

Vanessa Grant:

There you go. Last little thing, josh what do you feel about the contact info as far as like? Do you think it's important to throw your phone number on there? That's the big one. I would say email important, phone number not important, but curious as a recruiter where your take would be.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, I mean, all my stuff's up there, right? I want people to reach me. I want them to be able to get in touch with me. Okay, if you're looking for a job, I would put it up there. Might you get combed and sent a bunch of spam stuff? There's a way around it. If you're looking for a job, I would make it easy and put your contact info. If you're in sales, I would make it easy. Put up your contact info. If you are a hermit and you don't want to be bothered by anyone for any reason at any time, definitely don't. But here's the thing. Here's the thing, folks, if you go onto LinkedIn once a month and no one has your contact information, then all those messages they're going to pile up and you might miss really great opportunities. So if you're not going to put up your contact info, at least make a commitment to visit and check your messages once a week.

Vanessa Grant:

I think that's smart and you can always create one of those Google numbers too If you want to throw a different number that just forwards to you. Yeah, there you go. I'd also just a couple of things. They have a section for websites. I think it's a good spot to throw. If you've got one of those portfolio sites like good, good place to throw it.

Josh Matthews:

If it's good. If it's good we went through this two years ago. There are some really horrible ones. If it sucks, don't put it up.

Vanessa Grant:

Yeah, If it sucks, don't put it up. Or if it's old, old content that you know or personal content, maybe, don't throw it on the websites. And the other thing that I did and I don't know if it would make a difference or not, but I I don't live in Los Angeles properly, live in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, but initially I used to just kind of throw the actual LA I mean, I'm in LA County city that I'm in but I just ended up throwing Los Angeles, California, as the nearest big city that I'm in, kind of the area that I think that I'm in, as opposed to like, oh, I live in Torrance or whatever.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, that's totally fine, do you?

Vanessa Grant:

think it's easier to find people that way, Because I think that I'm wondering if it has some impact on the algorithm. If you're like I'm in the LA metropolitan area, so LA people reach out to me.

Josh Matthews:

You know, for you I don't think it matters because you're remote and you probably will not ever want to take a non-remote job again, right? So I don't think it really matters for people in our ecosystem as much as others, right? But let's say you live a solid hour out of a city center and you're unwilling to do a two-hour round-trip commute every day and you're getting a lot of offers for jobs and they're just not anywhere near where you would want to drive to. Well then you're just wasting everyone's time, including your own. So if you're in the market for an opportunity and you want to connect with companies that are near to you because having a short commute is important to you, then I would put in, I would, I would put in the city, put in your actual town. And I think, if you put in the actual town, when I'm running a search, say on Sales Navigator, and I search Los Angeles metro area, guess what, torrance is in there, so you're gonna come in there anyway, I'm gonna find you right anyway, if I'm searching for LA metro.

Vanessa Grant:

Cool, I appreciate the recruiter perspective, josh, and I think with that that kind of covers our intro. There's your biggest above the full portion of your LinkedIn site, now fine-tooth combed by the Salesforce Career Show.

Josh Matthews:

I love it. This was so fun, and you know what my favorite part was Was honestly okay. I'm going to be honest, I loved ranting. That was so fun for me. Oh my God, it felt so good to complain about complainers. Look at me, look at me. I'm just as bad as them. All right, this is great stuff, man. Look, you clearly did your research. You've helped people on this before. I love your insights, vanessa. It's really fantastic and let's definitely do a part two. We'll call it below the fold because there's so much to it. Right, we just talked about one aspect of one of the largest platforms in the world Again, about a billion people. I swear to God, it was 700 million, like a year and a half or two years ago. Right, it's just grown so much, so much, and it's not like and it's mandatory.

Josh Matthews:

Yes, it's, yeah, it's mandatory. When I talk to people who are like, yeah, I'm not on LinkedIn, I don't want to be on LinkedIn, it's like, okay, well, and what do you want me, you know, and what am I supposed to do for you? You know, you don't want to be on LinkedIn why? And then they always have some poor excuse Now I get it, like I get it. You never need to be on LinkedIn. Then don't be on LinkedIn.

Josh Matthews:

If you're not in sales recruiting, if you're not a leader, if you're not a Look, if you're a hiring manager and you're not on LinkedIn, I would say that you're an ineffective hiring manager. Sorry, I don't think you're very good. I don't think you're covering all of your bases. Okay, you're not. What are you doing? Leaning on talent acquisition? Good luck with that, pal, have fun. Have fun. How do you like your team? How would you rate them?

Josh Matthews:

If it's not a 10, get on LinkedIn or call me. I'll help you out. I'm on LinkedIn, I'll be on LinkedIn for you, which, by the way, the end here, but I am doing a Dreamforce special. Between now and the end of Dreamforce, if you register with my company, you don't even have to have an open job order. If you have an agreement with my company, we are going to offer you six month financing for free. We're going to offer you a six month guarantee and I'm also going to give you a 20% discount on architects and developers from our normal pricing. So that's what we're doing. It's a little Dreamforce special and you get to sign up, and if you sign up, by the way, that deal that gets honored for a full 12 months. No, no price increase. You can hire 10 people and you're still going to get the same Dreamforce deal. So I wanted to put that out there.

Josh Matthews:

Super cool yeah it's super cool, all right.

Vanessa Grant:

Thanks, josh, it's been a fun episode.

Josh Matthews:

It has been a fun episode. I'm stoked to get this thing processed. Speaking of stoked about new episodes, processing episodes started to take a little bit longer. Okay, so we've got. Mr Ferguson's podcast is going to be produced and released tomorrow. So if you're listening to this live, check out from two weeks ago. Was it two weeks ago? Check out from two weeks ago, it was so. I love this guy. He's so smart, so smart yeah.

Josh Matthews:

So smart and insightful art collector, sales expert, lots of children, wonderful man, very insightful, very bright. It's all about selling in the ecosystem. So if you're an AE or an RVP, or maybe you're working at a partner, maybe you're doing business development or maybe you have people like that reporting to you, maybe you're a practice lead or a VP or you're in RevOps or something like that, this is definitely an episode for you and it's got a lot of really good, heartwarming stuff in it as well. So I love that episode. So it's going to be out tomorrow. Check it out, and we'll be back in two weeks. And I want to say now I got to go to our website and, by the way, we do have a website at salescom and upcoming shows July 31st, that's today. Okay, august 14th, all right, I'm stoked about this today. Okay, august 14th, all right, I'm stoked about this, all right.

Josh Matthews:

Trevor McAlder. Trevor McAlder is an executive results coach with Robbins Research International. That's Tony Robbins. So Trevor has been an incredible influence on my life for the last three years. He's been my personal executive coach and we talk about three times a month and he's a wonderful man. He's been my personal executive coach and we talk about three times a month and he's a wonderful man. He's very smart, he's got a new little baby wonderful guy and he helps people absolutely get through certain hurdles in their business, in their personal life. This is not a sales pitch although it could be but he's going to join us and he's going to share some critical keys that will help our listeners be more successful in their careers and in their personal lives, and I can't think of a better way to have a mid-August episode. I've been wanting to get him on for a long time and so I'm stoked that we get to have him on. So join me and my personal coach. We're not going to talk about my personal stuff, but my personal executive coach maybe we will. You know how I am. I'm hard on my sleeve. I don't mind getting a little vulnerable. So we're going to talk about some strategies that are going to help people break through some barriers, and it's I swear to God, it's like freaking magic. Some of this stuff, it's always hard work behind it. None of it's easy, okay, but once you know how to do some of these things, you'll have massive breakthroughs. And I'm a huge fan of Trev and he's going to join us. So stay tuned for that.

Josh Matthews:

And then we've got our September 11th. We're going to have our get getting ready for dream force episode and then when we come back, when we come back, we're going to be joined by a really special person and his name is Brandon Stein. Brandon is the director of digital transformation at MRE Consulting. He used to be an RVP out of Houston for Salesforce for a number of years. He's a pianist, he has a wonderful family, he is I'm not even joking here he is literally one of the absolutely most thoughtful, kind, considerate, helpful, genuine people walking planet earth today, and he's very smart and he knows his stuff. So we're going to be joined by him. That's a very I've known Brandon for years and that's going to be another very special episode. So I'm super excited about our next few shows and we've got even more coming down the road.

Josh Matthews:

If you'd like to be a guest, all you got to do is go to salesforcecareershowcom and click on Be Our Guest.

Josh Matthews:

And what do you do? You give us your name, your email, a little bit about you and what you'd like to talk about, so you can do that. And then there's also a new link folks and I should have mentioned this at the very beginning Ask Us Anything. So it's just at the bottom of the website. You scroll to the very bottom or close to the bottom, it's not the very bottom. You can just click on Ask Us Anything, okay, and then you can drop in first name, last name, email address, a little bit of oh wait, no, that's the be our guest. Sorry, I did this wrong. Ask us anything, okay. First, last email address, and how can we help? So, and then you don't have to share your name. So it says can we share your name, yes or no? Please make it anonymous. So we'd like your name, so that we you know. That's how you're going to send it to us, but we'll keep it confidential if you don't want to be found out.

Vanessa Grant:

So now we've got this new great way for uh, you to ask us questions and god knows, vanessa and I we love answering questions, don't we vanessa, we do we really do.

Josh Matthews:

It's my favorite. All right, guys, have a wonderful week or two and uh, we'll. We'll see you soon all right, sounds good.

Vanessa Grant:

All right, keep it real bye for now.

Josh Matthews:

All right, sounds good, take care guys. All right, keep it real. Bye for now.

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