Why the Best Executive Recruiters Ignore Your LinkedIn Profile and You

Although executive recruiters are an important source of jobs, savvy job seekers know that their job search efforts need to also include networking their way into the companies they want to work for.

Don’t rely entirely on recruiters to get you into a job, but cultivate relationships with a number of the right recruiters and work well with them:

Re-connect with the recruiters you’ve used in the past
Ask your network(s) for recommendations
Search LinkedIn for executive recruiters
Check your trade or industry associations for referrals

More in Secrets Executive Recruiters Can’t Tell You and Tips for Working with Them

Meantime, make your LinkedIn profile a recruiter magnet. You may get recruiters reaching out to you on LinkedIn, even with a poorly written profile. But you want to get the attention of recruiters in your niche, not every recruiter on LinkedIn, right?

When done correctly, your profile will sit there, passively drawing the best executive recruiters to it, and to your good-fit qualities.

5 Reasons Your LinkedIn Profile Is Turning Off the Best Executive Recruiters

If these things are true about your profile, follow my advice to fix things. Give recruiters what they need to see in your profile or they’ll move on to someone else.

1. Your profile headline wasn’t customized with keywords and doesn’t generate chemistry and interest.

A well-crafted headline strikes a compelling balance between hard and softer skills. That is, the keywords that represent your areas of expertise vs. your personality and people skills, or personal brand.

LinkedIn is a social network, but it’s also a search engine. Recruiters search using relevant keywords to find people. Those keywords are typically hard skills. Your profile headline is one of the most important places in your profile to add in keywords.

If you haven’t optimized your headline with the right keywords, the right executive recruiters will have a hard time finding your profile . . . and you.

The headline follows you everywhere on LinkedIn and can make or break the chances people will click through to your profile when they’re searching for people like you.

Your hard skills in the headline will help boost your search ranking in LinkedIn so more people will land on your profile.

Your soft skills or personal brand in the headline will compel them to want to read more of your profile, to determine whether they’ll reach out to you.

More in 3 BIG Mistakes That Screw Up SEO for Your LinkedIn Profile Headline

2. Your profile doesn’t position you as the right fit.

You don’t want to work for just any company or organization, right? Narrow your search to employers who will provide what you want and need, and that need what you have to offer. And reflect that in your profile content.

Do some research to identify employers who meet your various criteria. Then suss out what you have that they need. What challenges are they facing right now that you have experience and big wins with?

Make it clear from the get-go and throughout your profile that you have the goods (experience, qualifications, personal qualities, etc.) to make a positive impact for the employers you are targeting.

LinkedIn Jobs and company Pages are excellent resources. You’ll find plenty of company and market intelligence there.

More in How To Use LinkedIn for Research and Insights

3. Your profile contains very little information about you.

One of the things I often hear recruiters complain about is LinkedIn profiles that have no meat. An anemic or minimal profile does very little to help them assess you, and want to interview you to learn more.

Think about these people sifting through maybe hundreds of LinkedIn profiles to source and assess candidates for openings they’re trying to fill. If they come across your profile with very little information in it about you, and compare it with someone else’s robust profile that positions them as a good fit, they’ll probably pass on you and reach out to the other guy.

Use the About section like a biography. Don’t be afraid to tell people who you are, what things jazz you, why you got into your field, etc.

Remember what I said in #1 above. LinkedIn is a search engine. Your profile needs to be written with both SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and human beings in mind. Get the right keywords into all the content in your profile, but balance it with personality or personal branding to help humans assess your qualifications.

More in The Essential LinkedIn Guide for Today’s Executive Job Search

4. You neglected the Featured and Activity sections of your profile.

Besides the great content you’ll put in your profile, capture attention and show that you’re social media savvy and up to date with the new world of work by doing the following:

Add video and visuals to your Featured section. Without scrolling too far down your profile, people will notice what you put in that section. If you have personal branding videos there, recruiters will likely be more attracted to you.

Don’t have any videos? Now’s the time to start using them. Check out CareerBrandVideos™, a customized Done-For-You personal branding video system I co-created with two experts, Hannah Morgan and Andre Palko.

Regularly post updates in your LinkedIn stream and comment on other people’s updates. They’ll show up in your profile’s “Activity” section and further indicate that you’re adept with social media.

In fact, you can create a powerful networking strategy by simply commenting on, sharing and reacting to the right people’s updates, posts and articles. Those people include the right executive recruiters.

On the LinkedIn company Pages for each of your target employers, look for high level executives who may be hiring decision makers. Follow them and comment on their updates. Do the same with industry influencers and other relevant people.

5. You didn’t use storytelling with hard facts and metrics.

Storytelling helps recruiters get a feel for what kind of person you are. They want to get some idea of your leadership style and how you get things done . . . what you’ll be like to work with. People relate and connect better with people through storytelling.

Another big thing about storytelling. It makes for content that’s a much more interesting read than the dry resume-speak usually seen in LinkedIn profiles.

The idea is to weave together your hard and softer skills in short points that drive home the benefits you’ve brought employers in the past.

Include the metrics for the impressive results of your efforts, but also map out how you got there. The CARs (Challenge – Action(s) – Results) exercise will help you build career stories.

Here’s a tip – When writing each short (2 to 3 lines) story, lead with the big result . . . that is, metrics or numbers. Here’s an example for a CEO Consultant – Business Process and Profitability Improvement:

Salvaged 65% of over-budget, behind-schedule million-dollar Financial System IT project for $280M utility company. Banked on efforts already invested, redefined the approach, mapped out a new path, renewed confidence, and unified everyone toward the same path of success.

More in How Storytelling Makes Executive Resumes and LinkedIn Profiles Dazzle

More reasons why the best executive recruiters ignore your LinkedIn profile

Executive resume writer Donna Svei, a former recruiter, offered a few red flags that may cause recruiters to skip over your LinkedIn profile:

Tagging only remote roles

Remote-only jobs are on the decline, peaking in 2022, and more than 85% of LinkedIn job postings are hybrid or on-site.

“So if your profile says you work only from home, some employers will write you off before considering you.
However, if an employer is really interested in a candidate, many will make accommodations for remote workers. But in order to be considered, I recommend that candidates do not advertise themselves as remote-only from the outset.”

No proof of skills or impact

“Some companies have started focusing more on skills than on degrees. But saying you have a skill without sharing proof and impact is a red flag to recruiters that you may be exaggerating your background.
The good news is that it’s easy to give proof of your skills. On your profile, describe the accomplishments and impact you’ve delivered using your most marketable skills. This is what really gets recruiters’ attention.”

Not expressing your interest

“You can express interest in many ways: The most overt approach is to activate the #OpenToWork frame on your profile photo.
Also, a new LinkedIn feature lets you tell companies you’re interested. Visit the About section of the company’s page. Scroll to “Interested in working with us in the future?” and click “I’m interested.” LinkedIn will privately share your profile with the company’s recruiters for up to a year.”