Your LinkedIn Profile Is Not Your Resume

Craig Leonard is the founder of Craig Thoughts. He works one-on-one with tech founders, keynote speakers, and entrepreneurs on their LinkedIn presence: profile, content, connections, and outreach.

This conversation is two LinkedIn profile writers comparing notes. Richard optimized 100+ profiles for LinkedIn Makeover after leaving Trader Joe’s; Craig does the work today, under an algorithm that has changed the rules. What follows covers how the platform actually decides who sees you, why most profiles fail at the only question that matters, and where AI helps and where it wrecks the job.

Meet Craig Leonard

Richard Lowe: Good morning. Thank you for coming to the Leaders and Their Stories podcast. I’m Richard Lowe, and I’m here with Craig Leonard. He’s the founder of Craig Thoughts. He works one-on-one with tech founders, keynote speakers, and entrepreneurs on their LinkedIn and online presence. Craig helps them develop strategies to market and grow their business. Thank you for coming on the show, Craig. How are you today?

Craig Leonard: Thanks for having me, Richard. I’m doing pretty well. How are you?

Richard Lowe: Doing fantastic. Thank you. So you’re a LinkedIn expert, so to speak. You help people with their LinkedIn. What does that mean?

Craig Leonard: Foundationally, I often start with their profile: what they have on there, what they’re communicating about themselves and their work and their ideal clients. Then what they’re doing content-wise, how they’re connecting with people, how they’re making themselves attractive for potential inbound interest, and how to best go about going outbound through DMs and otherwise.

Richard Lowe: I understand. I used to do LinkedIn profiles for LinkedIn Makeover, which was run by Donna Serdula. She wrote LinkedIn for Dummies, and I worked for her for about two years. Probably did about 100 profiles, give or take. I was real busy. She kept me busy. But then I decided I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life and moved on. And it’s changed dramatically since then. So I’m slightly familiar with LinkedIn profiles.

Craig Leonard: It sounds like it. Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t know that.

The Algorithm Went Interest-Based

Richard Lowe: It’s not something I sell anymore, because it’s not really my area now. I’ve been reading reports by Richard van der Blom. He wrote some reports on how LinkedIn has changed and what’s new about it. It’s changed from being personality-based to being interest-based, for example. And that’s a pretty substantial change. What do you know about that?

Craig Leonard: Well, like many people, I follow Gary Vaynerchuk and what he talks about with social media. I think TikTok was the forerunner of this, in that it’s less about what our friends and family are posting. These platforms want to keep us on them for as long as possible, because that’s often how they make a fair amount or all of their money. So they want to show us content that’s going to catch our eye, stop the scroll, and keep us on the platform. I follow certain nonprofits, certain people, and I generally like their posts and comment on their posts. So what does LinkedIn do? They show me more of that, because they know I like those posts and I’ll engage with them and stay on the platform.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, and it works based on interest, is what I understand. If you comment on a lot of different things or post on a lot of different subjects, it doesn’t know what you’re interested in, so it tends to downvote your posts, basically, and they don’t get as much reach. Whereas if you post steadily on the same one or two subjects, and comment that way, and make all of your efforts on those subjects, then you’re going to get a lot more reach on your own stuff. That’s the way I understand it.

Craig Leonard: Yeah, that’s certainly part of it. They want people who have, I don’t know if necessarily singularly focused, but one overall subject, whether that’s marketing, book writing, what have you. And what they reward is people who are engaging with others. You get a certain number of points. I don’t have exact numbers, but if you’re leaving significant comments, which they regard as maybe five words or more, ten words or more, sometimes it changes, you get a certain amount of credit, a certain amount of reach. Liking a post gets less credit, because that’s only clicking a button.

Craig Leonard: Then when you post, they’re going to show it to more people, and based on the response in the first hour, if it’s getting a lot of engagement, it’s going to get to more people, and so on. The largest accounts have been posting consistently for five-plus years and have built up a great audience. At the highest level, people click the bell to get notified when someone posts. Those people are going to get plenty of engagement, but they’ve built up goodwill. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy a little bit at that level. So many people are following them and getting notified, and when others comment there, people see their name, potentially click on their profile, and they get some reach from the borrowed audience.

LinkedIn Watches Everything

Richard Lowe: Right. And my understanding is it even takes into account who you DM, who you connect with. Literally everything you’re doing, LinkedIn is looking at to form that profile of you, so that it knows what you want and how it can help you.

Craig Leonard: I don’t know the ins and outs, but I can certainly believe it.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, Richard van der Blom’s report goes into detail on that. Oh boy, does it go into detail. 261 pages in this version. Every little bitty thing. It’s very, very good. It’s hard to read, though, because it’s so long. But if you want to know about something, you get his report.

Craig Leonard: Okay, I will check that out. Thank you.

Richard Lowe: Now it takes into account everything. Before, you wanted to get as big a network as possible, and that was the challenge. Now the challenge is to get as good a network as possible, meaning good related to your interests.

Comment Like You Mean It

Craig Leonard: Yeah, absolutely. If you’re in a certain field, whether you’re starting out or big in your career, oftentimes it’s beneficial to follow the top creators in that space and engage with their posts and provide meaningful responses. Not just great post, well done. That’s boring and kind of distasteful sometimes. But if you’re providing meaningful context and giving an individual story that only you could share, then that actually provides value. You get some of the credibility, and you can potentially gain some of that audience yourself.

Richard Lowe: Correct. The key point is that it applies to everything now. Before, it was mostly just what you posted. Now everything you do on LinkedIn is monitored and used as part of that algorithm. This is my understanding from the report. And that changes the way you post and the way you interact with the thing. You can’t just randomly comment on things anymore and expect that to help. You can’t just randomly connect with people and expect that to help. You need to be very precise about who you’re connecting with, for example.

Connections Worth Having

Craig Leonard: Yeah, to a certain extent. And this may be a little counterproductive, but I do want to connect with people from different walks to keep it interesting. If we have something in common, like we went to the same school, or I like to connect with other marketers and people who are doing great work and are top of their field. I do want to connect with interesting people, even if they’re not into LinkedIn or marketing.

Richard Lowe: Sure. I think the key is people you will actually have a relationship with, not people you’re just connecting to to have a big network. Are you going to have a relationship with this person? Yes? Good. Even one that’s a post every six months. But if you’re just going to connect with them to connect with them, that’s a waste of time, and actually it’s counterproductive. That doesn’t imply that it’s productive to go out there and delete people from your network. It just means moving forward.

Craig Leonard: It can be sometimes, I guess, if you don’t have any connection with someone. But you don’t have to, obviously.

Profiles That Read Like Resumes

Richard Lowe: I’ll start this a different way. I’ve been looking around at a lot of LinkedIn profiles lately, because I want to connect with people who might want to be on this podcast and who might want my services. And I look at their LinkedIn profiles and, oh my God, I want to send all of them to you. It’s like they took their resume and put it there. And that’s the higher-quality side. Most of them, it’s just: I went to school here, I have these degrees, I have all this stuff. I don’t care. I just want to know what you can do to help me. It’s what’s in it for them, what’s in it for your audience, not who are you. That comes later. Can you speak on that for a little bit?

Craig Leonard: Yeah. I don’t want to punch people when they’re down, so to speak, but there’s certainly room for improvement. Some people got on there because they were told they should, but given the nature of their work, perhaps they don’t feel it would benefit them. If they’re an employee, sometimes people only think of it when they’re between jobs, and then it’s, oh, now I need to.

Craig Leonard: So a little updating every three or six months, two to four times a year, even if you’re an employee and you’re not in sales. Because if you’re in sales, you should have a good presence on there, showcase the results and transformations you’ve gotten for clients, and get testimonials on there, because that can go a long way toward shortening your sales cycle and making it easier to make your quota. But if you’re a non-salesperson, an employee, it’s good to update your presence every three to six months so that, A, recruiters and potential employers are more likely to reach out to you. And B, so you remember all your best achievements. If the time comes, unfortunately, and I’ve been there, that you are laid off, you’re not at that point starting from scratch, trying to remember what you’ve done in the past three to five years at your job. By then it might be hard to remember, and it’s not a great place to be.

Richard Lowe: Right. Or what did I do last week, even, sometimes. In the panic of having gotten laid off, that can all become fuzzy in your head. It’s better to do it over time.

Hire a Professional, Take the One-Time Hit

Richard Lowe: If you’re in business, a freelancer or anything like that, or you’re looking for a job, I don’t know what your rates are and we shouldn’t go into rates, but you should be able to afford an expert to come in and fix your LinkedIn profile. It’s a one-time charge. Take the little hit on the money, go do it, and get it done right, because it will help people who need you come see you. If you’re looking for a job, what do you offer? It’s not who are you. It’s not what degrees you have. It’s what are you offering them. If you’re a freelancer, what do you offer? If you’re a company, what do you provide? Hire a professional. That’s my opinion. And that’s what I did when I left Trader Joe’s: I hired LinkedIn Makeover, and then I started working for them.

Craig Leonard: Nice. That’s one way to get a job.

Richard Lowe: Yeah. And I didn’t particularly need one at the time. I had some money, but it was a good way to make a little income and learn about LinkedIn. I didn’t even have a LinkedIn profile before I left Trader Joe’s. I didn’t need one. I was there for twenty years. I expected to be there until I died. But things changed. Life changes.

Twenty Years at Trader Joe’s

Craig Leonard: Nice. What were your roles there?

Richard Lowe: I was the director of technical services, computer operations. I managed all of the computers on the corporate side. AR, AP, GL, payroll, merchandising, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, everything on the corporate side. I didn’t run the stores, I didn’t run the network, and I certainly didn’t do new development. But I did all of it, about a thousand computers, a good staff, and a lot of consultants. Did that for twenty years. Built a disaster site so that we could fail over if we had to, if there was an earthquake in California. It was a fulfilling journey. And then it was time to leave, because I was tired of working for corporate. So I went off on my own. Moved from California to Florida, and now I’m having a good time.

The Hawaiian Shirts

Craig Leonard: And I apologize if you already answered this on another episode, but when did the Hawaiian shirts start? Was that always a thing for you?

Richard Lowe: Well, Hawaiian shirts came in at Trader Joe’s. They have Hawaiian shirts. It’s a requirement that you wear Hawaiian shirts. It’s actually a uniform. But they’re pastel, very dull, light. I decided to have more colorful ones. And it’s part of my brand, in that I’m very relaxed as a ghostwriter. You’re going to be comfortable with me. We’re going to have a good relationship. That was the image I was trying to get across, and it seems to work. People loosen up with me right away, and I think part of it is the image. I’m not all stuffy with a suit and tie. You’re not hiring an accountant. You’re not hiring a lawyer. You’re hiring a ghostwriter to write your book.

Craig Leonard: Right. I think I need to change my profile photo. One, it’s five and a half years old. And two, I was wearing a suit, because at that time maybe I was still going to go back. But I’m generally a golf shirt type of guy. It’s more relaxed. Not as relaxed as the Hawaiian shirt, but.

Richard Lowe: Well, also I’m in Florida, so that’s part of it. Maybe you should see somebody who knows LinkedIn. Wink, wink. They could tell you what kind of profile photo to get.

Craig Leonard: Well, it sounds like you’ve written as many profiles as I have, from our conversation before.

Use AI as an Advisor, Not the Writer

Richard Lowe: It’s been many years since I did that, but I could certainly jump in and do it. I just rewrote my own. And the way I found, interestingly enough, to use AI to help you write your LinkedIn: don’t have it write your profile. That’s just dumb. You’re going to get a very stale, very dull, very boring one. Instead, work with it as an advisor. I use Claude. I say, Claude, how does my opening look for attracting this kind of audience? And it said, it pretty much sucks. I said, oh, well, what do I need to do? Well, you’re not telling them what they get. Oh, well, how do we do that? And then it asked me about my experience and said, tell them this kind of stuff. And I wrote it myself. I used Claude as somebody I could bounce the ideas off of. It turns out to be a very useful approach that works very well. It’s more time consuming than just saying, Claude, write it all for me. But that’s not going to get you a good profile. That’s going to get you a very mediocre one that’s not going to attract people.

Craig Leonard: So Claude’s not one of the AIs that kiss people’s asses all the time, is what you’re saying?

Richard Lowe: It does not. Well, it does have the echo chamber effect a little bit, but it’s nowhere near as profound as Gemini or the other one, ChatGPT.

Craig Leonard: I just learned recently, I think it might have been the Founders podcast, the David Senra podcast, that Claude was named for Claude Shannon.

Richard Lowe: Oh, nice. I had no idea where the name came from. I tend to use the new Fable model. It’s very, very powerful. And I have the max 200 dollar a month plan, which has more than enough tokens for me. But I hit it. I come right up to the top every Sunday, because it refreshes every Monday. So I’m using the hell out of it, but I use it in the advisory form. Help me with this. I’m stuck on this piece. How do I approach this person? And I don’t necessarily take its advice, because of the echo chamber effect, meaning, as you just said, it’s going to kiss my ass a lot. ChatGPT is really famous for that. That’s one of the reasons why I went with Claude. Besides, Claude is a better writer, so it writes better copy. I use Claude heavily on the marketing side, because I’m not a marketing person. If I want to write an ad or something, I’ll definitely depend on Claude to help me with that.

Richard Lowe: But if you were looking for a good LinkedIn profile, I would recommend teaming up with somebody like you instead of using AI. First of all, it’s a one-time charge. You’re a business person. You should be able to afford a one-time charge to clean up your profile. I assume you’re a one-time charge. You probably have a subscription service too.

What a Profile Rewrite Involves

Craig Leonard: For a LinkedIn profile, I do either a one-time charge or an hourly rate. It usually takes two or three hours. The full profile includes an interview where I ask people questions, and I include a couple of rewrites if they want changes. Because they’re obviously going to know their work better than I can from a conversation or two. They’ll provide clarity that maybe wasn’t as obvious, that I didn’t pick up on. They can better explain and clarify what they do, who they serve, and what differences they make for their clients.

Richard Lowe: Right. You’re always going to get a better profile from a human than you are from AI, even the best AIs. Because AIs go to the lowest common denominator, always. If you look at their writing, that’s the main problem. There’s no controversy. There’s nothing to bite on. It’s just prose. And it’s the same with profiles. You’re going to get a mediocre profile. It may sound good, but it’s not going to do what you need it to do. That’s why I would go for a human. I think you’re human, right? You’re not an AI?

Craig Leonard: I don’t know what I need to do to demonstrate. They can imitate us, but.

Robots, Alexa, and Recordings

Richard Lowe: Have you seen those little AI robots that are coming out? They’re just terrible. The ones that look like humans, only they’re robots. 20,000 dollars each. Turns out there’s actually a person controlling that robot, unless it’s doing very routine things. So you’ve got a person going into your house through the robot, and I wouldn’t be comfortable with that. I’m barely comfortable with Alexa. I’m actually thinking of getting rid of Alexa. It’s very intrusive.

Craig Leonard: Yeah, I don’t have any of those. Obviously, I know some people do. But you forget what you say, and it gets recorded.

Richard Lowe: And who knows what they’re doing with it. It could be very innocent. But if it’s recorded, maybe next year it’s not very innocent. That’s the problem with recordings. So I’ve been toying with just throwing Alexa out. It is convenient, though, to be able to say, hey, what time is it? That’s about all I use it for. What’s the weather? They started showing ads on it, and the ads are becoming obnoxious. The day they start charging for it is the day I leave.

The Statue of Liberty and Emergency Landings

Richard Lowe: We started this discussion a little bit about the Statue of Liberty behind you. Great location for you. You had a little background on the Statue of Liberty that was very interesting to me. What do you know about it?

Craig Leonard: Well, New York and New Jersey have contested where it is, who owns it, that type of thing. I don’t know all the results of that. New York obviously puts it on their marketing materials, their T-shirts, shot glasses and everything. And in New Jersey we claim it as well. I think we’re both allowed to do that. But no, I love New Jersey, it’s my home, and I love New York too. No ill will there.

Richard Lowe: Of course. It’s right across the water, isn’t it?

Craig Leonard: Hudson River.

Richard Lowe: Hudson River. I just watched Sully, the Hudson River movie. What a scary thing to be in. And you talk about a hero.

Craig Leonard: I was on a plane, not that serious, but we were flying from Phoenix back to New Jersey and we lost pressurization, and the oxygen masks did come down. So we were breathing through those. Obviously not as serious. They went in safely in Omaha, so we just spent the afternoon in Omaha at the airport. Good job by the pilots there. But thankfully we didn’t have to land in a river and get saved, like everyone involved there.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, I’ve been in one serious plane thing, where we were going up out of LAX. At LAX they bank out over the ocean because of noise abatement. We got up in the air, and then the pilot said, everybody, we’re making an emergency landing, strap in. And we landed a few minutes later. Turned out something came loose in the engine, and it’s a good thing we landed. Emergency landing back at LAX. Did a turn, and that was the fastest landing I’ve ever been on.

Craig Leonard: Five minutes in the air or less, something like that?

Richard Lowe: Five, ten minutes max. It didn’t blow up, at least.

Craig Leonard: When was this, if you don’t mind me asking?

Richard Lowe: Probably 2006, 2007. It was after my wife passed away, so it had to have been around then. I was probably flying to a Renaissance Fair. I did a lot of that.

Eliances and the Ambassadors Committee

Richard Lowe: And we met in Eliances, which is a networking group, correct?

Craig Leonard: You and I, yes.

Richard Lowe: It’s a pretty good group. I would recommend any business person, small business person, or freelancer join. You’ve had good luck in it, I think.

Craig Leonard: Yeah, I’ve done pretty well with it. I haven’t been to the in-person Grand Table, but I should be this year.

Richard Lowe: Because it’s coming up in a couple of weeks, I think. Three weeks. I go most weeks, and I get business from it, and a lot of good people, and I like it a lot. You can go in free as a guest and attend one meeting, so I’d recommend going for it.

Craig Leonard: Yeah, I’m on the ambassadors committee, so I invite people to visit.

Richard Lowe: Me too. We’re both on the ambassadors committee. That’s a good place to be. It’s a good group of people, and it’s better managed than most networking groups. There’s actually a chance to network, to talk to people, and to get business from it.

Craig Leonard: They have the presentations, and then the second part, which allows for more small groups and one-on-one conversations.

Richard Lowe: Right. It looks like a virtual space from the top, and you can bounce around from table to table and talk to whoever’s at the table. It’s kind of cool. I like it.

How to Reach Craig

Richard Lowe: Well, is there anything else you’d like to say before we end the podcast?

Craig Leonard: No, I don’t think so. I want to thank you for having me. It’s been nice speaking with you and getting to know you a little bit better from our conversations.

Richard Lowe: Same here. How do people get hold of you?

Craig Leonard: I’m on LinkedIn. Search for Craig Leonard VT, as in Virginia Tech. And my website is craigthoughts.com. You can book a Zoom with me. My calendar is on both.

Richard Lowe: Excellent. My understanding is you’re excellent at LinkedIn. I’ve heard that from people, and from what I’ve seen, you’re very good, and I’d recommend people contact you. At least talk to him. I’m sure you can help even on a free call.

Craig Leonard: Yeah, I’ve done that a few times and I’m happy to help.

Richard Lowe: Well, thank you all for watching the Leaders and Their Stories podcast. I’m doing these practically daily now, so come back next time and enjoy it. And thank you, Craig, for coming on.

Craig Leonard: Thank you, Richard. I really appreciate it.

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