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Changing the Game - Without a Resume

change the game - without a resume

How can you get noticed without a resume or a LinkedIn profile? If you’re a software engineer and have a LinkedIn profile it’s like throwing bread out to hungry pigeons. It doesn’t take long before the flock of recruiters sending you messages grows and grows and grows. 

LinkedIn has all kinds of fancy filters that recruiters can use that make discriminating against people pretty easy. Things like filtering results by graduation date making it nearly impossible for older employees to even show up in some search results.

That’s why you won’t find my graduation dates anywhere on my LinkedIn profile. It’s irrelevant information that has absolutely nothing to do with what I can do. 

Understanding how things work allows you to take away leverage. It’s all a game. 

But how can you really change that game? 

As I continue to learn, evolve, and watch how things work there’s one thing that stands out to me about our careers: how can you take control back of your own narrative? How can you control the stories others tell themselves about you?

What if someone were to reach out to you, not because they saw your resume or LinkedIn profile first, but because they saw how you think, how you are curious, how you interact with others, how you’re generous, and what you know? What about how you act when there’s something you don’t know?

What can you start doing now that will begin the process of getting noticed? 

It’s a long process. It takes patience. It’s also scary. 

What will you do when people start to notice? Will you listen to your ‘lizard brain’ that is calling you a fraud? It’s reminding you that you don’t know everything and somehow people want you to know everything and have every answer. They’ll surely find out you’re a fraud.

Think about how irrational that sounds. 

Now, go do it. You’ll be better a month from now than you are today. But not if you don’t start today.

Drip by drip. Day by day. Compounding improvement.


Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash