THE INSIDER'S EDGE

Last week I told you that 75% of resumes get filtered out before a human sees them.

This week I want to talk about the other place you're invisible. The one most people spend even less time thinking about.

Your LinkedIn profile.

Not because it's a nice-to-have. Because recruiters don't search job boards first. They search LinkedIn. And if your profile isn't built for how that search actually works, you don't exist to them.

I spent years on the other side of LinkedIn Recruiter. Let me show you what I was actually looking at.

Most people treat LinkedIn like a digital resume. They paste their job history in, add a headshot, and hope someone finds them.

That's not how recruiters use it.

LinkedIn Recruiter is a search engine. When I had a role to fill, I typed in keywords, titles, locations, and skills. LinkedIn returned a list of profiles ranked by how well they matched.

Your headline is the first thing I saw. Not your name. Your headline.

If your headline just says your current job title, you're competing with every other person who has that title. That's thousands of people. You're invisible in a crowd.

Here's what actually worked when I was searching:

Your headline should read like a search query, not a business card. "Senior Data Engineer | Python, AWS, Spark | Building Scalable Data Pipelines" beats "Senior Data Engineer at Acme Corp" every single time. The first one matches what I'm actually typing into the search bar. The second one tells me where you work. I don't care where you work. I care what you can do.

Your About section is keyword real estate. Most people leave it blank or write a paragraph about being "passionate." I never once searched for "passionate." I searched for tools, skills, certifications, and outcomes. If those words aren't in your About section, LinkedIn's algorithm doesn't know you have them.

Your job titles matter more than your descriptions. If your company gave you a creative internal title like "Customer Happiness Ninja," LinkedIn's search doesn't know that means Customer Support Manager. Use the title the industry recognizes. You can explain the creative one in the description.

One thing I want to be honest about: the "Open to Work" banner. Some recruiters say it looks desperate. In my experience, it didn't matter. What mattered was whether your profile showed up in my search at all. A green banner on an invisible profile changes nothing. Fix the search problem first.

The people who kept showing up in my results weren't necessarily the most qualified. They were the ones who understood that LinkedIn is a search engine and built their profile like one.

People imagine a recruiter sitting there reading applications as they come in.

That's not what happens.

Here's the real timeline at most companies I worked at. You click submit. Your resume enters an ATS queue with 200 to 500 other applicants. A recruiter checks that queue once, maybe twice, in the first week. They sort by match score or by most recent. They pull the top 15 to 20 and move on.

If your resume landed at hour 47 of a 72-hour posting, you might already be too late. Not because they filled the role. Because the recruiter already had enough people to call.

Timing matters more than most people think. Apply within the first 24 to 48 hours. After that, the pile gets tall and your odds drop fast.

And here's the part nobody talks about: sometimes the role is already half-filled before it's posted. Internal candidates, referrals, people the hiring manager already had in mind. The posting exists because HR requires it, not because they're starting from zero.

That's not a reason to stop applying. It's a reason to stop taking silence personally.

When an interviewer asks if you have questions, they're not being polite. They're still evaluating you.

I watched candidates nail 45 minutes of interview questions and then say "No, I think you covered everything." That answer always hurt them in the debrief.

Here's why. When you ask a thoughtful question, you show me two things: that you've been paying attention, and that you're thinking about what it's actually like to do this job. Both of those signal someone who's serious, not just someone collecting offers.

The best questions I ever heard weren't about perks or culture. They were about the work.

"What does the first 90 days look like for someone in this role?"

"What's the biggest challenge the team is dealing with right now?"

"Is there anything about my background that gives you hesitation? I'd rather address it now."

That last one is bold. Most people are afraid to ask it. But every time a candidate asked me that, it told me they were confident enough to handle honest feedback. And it gave them a chance to address a concern I might not have mentioned otherwise.

Prepare three questions before every interview. Not generic ones you pulled from a list. Real ones based on the job description and the conversation you just had.

LinkedIn is pushing harder on its job-matching algorithm, which means recruiter search behavior is shifting. More recruiters are relying on LinkedIn's suggested candidates instead of manual searches.

That makes your profile keywords even more important than they were six months ago. If your profile doesn't match the language in the job descriptions you're targeting, you're not getting surfaced. Not because you're not qualified. Because the algorithm doesn't know you are.

The other thing I'm watching: companies are posting fewer roles publicly and filling more through internal referrals and recruiter outreach. That means your LinkedIn presence isn't just helpful anymore. For a growing number of roles, it's the only way in.

If you're wondering whether your LinkedIn and resume are actually working for you or just sitting there, I built a free tool that scores both in 60 seconds and tells you the single biggest thing to fix first.

No signup. No email required.

hiredbyfriday.com/audit

See you next Thursday.

— Jakob Founder, HiredByFriday 20+ years on the hiring side of the table

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