Welcome to my 3rd newsletter. Thank you to my early supporters 🎉

Your résumé is on life support these days.

It’s a static document that lives in people’s hard drives. It gets buried in recruiters’ inboxes and ATS systems.

The say the average time that a recruiter looks at your résumé is 6 seconds. It’s becoming less and less relevant. The résumé is dying and on its way to the other side.

But wait, there’s someone in the nursery crying out for attention! Who’s that? Where is new life coming from? Your LinkedIn profile.

Your LI page is an amazing and free place to show off your newfound professional identity. And if you don’t believe me, check out my last newsletter on the importance of personal branding to access better job opportunities, high profile exit opportunities and new relationships.

Let’s get into the specifics below of how to optimize your LinkedIn profile as an aspiring Chief of Staff or a highly competent Chief of Staff on the job.

✅ Profile Picture

Make sure to use a clear, professional picture with good lighting. Use an editing tool to create a solid background.

✅ Tagline

This might be the most important item on your profile. Set aside a full hour to answer the questions: “Who am I?”; “What do I do?”; and “Why does it matter?” See below for prompts:

Who am I?

• What are your unique personal values?

• What are your unique superpowers?

• What surprising life challenges have you overcome?

What do I do:

• What unique accomplishments, skillsets or domain knowledge do you have that puts you in the 99% percentile?

• What special titles, credentials or company names can you drop?

• What very important stakeholders have you worked with?

• What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done (that no one else has done)?

Why does it matter?

• What are some amazing business outcomes that you’ve achieved?

• What is your unique value proposition?

• What’s your professional narrative arc?

Then use this material to create multiple snappy 10-20 word tagline that encapsulates your best achievements, adding in credentials, companies and titles. Choose the best ones with a friend and/or colleague and try one out with your new profile.

✅ Banner Picture

Choose a plain color background. Emphasize your tagline but with shorter phrases / words and differentiated copy. Here are some ideas.

✅ About Me

Go back to your tagline and use this as your north star. Tell a narrative story of “who am I?”, “what do I do?” and “why does it matter?” in a longer format. Use ChatGPT to generate a rough draft, unblock your writer’s block or streamline your existing draft.

✅ Featured

Start writing on LinkedIn related to the tagline you want to promote. Highlight your posts on LinkedIn that advance your story. You’ll notice from my profile that I have two posts featured on (1) the Chief of Staff hiring process and (2) a cheeky “Tell me you’re a Chief of Staff without telling me you’re a Chief of Staff.”

✅ Work Experience

Give a narrative context to each position stating your accomplishments and outcomes. Use your tagline as your north star to determine what you want to highlight. A note on titles: add “De Facto” or “/” or “( )” to then add industry specific titles like Strategy Analyst, Program Manager, PMO Office, Chief of Staff to make it clear what you do.

A few other tips:

• Avoid buzzwords

• Use standard industry language

• Add emotion

• Add a narrative arc

• Edit, edit and edit again

• Ask ChatGPT for help!

✅ Education

Avoid listing a Top 20 school if you only completed a short online course or certification program. It makes you seem like you are claiming to have received an actual degree from that school when that’s not the case.

✅ Recommendations

Solicit recommendations from colleagues that can speak to your capabilities and accomplishments. List them on your profile.

✅ Volunteer Experience

Showcase your life outside of work. This is a chance to talk about your personal values, interests and hobbies to bring your profile to life.

And that’s my LinkedIn Profile Page teardown.

Don’t completely ditch the résumé, but know that it’s almost dead. Invest in your LinkedIn profile instead.

If you follow these tips, you can secure a Chief of Staff job, strengthen your Chief of Staff brand on the job, and gain access to amazing exit opportunities.

Dedicate some time this week and the next to update your LinkedIn profile. Onwards!

Need help updating your LinkedIn profile to get a CoS job or find an exit opportunity?

I’m building a service based on the LinkedIn teardown above. Reply WAITLIST to this email to get on my waitlist and receive more details.

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Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for next week’s edition.