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Your LinkedIn Page, Your Resume, and You, with Enrique Ruiz

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If you’re counting on a generic resume to get your next job, you may be in for a rude awakening. In this digital world, you’re going to need to level up if you want to get past the applicant tracking systems and be invited to interview. Where do you begin? Find Your Dream Job guest Enrique Ruiz says the most important step is your LinkedIn page. Build it out fully. Next, prepare two resumes; one for the ATS and a second, more specialized one for each position you’re applying to. Finally, represent yourself well. Show up on time, be pleasant and engaging, and express your desire to work hard and be a team player. 

About Our Guest:

Enrique Ruiz is a former senior talent acquisition manager at Thesis, a digital agency in Portland, Oregon, and will soon launch his own recruiting agency. 

Resources in This Episode:

Transcript

Find Your Dream Job, Episode 428:

Your LinkedIn Page, Your Resume, and You, with Enrique Ruiz

Airdate: December 6, 2023

Mac Prichard:

This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.

I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.

Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.

Find Your Dream Job is brought to you by TopResume. TopResume has helped more than 400,000 professionals land more interviews and get hired faster.

Get a free review of your resume today.

Go to macslist.org/topresume.

Today’s guest has worked with thousands of job applicants.

He says the successful ones do three things well.

Wouldn’t you like to know what they are?

Enrique Ruiz is here to talk about your LinkedIn page, your resume, and you.

He’s a senior talent acquisition manager at Thesis, a digital agency.

Enrique is passionate about finding and attracting the best talent.

And he joins us from Portland, Oregon.

Well, let’s get going, Enrique. You’ve hired many, many people, and you talk to job seekers all of the time, and you say that successful job applicants pay attention to three things, your LinkedIn page, your resume, and you. Why do these three things matter so much?

Enrique Ruiz:

Well, these things are kind of the pillars of how you are seen in the marketplace. Years ago, it was just your resume and you, where your resume had your work experience, and you could just show up at someone’s door and say, hey, I’m excited about this job. Hire me. And that’s what happened; they hired the person. Usually, it was the person that showed up best. With the best experience, with the best demeanor, and energy.

Today, we live in a different, different world. It’s a digital world. Today, you have to have the triple threat of having an amazing LinkedIn that is engaging, thoughtful, and honestly just a good experience for somebody to have. Your resume – we’ll talk about it, but having a dual kind of approach to your resume and yourself.

Now more than ever, Covid being in the rearview mirror, people want to work with people that want to work hard, show up well to work, and honestly just show up. Whether it’s virtual, hybrid, or fully at the office, people want to work with good, wholesome, hard-working people. So you’ve got to have these three in lockstep. Otherwise, you’re gonna fall behind in the marketplace of job searchers.

Mac Prichard:

In your experience, Enrique, do most applicants do all three things well?

Enrique Ruiz:

No, is the short answer, Mac. It’s a lot of work to make a resume. I still get people that say, look at my resume. The first thing I do is go look at their LinkedIn. It’s like your LinkedIn is not even there. So, the quick answer is no. It takes a lot of effort to make all three of these things shine. But I think with effort and time put into it, people can really, really shine. But it takes a lot of effort.

Mac Prichard:

So it takes time. It takes effort. What are other reasons that might stop candidates from building compelling LinkedIn pages or resumes and personal brands?

Enrique Ruiz:

Yeah, in my personal opinion, it just comes down to the space between your two ears. Sometimes people just don’t want to – people think of LinkedIn, not all people. But a lot of people think of LinkedIn as just another social media website. There’s some truth to that. But the reality, whether you like it or not, whether you’re more green in your career or you’ve been around for a while, LinkedIn is your first digital impression to the world without you being there.

When we were younger, Mac, we had to go to conferences, have our card, and we had to step outside of our comfort zone and go talk to people and say hey, I think I would be a good person at your company. And you had to be bold and make good energy, vibe with the other people. And that impression that you left when that person went back to their office and went through their little Rolodex of people they met, who they’re gonna call, who they’re gonna hire, the impression that you left, that’s what they remembered. That’s the person that they called first, and hopefully, you were that person.

Today, that digital first impression comes via LinkedIn. That’s just the hard truth. Whether you like it or not, how your LinkedIn shows up to the world tells people how you show up, in general.

Now, it’s not gospel. I know great people are out there that don’t have LinkedIn. I get it. But I’m in the world where I hire people every week. So, if your LinkedIn and your resume and how you show up in an interview don’t match up, it just throws it off.

Mac Prichard:

Well, we’re gonna walk through each of those areas and how to do them well. Before we do that what mistakes do you see applicants make with LinkedIn pages, resumes, and how they show up personally?

Enrique Ruiz:

Yeah, good question. First, your resume, I think a lot of times, people are overthinking the resume. I’m a big believer, just like in design, less is more. So you want to have a solid, really nice resume. I always recommend to the people that I work with, whether it’s a mentee or someone I’m working with outside of work, I say, listen, you’ve got to have two resumes. One, for just being able to throw it into an Applicant Tracking System, which is usually where it goes when you apply online to a company, and two, when you show up, or you know who you’re gonna meet with, you have a nicer-looking resume. So you gotta have two.

Sometimes people just don’t want to do it. They just make whatever resume they want, and that’s what they put in the machine of ATS or the resume they send in. That’s their choice, I get it. But I think you should have two. One that is good for the ATS and one that is good to show in person or via email when you’re gonna interview. So, one mistake around the resume is not having a dual-threat resume.

LinkedIn, honestly, it’s just lack of effort. If you don’t have a robust resume built out, I mean, you can send me your LinkedIn and say, hey, Enrique, what are your tips for my LinkedIn? And I’ll give you my little breakdown of do these things right now. It takes like an hour. There’s so many things you can do within LinkedIn to optimize your profile so that you just look a little better. It’s like showing up to a wedding in like a nice suit rather than like shorts and sandals. I prefer the suit.

And then the in-person, I think post-COVID times, you want to show up. If it’s a virtual interview, you want to show up well. Just how you coached me for this interview, Mac, quiet space, good lighting, all of the things, making sure that when someone experiences you, they experience a good, good person, virtually. Sometimes, I gotta tell you, Mac, when I’m talking to somebody virtually, and I’m looking up their nose at a cafe shop with noisy things in the background, I get it. I have empathy for people’s situations one hundred percent, but it’s a thirty-minute interview. Make the time to have me experience you well.

So, yeah. You want to have that good experience virtually as well, and if you’re in person, just take care of yourself. Shower, shave, put some decent things on, and show up really well with really positive energy. It’s like the basics.

So, if you can’t get the basics down, it’s gonna be tough to be the person when the hiring committees deciding who do we want to spend forty hours a week with. Is it the person that showed up well with really good energy positive attitude? Or the person that just didn’t have a good energy to them complained about past employers? All of these things that just don’t sit well. Those are some of the mistakes.

Mac Prichard:

Alright, well, let’s walk through the positive steps you can take in each of these three areas, and let’s start with LinkedIn. Some of this I think you’ve touched on, Enrique, which is great. But I know that your big piece of advice here when it comes to LinkedIn is to engage with every LinkedIn feature. Now, that can sound overwhelming. Can you break that down for us and tell us what you have in mind here?

Enrique Ruiz:

Yes, so if you see it on LinkedIn, from the banner to your picture, to your bio, to everything within your work history, to your skills, anything that you can add to your LinkedIn, you need to do it. You need to add it. Because, I mean, I recruit, I source a lot. When I’m sourcing, sometimes I’ll say, okay, I’m gonna go to the last resulting page in my search. Instead of the first, I’ll start backward. Just to switch it up. The last couple of pages on my LinkedIn search is literally blank profiles.

So, somehow, they popped into the search because of something. But they’re blank. No pictures. No details. No work history. No nothing. So then I’m like, ugh. So then I have to click, click, click, click through to find the more robust profiles.

So, if you’re not adding, you know, the expression, the meat to the bone, then you’re not gonna show up. The algorithm of LinkedIn is not going to propel you to the top of the search. It’s gonna propel you to the bottom.

So everything from the banner to the picture, to the skills within your profile, to the keywords that you are looking to get in the new job you’re looking for, or the transferable skills that you already have that will take you to that next job- those keywords need to be peppered all over your profile, all over it because recruiters like me are searching for those keywords. We’re looking for the skills, the unique skills, the differentiating skills that set you apart, and if I plug that keyword in and it’s not on your LinkedIn profile anywhere, you won’t pop up for me. I won’t see you. You’re invisible.

Mac Prichard:

Let’s pause there, Enrique. We’re gonna take a break. When we come back, I want to continue this conversation about how to make the most of LinkedIn. Stay with us. When we return, Enrique Ruiz will continue to share his advice on your LinkedIn page, your resume, and you.

Are you ready to upgrade your resume?

Go to macslist.org/topresume.

The experts at TopResume will look at your resume for free.

Go to macslist.org/topresume.

Get tips you can use right away to improve your resume on your own.

Or hire TopResume to do it for you.

Go to macslist.org/topresume.

Now, let’s get back to the show.

We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Enrique Ruiz.

He’s a senior talent acquisition manager at Thesis, a digital agency.

Enrique is passionate about finding and attracting the best talent.

And he joins us from Portland, Oregon.

Now, Enrique, before the break, we were talking about the three things that you say matter most to recruiters like you, your LinkedIn page, your resume, and how you show up, you, your personal brand.

We were talking about LinkedIn, and you touched on the importance of algorithms and keywords and why they matter so much when hiring managers like you are doing searches.

How do you recommend listeners take into consideration those algorithms when they’re filling out the page as you’ve instructed?

Enrique Ruiz:

One thing I tell the people I get to work with, whether it’s college students or people I mentor, is you have to be really honest with yourself and kind of break it down on a piece of paper, and put down all of the skills you engage with during your working day, literally from the time you clock in until the time you clock out. What do you do? And you break it down on a piece of paper. Those are the skills that you have to put on your LinkedIn that have to do with your current job.

Now, a lot of people are looking for that next job. Well, LinkedIn right now, when you go to jobs, you search your job in the locations, you’ll see jobs, and you’ll see the skills needed for that job. So whoever posted that job is saying, hey, these are the skills we are looking for for this specific job. And it will tell you on the little screen, check mark if you have it, x if you don’t.

So, in your breakdown assessing yourself, if you don’t have those skills put on your own LinkedIn or your resume, then the algorithm’s not gonna push jobs that fit your skillset to you. It does a lot of work for you. It’s helping you see things that are gonna be good for – I get messages all of the time, and I’m like, hmm, interesting. Now, more than ever, because I hone it in, I’m like, that does kind of seem like an interesting job. No, I’m good.

So, for a job searcher, you need to look at that job, that future job, and see within your skills the transferable skills that sometimes are even, I would say, synonymous with the skills that they’re looking for for that future job. Oh, I do that in a different way. Okay, well, put that in so that it fits the word so that if you do get an interview, you’re able to speak to those transferable skills.

So, that is a little bit of a takes up time, takes up energy. But if you connect your world of skills to your resume and LinkedIn so that that future job can fit within that realm, oh my gosh. It’s just a little bit of an easier search, I would say.

But you’ve got to pepper the skills all over your LinkedIn. The more you pepper them on your LinkedIn, in your bio, your skills, your background, your work history, the more that that word is gonna populate in the results for someone like me. And when I see those little words highlighted in yellow, I’m like, oh, Mac has a lot of skills in podcasting. I’m gonna call Mac because I’m hiring a podcaster. I’m gonna reach out to him.

So, that’s kind of the LinkedIn approach that I have that I would tell people.

Mac Prichard:

I want to get to resumes, but one more question about LinkedIn. How important is it for you as a recruiter to see that candidates have created original content on LinkedIn? I’m thinking of posts or articles, or other material. Does that matter?

Enrique Ruiz:

It doesn’t matter to the job. If I’m hiring someone that is, I don’t care. I don’t really care if you have amazing posts. I just want to see your experience. Your skills. Your breakdown of how you represent yourself. Some of your posts, I’ll check out. Maybe if you’re a copywriter, I’ll go to your portfolio. If you’re a designer, I’ll go to your portfolio.

Hopefully, everything that you have to offer, whether it’s a copywriting portfolio, a design portfolio, or a website that you might have for yourself, I should be able to easily get to it from your LinkedIn, from anywhere that’s digital. The post – I don’t think it matters to the job. I think it’s more I need to get to your skills, background, and what qualifies you for the job I’m hiring for quickly. I don’t want to dig around for it. You need to make it easy. I mean, this sounds selfish, Mac, but you need to make it easy for me to see you.

Mac Prichard:

Well, let’s talk about the second of the three items you say matter when recruiters are looking for candidates. First was your LinkedIn page, the second is your resume. And in the first segment, you talked about the importance of having two resumes. One for the Applicant Tracking System, another for an interview when you’re actually meeting someone either virtually or in person.

Why is it important to have two resumes? Tell us more about that.

Enrique Ruiz:

It really comes down to the Applicant Tracking System. For the listeners that may not know, an Applicant Tracking System is what companies use to literally track the people that apply to those jobs. There’s a plethora of avenues that companies can choose. Usually, when you apply to a job, and I see the memes on LinkedIn all of the time, oh, I apply to the job, and I still have to fill in my work experience. It’s kind of like a meme out there.

But I think most companies, when you apply to the job, if you put it through an Applicant Tracking System, and if your resume is very basic – just your name, phone number, email, work history, companies you worked for, how long you worked for them – that’s the easiest way for a robust Applicant Tracking System to intake your resume so that it can use it so that it can create a profile for you so that the recruiter or hiring manager can see you.

So that’s one. But the basic one is the easy one. You can go to Google or anywhere and get basic resumes. Don’t pay anyone for basic resume creation.

The other one, again, it plays into, I think, how prepared someone might be for a certain situation in an interview. So, your basic one is for the Applicant Tracking System. Boom, that’s gone that way. Your other one, that’s where you have a little bit more design or a little bit more of a look to your resume. That one – same information and data; it just looks a little nicer. That’s the resume; once you know you’re gonna meet with a hiring manager virtually, and you’ve got their account or invite, the emails there.

That’s what you send the day before, maybe a couple of hours before that interview, to that email, saying, hey, Enrique, excited to meet with you, and in case you don’t have it, here’s my resume again. Attach it, boom, and then it’s like, oh, okay, I’ve got the resume there, also in the Applicant Tracking System, and they have your LinkedIn pulled up, and all these things combined are saying the same kind of things. It’s like, oh, okay, you get a picture of the person quickly, and sometimes you don’t even have to look at all three. You just look at one because you know they’re all kind of singing the same song.

Mac Prichard:

Well, the third part that you say matters when candidates are looking for work after the LinkedIn, and the resume is how you show up, your personal brand, you. Tell us more about that, Enrique. You talked a little bit about this again in the first segment.

What do you have in mind here? And how do candidates who do this well stand out?

Enrique Ruiz:

Yeah, I mean, I could tell you horror stories of what not to do. But, today, since Covid, I don’t think the world is gonna be the same. Kind of sounds like a tough topic to bring up. But, it’s like, since 9/11 the world was never the same. Right? Everything changed. We have the TSA now, and we all go through it. Since Covid, the working world is never gonna be the same.

It’s kind of like telling somebody, you know when you tell your kids that, once they figure out that Santa Claus isn’t real. Like you can’t go back and tell that kid, hey, like, actually, he is real. No, you can’t go back to making a kid think Santa Claus is real. Same thing here.

Now, more than ever, employers are hiring people, full-time employees with just virtual experiences with the person. And I promise you, Mac, the person that’s getting hired is the person that shows up really well skillswise, and shows up virtually really well. I don’t care if you’re virtual, hybrid, fully commuting to the office. People are humans. They still want to work with people that are pleasant, that are hard-working, that are engaging, that are wholesome.

If you don’t show up well in an in-person interview or a virtual interview, you’re not gonna be the person they think about when they’re debriefing. You’re gonna be the person they don’t talk about, that they don’t hire. Simple things: camera, lighting, sound, energy, research on the company, asking good questions, Mac, during the interview, paying attention during the interview.

I had five interviews yesterday; half of them didn’t ask any questions at the end, and I don’t think I’m doing a stellar job at breaking everything down. You just have to come with questions. You have to be prepared. It’s kind of like going on a first date. You want to go on a first date. You want to leave an impression. You want people to want to go on a second date. If people don’t want to go on a second date with you after your interview, in your first virtual interview, good luck. It’s just a tough market.

And again, I have empathy for people. I’m always gonna err on the side of understanding, empathy, you know, life happens. They don’t have childcare; they have a dog or this or that sound in the background. I get it. I understand, and I will have a lot of empathy. But you have to put your best foot forward and be best prepared as much as you can.

Mac Prichard:

It’s been a great conversation, Enrique. Now, tell us, what’s next for you?

Enrique Ruiz:

Well, for me, I get the privilege of being the person helping run recruiting for Thesis, a digital marketing agency here in Portland, and we’re actually building a new office in downtown Portland. And I’m just really excited about it. It’s gonna be our own office. Currently, we rent out some space which is awesome. But a new building, new Thesis, and we’re just really excited.

So, people that are interested in jobs in the creative space, definitely add me on LinkedIn, and if you’re listening around the world, Thesis is definitely looking to partner with clients that want to work with a digital marketing agency that is into humanizing the brands that it works with.

We work with global brands, big and small. Yeah, if you’re a person out there and your company’s looking to partner with a digital marketing agency, definitely add me on LinkedIn, and I can help connect the dots.

Mac Prichard:

We’ll be sure to include your LinkedIn URL in the show notes and the website article so that people can connect with you, Enrique, and if they do reach out, I hope they’ll mention they heard you on Find Your Dream Job.

Now, Enrique, we’ve covered a lot of ground. Given all of the advice you’ve shared today, what’s the top thing, the one thing you want a listener to remember about your LinkedIn page, your resume, and you?

Enrique Ruiz:

The biggest thing is that it’s doable. All of the things are there for you to engage with. The challenge I put out to people or the call to action is right now, if you’re listening to this, look at your phone. Look at your screen time on your phone, okay? On your screen time today and this last week, how much time are you spending on your phone? Look at your top apps. If those top apps are not vessels to use for investment in you, I kind of push back a little bit and say, hey, listen, if you’re spending six hours a day on stuff that’s just stuff, give me half of that time.

Give me three hours and invest it. One hour on your resume. One hour on your LinkedIn. And one hour on going to the store and getting some nicer clothes and doing what you gotta do, clean yourself up so you can show up well for an in-person and virtual things. I’m not saying give me all the time because I watch my share of shows and have fun, too. But give me half of that time and invest it in you because you’re all you’ve got.

Mac Prichard:

Make sure you never miss an episode of Find Your Dream Job.

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Next week, our guest will be Octavia Goredema.

She’s a career coach and the author of Prep, Push, Pivot: Essential Career Strategies for Underrepresented Women.

You accept a new job.

You sign a contract.

And then, the employer withdraws the offer.

Join us next Wednesday when Octavia Goredema and I talk about what to do if your job offer is rescinded.

Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.

This show is produced by Mac’s List.

Susan Thornton-Hough schedules our guests and writes our newsletter. Lisa Kislingbury Anderson manages our social media.

Our sound engineer is Matt Fiorillo. Ryan Morrison at Podfly Productions edits the show. Dawn Mole creates our transcripts. And our music is by Freddy Trujillo.

This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.