80. Julia Holian - Career Coach & Strategist - Career Transformation Partners

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Curiosity with Kristen podcast. Here you'll hear real conversations with everyday people making a difference, living their purpose, being parents, trying their best, and sharing their knowledge of life experiences, both professionally and personally. You'll also hear from executives about their companies and what cool things they're doing, plus how they're navigating their companies and their people. Forward. Each episode is unique and covers wide ranging topics that give my guests an opportunity to share what they've learned, are learning, and continue to learn, of course, along with wisdom, hope, and some great stories too. I hope it gives you encouragement and strength to learn, grow and and be curious.

Speaker C: If you're looking for a job or trying to hire great people, you're going to want to hear this conversation. Today I'm joined by Julia Holian of Career Transformation Partners, and we're diving into what's really happening in today's job market and some major changes at LinkedIn that could completely change how you approach your job search. Companies are posting fewer jobs, some openings

Speaker A: are disappearing in just a few days,

Speaker C: and recruiters are increasingly finding candidates on LinkedIn before or instead of posting the job job. Julia explains how LinkedIn's new AI powered algorithm looks beyond just your resume. Your headline about section connections, comments, engagement, and even the language you use throughout your profile can affect whether recruiters find you. And one statistic that really surprised me, your headline may account for 40% of how LinkedIn understands what you do. We also get very practical how often to post, what meaningful comments matter more than the likes, what not to do with AI generated content, and why. Julia recommends spending 30 minutes a day on LinkedIn. If you're actively searching, Julia provides a roadmap in updating your profile and using LinkedIn to the fullest.

Speaker A: Enjoy. Welcome to Curiosity with Kristin. I'm your host, Kristin Revell. I have Julia Holian from Career Transformation Partners. Uh, I'm so excited to talk with you. I can imagine having other people, uh, also wanting to hear what we have to say, especially just with the job market. It's been an interesting ride.

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker A: Welcome, Julia. Thank you for being. Good to be back.

Speaker D: Yes, good to be back.

Speaker A: I was very interested. I know, we were just talking about that, uh, business on your side has been busy and people have been kind of signing up more quickly on, you know, business coaching, career coaching. The conversations I'm having right now are the, you know, there's, uh, positions are taking a lot longer. I mean, there's people having five to seven interviews for a position. They're one of two People and then they don't get it at the end, uh, after multiple. So of course I'm going to hear from those folks versus ones that interview and get a job kind of thing. Um, but I'm wondering from your side, what uh, what trends are you seeing, um, from the people you're talking with?

Speaker D: Well, the first thing, if, if your clients are having five to seven interviews and that's it, that's impressive because I will tell you, most of my clients are interviewing with a minimum of 8 people and sometimes 12 to 15.

Speaker A: What level positions.

Speaker D: So most of my clients are senior manager, Director, VP level.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker D: And sometimes that is one going from one to the next. Like I've had just ah, a client, you know, got um, an offer two weeks ago and he's a VP stepping into a CFO role. So he's VP finance. But most of them are kind of like upper middle management to executive level management. Uh, and then I've got a colleague who works with like Gen Z and younger folks. But for most of my clients, they are, you know, 15 plus years of experience and they're solidly interviewing for management level roles. Minimum of eight people. Um, most of the time the interview process is taken anywhere from minimum 6 weeks up to 12 weeks. The only people that we've worked with who have been less than six weeks are people who are not in management. Mm, that moves a little bit faster. So what we're seeing in the market is a combination of things. And if I kind of take it from like, sort of like where it all starts is that we're still seeing a lot fewer jobs posted.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Then for you and I, I was a recruiter like you for years and years. As you know, we, we stomped on the same sidewalk for a long, long time together. And um, it's just very interesting to see how few jobs are posted or they, they go up and they come down. Which by the way, an HR person told me they call that popcorning. Inside the companies that they, It's a popcorn. They pop it up, they take it down. They pop it up, they take it down. They pop it up, they take it down.

Speaker A: Is it the same position that they're the same position.

Speaker D: But what they'll do is they'll post the job and they'll take it down, um, usually within three to seven days, often on the, on the shorter time than the longer time. Uh, so a lot of times they'll take it down in about three days. So if they might post it on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, because they Tend to post earlier in the week. It's often down by the following Friday or the following Monday. And then they kind of see who they got through that rung. At the same time, what I'm hearing from corporate HR and recruiters in corporate roles is that the jobs that they post, the posting is kind of like their plan B. They are spending more time on LinkedIn looking for you. LinkedIn in so many ways is more important than your resume. Mhm. In terms of getting found and getting that next job. Because recruiters, they're posting less, they're taking things down faster, they are leveraging their network, both internal and external, to find roles and they are spending a lot more time on LinkedIn looking for, for the job, the people to fill their jobs. Mhm. Even though that job may not be posted on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: And I wonder also because I've noticed, I mean I only use LinkedIn, that's all I've had to use. And I wondered, is it because I've been a recruiter for 30 years, right. As LinkedIn that started, I started. I've always kind of had content and moved through that. I, you know, just reaching out and connecting with people. And then the last six years with my own business, I've done that. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But each year I analyze like my business because it's, I consider it like my partner. So is it LinkedIn that filled it or did I fill it? I mean all the jobs I get. But then it's almost like 50, 50. It was, it was more me at beginning then 5050 and then now it's more LinkedIn, um, my network. And I just wondered with the recruiters and the companies, if they're on LinkedIn, um, do they still find them if they're not connected to them? Oh yeah, yeah, they can, yes.

Speaker D: Are you using LinkedIn Recruiter or are you searching on your own recruiter?

Speaker A: I use recruiter.

Speaker D: Okay. Yeah. So yeah, so they're using the LinkedIn recruiter as well. And they are, they're, they're playing with all the different ways that they can, they can find people.

Speaker A: Uh, so sometimes though I'll know people, but they're not connected to me. But there may be a third or something like that, but I can't find, find them. So I have to really work hard uncovering those specific people. I'm, I'm targeting someone and I know their name and I can't get to them. So I, that's why I wondered with hm, how there's connection so if you're not connected, you know, it feels like because I mean I'll do a search and I'm like, oh no, no. I know there's more people than zero or three that have this, you know, this skill set in the Bay Area. So I have to like really go around and about and then I'll do certain things to find people other ways.

Speaker D: Do you ever go in and specifically check, show me second degree connections or show me third degree connections. So you're.

Speaker A: I do it all interesting on LinkedIn. Um, I'm looking right now but on LinkedIn Recruiter, I don't even know if it asks me that on first, second and third.

Speaker D: So I have access to LinkedIn recruiter through a, ah, company that I do some uh, consulting for. And in there you can check if you want to see first or second or third degree connections.

Speaker A: I'm looking right now as we're talking so it's just like to log in. But um, and then there's um, the LinkedIn hiring assistant. So I even paid for that. So I mean I'm paying a lot a month for LinkedIn. It's not cheap but I just figure it's cheaper than if I had an employee and it, I considered it my partner so it's fine. But they uh, and I need to call. I'm actually going to write on the top of my paper uh, because this, they call it Lehigh for short. LinkedIn hiring assistant Liha. Um, and I'm not as big of a fan. It's not really, it slows me down, it doesn't get me what I need. I mean it says thanks for the input, uh, I'll get back to you in about 15 minutes. And I'm like okay. And so I wait. But it's still like. But it sometimes uncovers people that I didn't uncover. And then I'll sometimes just do a search separately to see on my own what I can do. But it's not as user friendly yet. I don't know it's going but, but it, it when I'm literally, and I'm saying this out loud because I'm just trying to create a quick little project. Oh, nope, it just double clicked on something to just see like what are my. Now it says um, hiring assistant will be added to this project. I'm saying no. And then describe your ideal candidate. Before it used to give me on the side here all the stuff and I would just plug in everything that I need. And now it just gives me this box. Describe your ideal Deal candidate and then you have to do that first.

Speaker D: So when LinkedIn changed their algorithm, algorithm last year, they became an AI powered platform. And I think that's what the Lehigh is part of as being this AI powered so that you can give it a natural voice, semantic language to help it try to find, you know, help you try to find the people.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: I think one of the biggest challenges that's probably happening right now, but I haven't heard anybody actually say this, but this is my Suspicion is that LinkedIn changed their algorithm and so how recruiters can look for them, um, and even how LinkedIn looks at people today is different. Yet the users, the, you know, millions of uh, people, billions maybe people of people who are on LinkedIn haven't updated their profile to actually align with the way the new algorithm works. So the new algorithm looks at your whole profile, everything that you Talk about on LinkedIn, everything that you comment on, everything that you post, everybody that you connect with, everything that you follow, everything that you search for, what you read and how long you spend reading it, um, even how long other people spend looking at your profile. Like it is taking all of this data constantly, all the time.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker D: And it's taken that information and it's deciding where do you show up in a person's search. So it, it is potentially making it harder for you, from what you're telling me, to find the right people because the people haven't really built out their profile with all the types of information that LinkedIn is looking for today. So LinkedIn is looking for us to really tell the story, like under each job, for example, under each position that we've held, don't copy and paste your resume, actually tell the story of what happened in that role, but in that talk about the role that you had, what you were responsible for, who you were working with, the challenges that you faced, you know, some of the decisions that you had to make and the impact. And so you've got 2,000 characters under each job and they're saying fill it out so that we really understand you better. And, and uh, the way I tell my clients to do that when we're working together is let's go pull five really excellent job descriptions. It can be an old one, it can be a new one, a new one ideally. And we're going to take the language from those job descriptions. We're not going to copy and paste exactly, you know, what was in that job description, but we are going to essentially make sure that the language that we have throughout our profile Starting with the headline, the about section, the work experience and everything is in sync or aligned with what these job descriptions are saying because LinkedIn is looking for that. It's truly interpreting context. And so when you're saying, gosh, I'm not getting all the people, I'm wondering if there's a difference between like you're still somewhat searching. It sounds like the old way, but then you can also do a new way. I do both ways. But the way LinkedIn is thinking of it, it might not be connecting the same dots is all I can figure out. It is expecting that everybody's updated their profile and become a lot more robust and.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker D: So on.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting because I'm just thinking of a couple different searches. The traditional ones that I typically fill. The results were good. They were, they were good. There's one that's a little different and that one's not producing. So it's not something that it's still in the realm. But it's like, you know, uh, revenue manager, billing, medical billing, iCare, Medicaid. I don't do that often. So when it says it doesn't have a lot of people and it's like bare bones, I'm like, I think there is people out there, but it's, it's not really.

Speaker B: I usually.

Speaker A: And I just have to spend a little bit more time. It's just a new search and I thought I, you know, I'm trying to help my controller who's underwater right now with uh, with that side. So it's just, I wonder if it's that too. But I do tend to, it feels like I have to really massage it to get more active.

Speaker D: Are you saying though that you are searching on a position that you haven't really worked on a lot in the past? So it's kind of different.

Speaker A: So like I have a senior manager of finance and a controller and so I did, I found people, I sent them to the client, uh, both. One client is dragging their feet like months and months and months and months is driving and then the other one, it's sort of new. So um, and that one's not dragging their feet but um, I think one of the top candidates just got married and it's going on this honeymoon and stuff kind of, you know, we're waiting a little bit but I'm just noticing, I think that one, the revenue accounting manager, medical billing one sticking in my head because they usually when I can get more, more than what I've gotten so far and uh, it's been. So I wonder because it does get to learn, it gets to know you. And so. Yeah, but that's really interesting. I want to actually step back and see like, what does my profile look like? I'm going to bring it up right now and see because I feel like mine's pretty, pretty robust. But uh, it always, I'm sure, could use changes. And I know, I think I remember us last time. Like just the simple fact of clicking and changing something triggers something in it as well. So keeping that updated as well is important.

Speaker D: So one of the things about the new algorithm is they say keep making constant changes to your profile because it's AI powered now. It's always taking in new information and so the smartest people are out there constantly making little updates and they aren't major updates. And if you make a little word update, it's not going to go flag it for everybody to know, but keep making little changes. And there are a couple things that they came out with that I thought were really insightful and important. Mhm. Your headline accounts for like 40% of how LinkedIn understands you. We've always thought that the headlines just, you know, it can just be like my title and it doesn't need to be that robust. But really your headline is what is truly informing LinkedIn. Like, this is the snapshot, this is like, like a tweet. Uh, this is the snapshot that tells LinkedIn predominantly, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is what you need to know about me. Then you get to your about section where you have 2600 characters. But the very top of it, the first like three lines are still the most important. From a weighty, like it weights, it like looks at the whole 2600 characters which of course you don't have to use every single character. But that first three lines carries more weight than the rest of the whole thing.

Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. And I, and I, I'm curious if you looked at my profile, what thoughts are, oh, seeing uh, what you think. And I was just wondering too because I was thinking, oh, last year I had my five year anniversary and I had a big barbec or like a big thing with um, people. I had, I rented out Lafayette Reservoir park and I thought, oh, I think I put it as one of my pictures. I thought, oh, maybe I should put that as my, you know, the Revelle group or something different than just M. My, you know, I just have the logo there. So I don't know. I'm curious what you're.

Speaker D: And I love the logo. I love the background photo that you have there. I think that that looks great. I think in your, in your headline, you use half of the headline to talk about the podcast and how to contact you.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker D: And that is information that LinkedIn is not going to be using.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker D: Okay. So I would replace that with more of like an impact statement of like, who do you place and what do you do? So you're saying direct hire, consulting, executive accounting and finance. But if you could be a little bit more targeted with a sentence that kind of says, you know, I place finance executives in the top, uh, you can name an industry, let's just say in the top, you know, tech and manufacturing companies in the Bay Area or something like that. Right. But being more target, it's looking for that, it's looking to really understand you. And so that the only thing is like linking to the podcast and all those things. It probably does more confusion than understanding. Okay.

Speaker A: Oh, I love it. Yeah, I can definitely. Take care. I will, I will get rid of that tonight.

Speaker D: That's great.

Speaker A: Thank you. And it makes a little change because, uh, I definitely, I mean as a recruiter, that is the, the main thing. And I do post on the, the um, podcast. But, but yeah, that, that's fantastic. And then I, I don't know if I have a. Oh, I did. I have played around with the about section, I think probably from when we spoke, and it's been a little, I

Speaker D: would put it, I would put your about section more in a paragraph form and say, this is what I do, this is who I work with. And partly because think of it like if you were a company and you were talking about what you do. So again, LinkedIn is trying to. You want the candidates, the job seekers to connect with you too. So if you could be more specific about, like I work with, be very specific about the type of companies to help them build, assess and evaluate work environments, to hire, you know, and cultivate the right teams and cultures and, and, and just, and use. I like speak. LinkedIn is looking for natural language. They don't really. They're not as bullet focused as they used to be. They're more like, tell us who you are. Almost like you were like. I think of the about section as almost like a cover letter. Like if I had to write a cover letter and say, here's who I am and what I do and what I care about and who I align with and what I think and why it matters. Mhm. That's what would go in there. And, and so you Use the pronouns and you're, and you're more specific because LinkedIn will understand you more the more it's like you're speaking to it. Okay.

Speaker A: Oh, that's really interesting because sometimes when you put I, but this is your LinkedIn profile, so it is an I. I is appropriate there. And that. And then in terms of posting and other things, I know sometimes I'm good, sometimes I'm not good. I know I need to be more consistent. I had heard like you know, two to three times per week, but sometimes it seems like it's a lot. So I just.

Speaker D: No, they actually changed it.

Speaker A: Oh, thank goodness. I, I haven't done it. I did three days ago and two weeks ago.

Speaker D: All right, so let me, let me go on my soapbox here for a second. Yeah, one of the biggest things that they changed, which by the way, I did a whole workshop on this about two weeks ago and if you go to our YouTube channel, you can actually see some information on there and actually I'm going to talk about the fourth slide because there are things on the fourth slide where they talk about their algorithm. Algorithm themes. I broke them into five themes and, and one of the things that they said is very clearly you can tell that LinkedIn decided that people were doing way too much posting, trying to, you know, hack the system, trying to get noticed. And so there's a whole bunch of little things that they change and one of them is that they say post once a week. Mhm, that's fine. Don't have to do it more than that. And post like you are talking to your best friend or one person. They said don't try to talk to like a full big audience of people. Talk to somebody like I'm going to sit down and have coffee like you and I are going to have coffee. And you're like, I'm just going to give Julia my best advice on this M and make it authentic and genuine and helpful and meaningful was their number one thing. Which then leads into, they call that genuine engagement. Then it's authenticity. So matching with like who you are and what you do, how you help people, what you are able to deliver for them, and of course talk about your expertise. Whether you want to talk about your expertise in helping people find jobs, getting past the gatekeeper, interviewing, you know, um, how they, how they, you know, navigate their job search, any of those things, you could talk about all that. So they, they made a very big point on quit stuffing the system with a whole bunch of AI generated content was their basic bottom line. Yeah, they said make it short and sweet if you need to. And just speak to like one person. Like, you know what, I was having coffee with Julia last week and you know, this one thing came up and it was so profound in the moment that I just wanted to share it and then just share it. That's all it is.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker D: So that was the big, big thing on posting. But the other things that they really look for is they look for us to comment. And so if anybody's on here who's a job seeker or anybody trying to build their brand, I will tell you that commenting is like the top thing that you can do. And don't use what I call the easy button of hitting like congrats or congratulations or any of those little buttons out there. Write like a two to six sentences in every comment that you make so that you are acknowledging the person who did the post. You are adding value of some sort. You are extending the conversation with either new information or asking a question and then to do that consistently. Mhm. To keep going in and that. So if you're going to do something multiple times a week, it would be commenting. Okay. Oh, that m posting.

Speaker A: I'm doing that already, which is great. I just did it this morning. I try to be. So it's really interesting and I guess I should stop and share. Where you learned this information. Is it from LinkedIn? Did they have some sort of like, you know, or did you have to do your own research? I just wondered if they have like some sort of annual or quarterly or some sort of thing that they, you know as well.

Speaker D: There is an inner circle. I'm not in the inner circle, but I know who is some of the people who are in the inner circle and I follow them and I get information from them. I get text messages from a couple of people. Again, I'm just on their text list. I'm not. I don't know these people. We don't send each other cards or anything. Yeah. Um, but there are. There is kind of like this inner circle of people that I know helps because LinkedIn doesn't necessarily put out their updates and changes, but they've got this inner group of people who kind of do. And so I follow them and I pay attention to them and then I do more research and I will tell you, Claude and chat, GPT and Perplexity and all of those, I will use those to, to do more research and then test them against each other.

Speaker A: And.

Speaker D: And then I also find that just like the user experience from either people in my Network or my clients, you know, what are they seeing? I train through a company. I do some training every week on LinkedIn. And I'll tell you, a week doesn't go by that one of the people who's like in this training doesn't say, you know, I notice this and I'm like, and it was not that way last week. But it's that, uh, so I see changes all the time. So that's how I learn. Because I'm in it so much, right?

Speaker A: I mean, I'm in it and I don't even know. But I, I do notice trends and the whole AI having it generate a post. Uh, sometimes I would do that just because I would write the post and then I'd put it into just chat, GPT or cloud or something just to kind of get the verbiage. I'm curious what they're. Because they're more eloquent or have some extra words to it. And then I would, you know, kind of take that, but make it my own. And then post and not make it too long because I don't like anything too long either. And so that's sometimes how I'll do it. But I do notice, you know, because now I click and it's so long and you know, it's already, it's. It's just too AI. And it does try to kind of pull you in personal, you know, information or make you think or feel. Um, and then it tends to ask a question at the end and want to comment on something that you did or something like that. And I, yeah, I tend to n steer. I mean, you know, I, I comment on some of them if I know the person, but the others I kind of.

Speaker D: I'm looking at my phone because one of those inner circle people, I got a text from them today.

Speaker A: Uhhuh.

Speaker C: Uh-huh.

Speaker D: And the tip in that person's text said there are AI tells in your writing that could be damaging your, um, how your visibility on LinkedIn. And so the message was to do a self audit. So you create your post, right? And then before you move forward, ask whether you're Claude, chat, GPT, whatever you're in, say, please audit this for any AI tells.

Speaker A: B E L L S T L

Speaker D: T E L L S yes, be strict, quote which ones, you know, give me, you know, give me an honest feedback. So certain things that I know get called out. Are M M dashes.

Speaker A: Yes, Em. M dashes are just the longer dash.

Speaker D: Right. It's the longer dash that separates things where most of the Time, you could just replace it with a comma, which is what I typically do. It also likes to do a bunch of short little sentences. It's not this, this, this, or this and this. You know, it's. It's heart, it's soul, it's commitment, it's. They love all of those. AI love to do like these little, various sort of. I want to say staccato, but I don't know if that's the right word. But a whole bunch of like, little things. Or they'll say, it's not this, it's this. Um, so there are a whole bunch of, of little, little tells that it has in there. And so it'll say, I want you to call out all the things that would tell a reader that this is generated by AI and let's talk about them and see which ones we want to remove or amend.

Speaker A: That's great. Also, on, uh, videos, I've heard that LinkedIn is really wanting, um, more video content. Instead I did one and it actually, it was interesting to see how the analytics of it. It actually did jump pretty high for, you know, just a little video. And actually my daughter, it was. I was at the horses. I'm taking care of some, or I take care of someone's horses here and there. And so I was just there in the morning and then I was just, you know, just talked a little bit and then I introduced the horses and just. It, it just did very well. But my daughter later that day said, mom, I saw your post. Was that AI? Nope, it was just me.

Speaker D: Oh, how funny.

Speaker A: That was kind of interesting. But I had noticed that they're really, you know, they really value an increase on, on videos exposure to analytics more than just the pictures, um, or non pictures.

Speaker D: Yeah. And I think there are a couple reasons for that. One, so videos, you should keep them short and they feel like people will watch them and listen to them and so on. But also it's usually not as AI generated because people are just talking into a camera so they know, they feel like it's more authentic. Um, when I do my training on LinkedIn, I tell people that in my interpretation, LinkedIn would like to be like the Reddit for the, for the business world, where that's where we go and we ask questions and we have conversations and we share things. So for anybody who's watching this, I keep that in mind that LinkedIn wants this to be this collaborative place where we are all kind of scratching each other's backs and we're helping and we're building our networks through the platform. But uh, a lot of that is because we are creating really good, interesting content and information and that's kind of what's driving it. And I want to point out one interesting factoid which is when LinkedIn changed their algorithm in June of 23, one of the big things that they did coming out of the pandemic was they said, you know what, when you post something, we're going to make sure this pushes to your first degree connections. Mhm, mhm. That is not how they do it now.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker D: The AI powered system now says it might go to your first degree connections, but what they are really tracking through all of this, and that's why your comments are so important and how you build out your profile is so important, is that it's, it's looking for who else would be interested in this? Who would be interested in knowing who you are? Who else would you be interested in knowing? What else do you want to see more of who you know, whatever you're posting or commenting on, who would want to read that? So this AI system is now looking at, answering that question like who cares about this? Who's interested in this? Yeah, just because they're a first degree connection. I mean that could be your brother in law who's not going to care whatsoever about what you have to say. So why put it in front of your brother in law? If your brother in law does something completely different and never engages with you, they would rather put it in front of the people who engage, who ask the same questions, talk about the same things, look at the same type of things. So they're kind of like building, it's like building sort of like bubbles. Like everybody's got their bubbles. This is this networking group, these are the people I worked with at this company. This is the people I worked with over here. Here are the people I went to school with. So it's figuring that out and trying to be a lot more specific, targeted and intuitive of um, putting you in front of the right things and the right things in front of you.

Speaker A: I celebrated 30 years in staffing April 29, which was crazy. And I posted and thanked a lot of people and I was just, you know, it was very genuine, very, I don't think it was too long, it was just kind of. And the uh, the response back, I got a lot of comments back, it just shot through the roof. It was like when I looked at all of my six years of analytics later on, I don't know, I was doing something else and I just Thought that was the number one post by almost double. And actually also when I went to India I met the Dalai Lama uh, recently and that one was the second one. Like those two were by far just off the charts. But usually what I do notice though is things with job postings which I haven't been doing lately. So I'm going to be doing that tonight I think or. Oh. And then that leads me to two other questions I had was timing and hashtags. Okay, timing of posts. Um, I remember them being. I unfortunately haven't always stuck to the, you know, I don't know, late morning or so or you know, 10 to uh, one or something like that. But I wondered if there's anything on timing.

Speaker D: You know, I didn't see anything new come out about that. So it tends to be weekday mornings. That would kind of, you know, for here, those of us in the US that will sort of work well with the east coast, west coast. So it's probably going to be somewhere between 8:30 and say maybe 10 o'.

Speaker A: Clock.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: And you can pre set the timing. So you could write this on Saturday and say post it on Tuesday morning at you know, 9:53 if you wanted to.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: So I like that you can do that. Um, hashtags have virtually gone away from what I have heard. Yeah, I think because it's AI powered now in AI you don't really need the hashtags. True.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. So that makes it interesting. So yeah. Did any of them have anything to say about uh, Leha, the LinkedIn hiring assistant?

Speaker D: You know I didn't go down that side of how a recruiter's using it when I, I really focused on what do job seekers need to know.

Speaker A: Well and I wondered also from clients perspective, for the clients that um, you know you said that they're um, that uh, their, their companies are using recruiter more to find, to find people. So I didn't know if any of them had mentioned.

Speaker D: No, we didn't really go into that. They have. The last conversation I had was about how you've got kind of like you still have your form and your fields that you can fill in the way you have been for a long, long time on LinkedIn Recruiter. And then you get to that AI assistant. You know, part of it that, where you can, where you can kind of type in. Here's what I'm looking for and here's what the ideal candidate would look like. But I personally tried it out and I felt that it was clunky, like it didn't which part?

Speaker A: The hiring.

Speaker D: The hiring assistant.

Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I don't like.

Speaker D: I think the direction that it's going to go in is going to be that you can have a candidate profile. You can load in your. Actually your full job description. Um, and it's going to kind of just work off of the job description that you probably. So you're going to have that. And could you. You could be targeting and saying, you know, look for these certain things, but probably you're going to just have that in a narrative of a candidate profile. Like we are looking for somebody who has worked in this industry for X number of years, you know, five to 10 years or eight to 15 years or what have you and has done these types of things. And what they're going to be looking for is the language and trying to match up the language, which is why it's so important on a profile. Mhm. For you to say here's what I do and here's what I enjoy doing and what I'm really good at and be very clear on the language of the type of work that you do, the environment that you work in and so on. Everything I'm reading about, what the future is going to be is that we're not going to be working off of keywords and fields, that we are going to be writing sentences because context is going to be so important.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, and I was thinking more, I know I'm selfishly asking questions about me, but it was really making me think and I maybe should have asked in the beginning and then ended with mine, but just about the experience of people. And again, I know we are talking with people who are wanting to make transitions in their careers or uh, you know, looking for jobs. And I just had a mutual person that I think if I even explain this you'll know exactly the scenario. But someone, uh, we mutually know, um, is a CFO and um, she's recently in the job market and her profile, um, just got wiped. Uh, something. Oh, I think someone posted on it as if she was looking.

Speaker D: I know exactly who you're talking about. Yes. And it was, it's fraud. It was financial fraud.

Speaker A: Yes. Ah, well, financial fraud because they didn't take any funds.

Speaker D: No, it was financial fraud because what they did is they went in and they went into her account and then they set up a LinkedIn recruiter and it charged her for. LinkedIn recruiter on a, uh, credit card. Like I didn't know some. It got into their email and somehow charged her for it. And it. They also Went into um, uh, it wiped out her whole account. So yes, I actually texted with her this morning. It got resolved today.

Speaker A: So from my understanding, I know I had coffee with her last week and she was just so beside. Or no, no, I had coffee with her. It hadn't happened. Then she called me, said please call me and it sounded from my understanding was it was like as if her profile was a company and they, they posted a job or that.

Speaker D: That's what they did. They took her profile but she had a, she has her own company through that. But yes, they took that and they llc. Uh, they posted a job that's like through her. And it got into her personal email as well.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker D: I will tell for everybody on here, one of the big things to know is that, that um. What two way authenticator. Yes, whatever that's called. Yeah, two way.

Speaker A: But that's what it is. Yeah, two, two way authentic whatever it is.

Speaker D: Um, that is one of the big things that LinkedIn says will prevent anybody from hacking into your account.

Speaker C: Perfect.

Speaker A: So I definitely recommend that I will tell you.

Speaker D: I went to Paris in Amsterdam in the fall and something happened while I was over there that I got locked out of my account of my LinkedIn while I was there and then came home and was still locked out. So there's a form that you can fill out. And I think the hard part is that when it get taken down, like my whole profile got taken down. It was completely locked up. I couldn't figure out what was going on in. Those first few days are just so unsettling because you don't know if you've lost everything that you've ever done. They do actually get back to you. LinkedIn does get back to you. But you m. Might, it might be on day four or day five. It is usually resolved within a week. Mine was actually resolved in like three days. Hers was resolved within a week. Um, because I think it happened last Tuesday and it was resolved by today. So for anybody who's has it happen to them, just know that even though you can't talk to anybody on LinkedIn, if you fill out their, their form, um, compromise account form or something like that, they do actually get back to you.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I, I know I had emailed when I was on the phone, I'm like, okay, I'll email my people at LinkedIn. And I emailed them and I, I think they responded back and helped her. But I don't know if it was mine. I think it could have been just the natural course of it.

Speaker D: Mine didn't get back to oh no.

Speaker A: Oh gosh, not as of today.

Speaker D: I was like, that's really disappointing.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's just, you know, we. And she said I'm a premium customer. And I know I'm definitely a premium customer with the amount I spend monthly. You know, for what it's worth, LinkedIn is amazing. You know, it's, it's such an amazing tool. It's so user friendly. I love how, you know when you're looking at something, it's like suggestion stuff for you, like, oh, you're interested in this. Have you talked to these people or looked at these jobs? And then you can kind of go down a rabbit hole of or maybe FBI detective on other areas and jobs and things like that. And so I was wondering, any tips for people who are looking or struggling or. I know it can be so, so disheartening for the people that I'm talking with. I feel awful. I want to like my one friend who's gone through at least four interviews and has had at least, least seven plus interviews at them and it's come down to her and the other person and then the other person's gotten it. Whether it's been someone who is more junior, someone who is more senior, um, someone that they ended up staying at the company. Uh, she's told me all and then she's like, oh my gosh, you tell me what I'm doing wrong. And I'm like, first off, that sucks. Secondly, stay the course. Let's break this down. You're like, you know, let's just keep going. Just, just keep going. Even though m. Sometimes it's just heart. So curious what recommendations or things that you've given to people.

Speaker D: Oh gosh, I have a whole bunch of, of things I would say. First of all, in Today's market, your LinkedIn profile may very well be more important than your resume. Because looking for jobs and applying for jobs, the percentage of return on that is so low that I recommend to my clients that they look for jobs almost more as like a research project to think of like who, who's hiring out there, who do I want to research? How do I want to figure out how I can kind of get around the gatekeeper and who's maybe website do I want to go look at, look at their website instead of LinkedIn to see what's posted on their website. Mhm. But there just aren't that many jobs posted the way there used to be, so. But the difference is that recruiters are spending more time on LinkedIn looking.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker D: For job seekers. So you really want to be there and you want to do things to get found. So how do you get found on LinkedIn? You have to be in LinkedIn and active in LinkedIn. I think as a job seeker that they should spend is at least 30 minutes a day in LinkedIn and that's 30 solid minutes altogether. So there's a weird thing about LinkedIn that says if you go in and you're in like 10 minutes and then you leave and you come back for 10 minutes, they do not aggregate that time together and say, oh, they actually spent 45 minutes in here combined today. They really want you to be in the platform. So go in with a plan every day as a job seeker and say, okay, I'm going to go in today. And even if you want to start off just playing their games, just so that uh, you're like, I'm just gonna get my head in the game of LinkedIn. I'm gonna play three or four of their games. Yeah.

Speaker A: And then seeing that the games.

Speaker D: And then it's gonna be, hey, start searching for things. Make sure that you're, you're seeing in your newsfeed what you want to see. And if you're not, you gotta curate that. You gotta go up to the search bar that now says I'm looking for yes or looking for. It doesn't say keywords the way it did for decades. And you say in a, uh, natural language, you say, show me people who do X or show me companies that hire people who do X. You can be much, you can write two or three sentences in that search bar if you want to, like, show me people who are posting content about whatever it is that you want to, want to look at. And then you can go look at those and then maybe you comment on those and you kind of engage. So you can do that. You can also, when you're looking at your news feed, if you're seeing stuff that you don't want to see, there's two things that you can do. One, you can hit the little three dots and say, stop showing this to me because I don't really care. Um, and so you can, that informs every little thing you do in LinkedIn is telling LinkedIn I want this or I don't want this. So you can, you can be informative. I would say the other thing is, is that when you're in there, if you are seeing a bunch of stuff that you don't want to see, that's, that's, it might be because LinkedIn doesn't know what to do with you yet. M. And if it doesn't know, if it doesn't understand you. Yeah. Uh, there's a couple ways to know if LinkedIn understands you. One, what's in your newsfeed? Two, when you go into the job section and it says here are jobs that, that look good for you.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker D: If you're like, no, they don't, they don't look great for me at all. Mhm. That means that you probably have to make some updates to your profile. You also have to search for the jobs that you want to see. You might want to search for people who do the work that you want to do. You want to, you want to, you have to retell the algorithm.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: What it is.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: So those are the biggest things I think, to kind of start trying to get visibility.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: I, um, mean I can go on and on about all the different things that a person can do, but I think right there you, you want to get link. LinkedIn working for you. If you think of LinkedIn like its own person.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Every day I'm going to tell LinkedIn and remind it and reinforce it with who I am and what I do and why I do it and why I care so that it understands me. You will get LinkedIn doing some of the heavy lifting for you because it's gonna, if, if you as a recruiter are doing a search and you come up with a hundred people that you're looking at, the activity that you have in LinkedIn and the frequency of it and the um, the how targeted you are with it will help determine whether you are number one or number 100 in that list. So you know, as a recruiter, how many people can you go through in one hour? Mhm. 70 maybe?

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, I mean I can go pretty quick because I just, I glance, you know, you just like go and then you screen out for this, you know, depending on. Yeah. So you can go through.

Speaker D: So most recruiters try to come up with 100 to 150 maximum in their search results, knowing that they can get through that in an hour.

Speaker A: Yeah, I, uh, you know what's funny is when I do a targeted search, I don't need to go through that much.

Speaker D: I.

Speaker A: It'll couple hundred, it'll pop up if that, sometimes 20, you know, whatever. And then I go through and pick, hand pick and go through their background and then I actually write the list out because I then want to go into LinkedIn and link into them and then track them and If I really like them, I put a little star next to them and then I really hunt down their contact info or how can I find them? Um, you know, and so just from someone also looking. It's interesting too. I always recommend, and I don't know when it's watching what you're doing, I'm assuming. So let's say you know, you have a dream job at that XYZ company and then you find someone that's working in your job there, uh, or someone above it, and then you go into their profile and look into what their background is, how long they've been there, what companies they came from, and then maybe go, oh, that's possibly a company I should look at. And then going into those mhm. Companies and checking on LinkedIn, who those people are. I'm assuming AI is learning all of this, your behaviors and things.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: What, so then it would curate more of those types of companies, those industries and things that maybe you're spending time looking at.

Speaker D: Exactly.

Speaker A: It's kind of a fun way to do social media, but not like I, I know, like I see my kids and they go viral on or, you know what I mean, like just, I don't even know all the stuff they, they do a lot. My daughter does a lot of like puppies and kitties and my son does a lot of like cars and stuff and then they, you know, curates that um, that thing but you know, in their feeds. But it feels like social media is uh, very addicting and uh, a lot of people do it. So why not do it on LinkedIn?

Speaker D: Exactly. And I think if LinkedIn is where recruiters are looking for people, you just, you have to, you have to go there, you have to, have to be in it. I still hear people say, you know, I'm very cautious about what I do in LinkedIn. Let's look. LinkedIn is one of the places where you control the narrative.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker D: You control what you put into your profile, you control what you comment on, you control what you react to, you control what you apply to. It's not Facebook, it's not Instagram, you're not putting out pictures of birthdays and babies and personal things. So you don't have to be as protective of it. As a matter of fact, check, the more protective you are of your profile, the more likely you're not going to be very high on the search result lists for recruiters. You really want to be more engaged. And, and some people tell me, well, I don't want to ever add somebody without Talking to them. And I'm like, would you go to a networking event only after you've met everybody first? Yeah. So how would you meet everybody first before you went to the networking event? The point is to go to the networking event and try to meet one person who introduces you to the next person, who gets you to the next person. LinkedIn is kind of the same thing.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And I notice I just link into as many people who I think could be interesting or help or how can I help them. And there's a lot of times where maybe they're not active or out of town or something, they're too busy at work and so I don't connect with them. And then, you know, I never take it personal. I just know that, that they're busy and that kind of thing. But I do notice that. I agree with that specifically, don't wait until a cocktail party or what networking to like connect with them. Just connect. And then a lot of times you just accept like, thanks for accepting. I'm so glad to be connected to you and just kind of. Yeah.

Speaker D: Put out there what is like, I have a lot of clients that are trying to build in a certain network. Like for example, I have a client that moved from Seattle to San Diego. Mhm. Didn't know a lot of people in San Diego. So I said, here's what you're going to do. We're going to create some search lists of people who do your type of work in your industry. So we're tying to profession and we're tying to industry in the San Diego market. And we created a little, you know, message that they could send out and say, hey, I happen to find your profile on LinkedIn. I have recently moved to the San Diego area from Seattle. I'm trying to build up my network inside of this profession and this industry and I would just love it if you would help me as I'm, you know, as I embark on my new life in San Diego. Mhm. Perfect. Got so many people who are like, sure, because you're not asking anything of them. You're not being creepy and weird. So they can do that. I mean, I get LinkedIn requests all the time. I will tell you, most of them are people who are trying to say, I work with coaches and help them 10x their business and I must get 3 or 4 every single day and I completely ignore them. If you are selling something to me, if I can tell, um, that you're going to sell something to me, I'm going to completely ignore you.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker D: But if somebody sent a message to me and said, hey, I just moved to the San Francisco Bay area, I see that you were a finance recruiter and now you're a coach. I'm just trying to build up my presence in San Francisco so that I can get that new job. Would you be open to connecting with me? I'm like, yes, check the box.

Speaker A: Right, Exactly. I've come, I've gotten a lot of my podcast, um, folks through, just, I don't know, LinkedIn will bring someone to me or I'll look at someone that commented on something interesting that I commented. Because then you see those comments, it starts to populate your feed and then I'm like, oh, that's really interesting way to think about it.

Speaker C: I.

Speaker A: And I. So I just, uh, you know, link in or send a quick message to them. Um, and I, I've been able to, I mean, make some interesting, like, really wonderful friendships and learn a lot of interesting things. Um, a guy today, the guy in Texas, there was a, I just did a, um, a conversation. He was linking into me for, uh, he is a tax firm, was a director of finance for a very large hotel for 25 years. Um, but just, you know, kind of networking and learning right along the way. So you never know where. And, and what about, uh, outside your specific industry or positions, uh, networking there. I know, I think it's more targeted.

Speaker D: Here's the thing, if you're in a job search, you gotta kind of stay in your lane or at least on the same highway when you're in your job search, because everything that you do informs LinkedIn. So one of my analogies when I'm doing training is, hey, you love photography, that's great. Mhm. But if you're an accountant and you've got this dream of being a photographer, but you really need a paycheck and benefits and you've got to get back into a job first. Do not look for photography jobs. That can be the side hustle that you look at after you get that next job. But for right now, you got to focus on accounting positions. Now if you want to look at companies that work, work within, say, photography and film, you could do that, but you're going to be their accountant. Mhm. So be careful that you're not confusing the system when you're in this critical moment where you want this system to help you land interviews so that you can get that new job. This is not the time to be creative and think beyond that.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: No. That's perfect. Well, I want to be Mindful of time. But I do have a question about. We don't know, did we already talk about just the economy and what we're seeing? I mean I think about like the last couple years and it feels still stagnant and interesting. It's, it's been a. And what's weird is even last year was honestly one of my best years. But it was really more executive roles and higher level roles versus uh, just the, you know, management supervisor and director level. So it was just, you know, higher ticket items. But this year, the large firm I used to be at, I know they really struggled last year and a lot of people struggled last year, uh, everyone I talked to. And then this year I'm hearing that it possibly is picking up. And for me I do have positions I'm filling, but not really. I mean they, you know, it's, it's a lot less than what I'm normally filling and it's a lot longer. They're bringing temps on more um, and sitting on it. And so it's just really weird. It's a really weird market. Yeah, yeah. What I've seen.

Speaker D: So I'll tell you one of the first things is I was talking, I was in a um, coffee meeting earlier with, earlier with somebody and I was saying, you know, the first major tech layoffs were in November of 22. We're coming up on the four year anniversary and for you and me who've been in, I was recruit, I started recruiting the same time you did it. So between 21 years in recruiting and 10 years as a career coach, you know, 31 years of watching, you know, these recessions, the dot com bust, you know, 2004, 2008 and so on. This is the longest I have ever seen a recession. And I will. And I believe we're in a recession even though nobody wants, nobody in government wants to call it that because we start seeing those tech layoffs in November of 22. Then we saw the banking crisis in 1H20, um, 23. Then we kept seeing the layoffs that just continuously happen even through last week. And so we're still seeing that. And it can be AI, you can say it's all of these other things, whatever, but I think what's really hard right now is that there are still a lot of positions open. But as I said earlier, they're not getting posted or they're not getting posted for a long period of time. They go, um, up they come down, they go up they come down. And that's really hard on the job seeker who is trying to find those roles, but then also the time to apply to them. Fortunately, we saw this year, we saw a lot more of our clients getting interviews and certainly had more clients get offers. And so they're in new jobs. And that's very exciting. Then in 26, we started to see that. That. I still don't necessarily feel like we are on a true uptick yet. Like, it's still too unpredictable. We don't have a trend that says, guess what, people? It's all really getting better. And I think part of what's holding that down is that we have so many people now who've been out of work for over six months, some people who've been out of work for a year, two years. We all see the posts on LinkedIn of people who are like, I haven't worked for 18 months and I'm living in my car, or I've had to move back home. And those are really big struggles. So, not trying to be a downer, but it's just. There is no clear message of is it getting better or is it getting worse? It's just. It's still just kind of ugly. People are getting jobs, but people are also, especially if you're older, people are out of jobs for a long, long time. And these are people who have been in homes for a long time, have kids in college. They're struggling the most.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: It's really been different this year. Um, and I think last year probably was, uh, just as tricky. I know towards the end of last year, Q4 was actually really good, and it bled into Q1 and Q1, I hit my goal by February and it was great. But since then, it's been very more quiet than normal. That's really interesting. And usually when that happens, um, I was also listening to an investment podcast, podcast about, um, AI and, uh, it even talked about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. Um, and, uh, you know, just that there's a lot of. And. And I look at my stock prices, like, wow, it's really high. Like, you know, is this, like, 2008 time frame high? Like, is it gonna crash? You know, hearing some of that, the

Speaker D: messages are so unclear, right?

Speaker A: Because, um, like, the economy is tough, but. But my stock portfolio is going really good. I mean, like, wow.

Speaker D: I think one of the challenges that a lot of people, A, don't have investment money invested.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker D: A lot of people out there don't have the stock portfolio. And there are a lot of people who are actually tapping into their retirement mhm in order to kind of keep things going along. And, and so fortunately those accounts are doing okay. But yeah, there's, there's kind of that. I'm hoping that we have the September surge.

Speaker A: Yes, I know. September through December, that's Q4, uh, starts in September.

Speaker D: That would be wonderful. That would be absolutely wonderful. So that's what we're gearing up for right now, is getting everybody prepped for the September surge.

Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, I don't want to keep you more. I know we've been going over an hour, but thank you, thank you, thank you. And I know you're welcome. Coffee or lunch or something soon. It's been too long and that would be great. Yeah. I love our conversations. Thank you for sharing about LinkedIn about all the things that are coming up. And um, yeah, I'm looking forward to having a transition and having hopefully September show that there's, uh, some hope for people out there that are struggling because it's, you know, I just keep saying, just be positive. Know it sucks. Find some positive things in your life and hold on. Sometimes if it's really bad, just write three things you're grateful for each morning and each night. If you really, you know, really hug

Speaker D: your kids, uh, be around people, get out of your house and be around people. That is really huge. The more you are insular in your house, it's never going to help you.

Speaker A: No.

Speaker D: Mentally, physically, you know, get out, get out from, from your house for sure.

Speaker A: Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Julia. It was so great to see you.

Speaker D: You too. Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Absolutely. We'll talk soon.

Speaker D: All right, see you later.

Speaker A: Bye.

Speaker D: Bye.

Speaker B: Thank you for listening to Curiosity with Kristen. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. You can find me on LinkedIn at Kristen Revelle. That's K r I s T e N R E V e L L.

Speaker A: If m you'd like to be a

Speaker B: guest or have any questions for me, your feedback is essential and helps to improve the show. If you have any suggestions, comments or questions, feel free to email at. Ah kristenherevellegroup.com that's K R I s T e n at T H E R e v e l l G-R-O-U p.com Little long, but it works. Thank you so much. Have a great day and stay curious. Mhm.