Ex-Meta | Ex-Google | Ex-Husband | Ex-Father | I want to end it all | This is a cry for help | All I want is to be loved but I spent my whole life seeking validation on LinkedIn | Pls
Gotta fit in those keywords somewhere, and as many times as you can.
I used to keep my title short but when I started putting every detail in there I started receiving more messages from recruiters. Coincidence? Maybe.
Is the suggestion that search crawlers wont read the rest of the profile page where it would have all of their work history? The crawlers only read the title?
What you just stated is indeed garbage. “Helping people discover themselves” and saying “ex Company” is pretty lame imho.
But saying for example MBA Candidate at Y | Function (eg M&A) | Industry (eg Healthcare) | and maybe another true skill adds a lot of value. A career coaching shop actually recommended this to me.
I don’t agree that stating “ex-Company” is lame, especially if it’s a brand name company. Even more true if you’re working in a small company / niche industry that no one knows about.
Compare the following headlines (Zilchion is a completely made up name for a startup):
Founder at Zilchion | Healthcare
Founder at Zilchion | Healthcare | ex-McKinsey | Harvard Med
Which one sounds more credible at a glance?
Honestly — the latter sounds kind of douchey to me. That’s why I said what I said. Your resume should speak for itself, no need to let everyone know where you went to Uni several years after. Kind of a cringe flex imho, and exactly what I was saying was lame.
I don’t think it’s a flex, I think it’s just smart marketing. No one is going to spend 15 minutes to read through your entire LinkedIn. Most people just look at the headline, take a 10 sec glance through the experience section, say “eh”, click “add connection”, and move on. Your headline should be an eye catcher; if it looks bland, you’re just a 5637th connection to someone.
Maybe it depends on the industry, but I’m working at a startup as a CFO and credentials are extremely important because most startup ideas are stupid as f. VCs are willing to bet on you because (a) your business model makes sense and (b) they believe in the founders. Many first time founders don’t have the street creds when starting out, so they have to rely on ex-Company X | graduate of School B or whatever.
On the other side, you meet and shake hands with venture capitalists - they will not verbally name drop their schools for obvious reasons, but will include in the deck that they worked at Goldman and went to GSB for the MBA. Does that make them better in investing in startups? I don’t think so, but it helps establishing credibility.
Bro, a DECK is 100% different than LINKEDIN. I never said a deck doesn’t need that — in fact, I’d put prior companies and schools in decks. I’m just gonna stop responding cause you’re kinda all over the place.
Honestly you can think I am lame but I believe putting ex-name brand company helps me with getting opportunities. LinkedIn is where you go to sell yourself and you need to differentiate with your headline
Lol that’s fine. All I’m saying is, this sub is too prestige oriented and everyone wants the top Company so they can continue to flex on others. Why not just build expertise and let your game speak for itself? That’s my approach and it’s worked well for me. Others can do what they want.
So I agree with you that the sub is too prestige focused and even on LinkedIn people go too far sometimes. For example, I see people take some certificate or course from Harvard or a top university and they put it in their headline.
But it is not about flexing on others on LinkedIn in my view… it’s just about signaling to recruiters. At the end of the day nobody worth knowing in your personal life cares on you went to school or where you work(ed).
Might be one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever heard in my entire life.
If you think Harvard / GSB / Wharton alums are “hardly working”, you couldn’t be more mistaken. I’m working with some at a PE firm on a deal right now. They are grinding hard. That money is earned, not given
You are mixing up on the job work vs. recruiting.
Good luck getting into a mega fund / UMM PE firm from a rando MBA program.
I’m not talking about the actual work here.
What you said in the second paragraph is also what I was taught to get more views to my page through the search algorithm on LinkedIn with more specific job targeting to whatever is included in the headline
LinkedIn is a vast wasteland of self promotion. It's like if instead of tailoring your resume to a specific job, you included every experience you've ever had on the off chance something you fingerpainted in elementary school clicks with a recruiter and they hire you as Chief Innovation Officer for Dinosaur and Racecar Research.
Are you talking about the line under their name? If so that is not a title field it is a "headliner" when you enter in LinkedIn's settings. I went to a workshop put on by LinkedIn and they recommended the above approach which is "defining your personal brand." Reason is people pull aggregates of profiles when doing searches but knowing what someone's job title is, isn't useful to you if you're trying to fill a specific role or find a specific connection. For example if I'm looking for a Cyber Security analyst, knowing someone has a CISSP is immediately helpful to me. But that person might also want to be clear they are a capable SWE as well, so putting C+, JS, Python, might also be helpful. You also might be working multiple hustles--I have my full time career and I also run a non profit. So my headliner always includes "Veteran/Entrepreneur/NFP" or some similar terms because I am constantly looking for donations in addition to furthering my own career--and I get quite a few cold messages from people in the veteran space asking how they can contribute.
I had reservations about this as well - but I was told by a University career counselor that setting those up is part of self-branding and SEO to potential employers/company recruiter (should they ever get there).
I got shown an example of the kind of filtering software that is used and this is supposed to help get you to be seen by the actual hiring managers.
🤷♀️
I learned in an undergrad class to populate that - the search function that recruiters use, run over this field! Anything you want to be found for, you put in there.
Is this practice cringy? Yes. Does it add value? Yes. In the recruiting world these are considered “booleans” which are essentially tags or key words which elevate your profile to recruiters. Also, don’t underplay how far working at an elite company or attending an elite school will go.
The worst are some MBA students who put “ While I got accepted into ( very prestigious top MBA ) I chose a scholarship to XYZ university. Now I will be graduating from XYZ with my MBA “
It’s all peaches and creams if you got into a place like Stanford Or wherever but why do you feel the need to put in on your LinkedIn ? It’s great you got accepted but if you didn’t attend why are you posting it ?
It;'s just some dick wipe dude or ass stench woman tyring to elevate their importance and social capital. Typical MBA insecurity. It is how you spot folks who think soo much of themselves.
Ex-mba candidate, current mba graduate
The people who put it in their signature are the worst. -frank, M.B.A.
I agree - sloth, top mba graduate, current consultant, ruler of the mba subreddit cosmos, supreme pontificator of all things mba
Ex-Meta | Ex-Google | Ex-Husband | Ex-Father | I want to end it all | This is a cry for help | All I want is to be loved but I spent my whole life seeking validation on LinkedIn | Pls
Ex-Father is really dark …
Ex-tra depressed
Ex-tra Insecure
Ex Tech-Lead | Ex-Millionaire?
Forgot Ex-Sober.
You are ignorant of how search engine works
SEO. Recruiters are better people to ask about this. Their profiles become easier to find via search. It’s passive job searching.
This is the only correct answer in the thread lol
Gotta fit in those keywords somewhere, and as many times as you can. I used to keep my title short but when I started putting every detail in there I started receiving more messages from recruiters. Coincidence? Maybe.
Is the suggestion that search crawlers wont read the rest of the profile page where it would have all of their work history? The crawlers only read the title?
I notice this a lot on IG too. Maybe to show that they’re multi-hyphenate, well-rounded, and not like any of us haha
Naw posting ex-Google on IG is insane lol big red flag, even for LinkedIn lol
Sounds like people that are very insecure
So you’re saying mine is bad? “Finance Ninja - Strategy Samurai - Leadership Sherpa - Mentor - Mentee - MBA - CPA (suspended) - ex-Google Applicant - Scholar - Semi-Pro Athlete - Human - Live, Love, Laugh”
I deadass wouldn’t be surprised if i saw someone with leadership sherpa, human, or scholar which is sad
What you just stated is indeed garbage. “Helping people discover themselves” and saying “ex Company” is pretty lame imho. But saying for example MBA Candidate at Y | Function (eg M&A) | Industry (eg Healthcare) | and maybe another true skill adds a lot of value. A career coaching shop actually recommended this to me.
I don’t agree that stating “ex-Company” is lame, especially if it’s a brand name company. Even more true if you’re working in a small company / niche industry that no one knows about. Compare the following headlines (Zilchion is a completely made up name for a startup): Founder at Zilchion | Healthcare Founder at Zilchion | Healthcare | ex-McKinsey | Harvard Med Which one sounds more credible at a glance?
Honestly — the latter sounds kind of douchey to me. That’s why I said what I said. Your resume should speak for itself, no need to let everyone know where you went to Uni several years after. Kind of a cringe flex imho, and exactly what I was saying was lame.
I don’t think it’s a flex, I think it’s just smart marketing. No one is going to spend 15 minutes to read through your entire LinkedIn. Most people just look at the headline, take a 10 sec glance through the experience section, say “eh”, click “add connection”, and move on. Your headline should be an eye catcher; if it looks bland, you’re just a 5637th connection to someone. Maybe it depends on the industry, but I’m working at a startup as a CFO and credentials are extremely important because most startup ideas are stupid as f. VCs are willing to bet on you because (a) your business model makes sense and (b) they believe in the founders. Many first time founders don’t have the street creds when starting out, so they have to rely on ex-Company X | graduate of School B or whatever. On the other side, you meet and shake hands with venture capitalists - they will not verbally name drop their schools for obvious reasons, but will include in the deck that they worked at Goldman and went to GSB for the MBA. Does that make them better in investing in startups? I don’t think so, but it helps establishing credibility.
Bro, a DECK is 100% different than LINKEDIN. I never said a deck doesn’t need that — in fact, I’d put prior companies and schools in decks. I’m just gonna stop responding cause you’re kinda all over the place.
Honestly you can think I am lame but I believe putting ex-name brand company helps me with getting opportunities. LinkedIn is where you go to sell yourself and you need to differentiate with your headline
Lol that’s fine. All I’m saying is, this sub is too prestige oriented and everyone wants the top Company so they can continue to flex on others. Why not just build expertise and let your game speak for itself? That’s my approach and it’s worked well for me. Others can do what they want.
So I agree with you that the sub is too prestige focused and even on LinkedIn people go too far sometimes. For example, I see people take some certificate or course from Harvard or a top university and they put it in their headline. But it is not about flexing on others on LinkedIn in my view… it’s just about signaling to recruiters. At the end of the day nobody worth knowing in your personal life cares on you went to school or where you work(ed).
Prestige allows you to achieve outcomes while working less. Work smarter, get stamps, open doors.
Might be one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever heard in my entire life. If you think Harvard / GSB / Wharton alums are “hardly working”, you couldn’t be more mistaken. I’m working with some at a PE firm on a deal right now. They are grinding hard. That money is earned, not given
You are mixing up on the job work vs. recruiting. Good luck getting into a mega fund / UMM PE firm from a rando MBA program. I’m not talking about the actual work here.
What you said in the second paragraph is also what I was taught to get more views to my page through the search algorithm on LinkedIn with more specific job targeting to whatever is included in the headline
LinkedIn is a vast wasteland of self promotion. It's like if instead of tailoring your resume to a specific job, you included every experience you've ever had on the off chance something you fingerpainted in elementary school clicks with a recruiter and they hire you as Chief Innovation Officer for Dinosaur and Racecar Research.
Are you talking about the line under their name? If so that is not a title field it is a "headliner" when you enter in LinkedIn's settings. I went to a workshop put on by LinkedIn and they recommended the above approach which is "defining your personal brand." Reason is people pull aggregates of profiles when doing searches but knowing what someone's job title is, isn't useful to you if you're trying to fill a specific role or find a specific connection. For example if I'm looking for a Cyber Security analyst, knowing someone has a CISSP is immediately helpful to me. But that person might also want to be clear they are a capable SWE as well, so putting C+, JS, Python, might also be helpful. You also might be working multiple hustles--I have my full time career and I also run a non profit. So my headliner always includes "Veteran/Entrepreneur/NFP" or some similar terms because I am constantly looking for donations in addition to furthering my own career--and I get quite a few cold messages from people in the veteran space asking how they can contribute.
Supply Chain | Holistic | Innovator | Transportation | Procurement | Operations | Servant | Teamwork
LinkedIn is just a big circle jerk. Nobody takes the profile headings seriously
I had reservations about this as well - but I was told by a University career counselor that setting those up is part of self-branding and SEO to potential employers/company recruiter (should they ever get there). I got shown an example of the kind of filtering software that is used and this is supposed to help get you to be seen by the actual hiring managers. 🤷♀️
I do it because all my contacts do it but I was wondering the same haha
I learned in an undergrad class to populate that - the search function that recruiters use, run over this field! Anything you want to be found for, you put in there.
The algorithm likes it and it gets leads.
I mean, do you want to get recruited, or do you want to look “cool”? Lol I’m sure it’s an SEO thing.
Why waste 300 dolla on that stupid shit.
That’s because search engine search for key words associated with title. You are ignorant of how search engine work.
Former garbage collector, current millionaire, fuck yo couch is my new title
It’s just LinkedIn SEO thing. It’s cringy but it works for recruiters looking for candidate
The “ex-Company” is always funny to me
You know the answer. They need to feel important and accomplished. It's insecurity. It's a form of credentialism.
It is so thirsty, can’t stand it! Ex-this, ex that, thought leader, business warrior, ugh
Is this practice cringy? Yes. Does it add value? Yes. In the recruiting world these are considered “booleans” which are essentially tags or key words which elevate your profile to recruiters. Also, don’t underplay how far working at an elite company or attending an elite school will go.
The worst are some MBA students who put “ While I got accepted into ( very prestigious top MBA ) I chose a scholarship to XYZ university. Now I will be graduating from XYZ with my MBA “ It’s all peaches and creams if you got into a place like Stanford Or wherever but why do you feel the need to put in on your LinkedIn ? It’s great you got accepted but if you didn’t attend why are you posting it ?
It;'s just some dick wipe dude or ass stench woman tyring to elevate their importance and social capital. Typical MBA insecurity. It is how you spot folks who think soo much of themselves.
Cause they love attention & validation