Teachers in Transition - Episode194: LinkedIn and So Much More

In this episode, Vanessa talks about how it makes you miserable when you try to make everyone else happy all the time.  She actually does the math to see just what is really going on.  The next segment talks about checking on those bad habits to make sure they’re not growing and hurting us in other ways.  Finally, Vanessa spends time talking about your Linked In Profile – what are the important components to make sure you have when you set it up, how to optimize it so that it helps you in your job hunt, and why it matters. 

The Man the Boy and The Donkey Link 

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The transcript of this podcast can be found on the podcasts’ homepage at Buzzsprout. 

Transcript

***Hi!  And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition. I am your host, Vanessa Jackson – I’m a compassionate career transition and job search coach. I am here to help you reach your goals and dig into what you really want. I provide tips and suggestions to help with stress and mental health, hacks to help your day, and job-hunting tips.  If you are frustrated with your current teaching position – you are burnt out and overwhelmed, I am here for you.  Today on the pod we are going to chat about dealing with the fact that someone people just aren’t going to be happy with something you are doing or have done, we’ll suggest a teacher hack to help check on your habits and we’ll send a chunk of time talking about how to start and optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Teachers are people pleasers. The reasons for that are vast and I could talk about it for hours, so we’ll leave it there for the moment. It occurs to me that there are probably zero minutes in your workday or extended workday where you are NOT actively working on something that makes someone else happy. Pause for a moment and consider – you know I’m right.  This is one of the reasons you are exhausted all the time. 
 
 You cannot make everyone happy all the time and you are going to kill yourself or drive yourself insane just trying.  I am going to illustrate this a bit by reading this little Aesop Fable named The Man, The Boy, and the Donkey: 
 
 A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”

So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”

So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”

Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours and your hulking son?”

The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:

“Please all, and you will please none.”
 
 Aesop never pulls his punches with those fables.

You can’t make everyone happy. And as teachers, we really throw our mental health into a death spiral trying.  

Consider the one-star reviews.  Sometimes there are very valid complaints in a one-star review.  Often times, there are not. We had family come visit us in Alaska, and we were taking a trip to Denali National Park and had something things planned, so I was looking for a place for six of us to sleep overnight.  One place that caught my eye was the Carlos Creek Cabins, (Spoiler alert: You guys should definitely stay there if you ever have the opportunity. It was peaceful, beautiful, and wonderful. )

 I was reading reviews and looking for a good place to go. This place seemed wonderful and it was. It was by a Creek. It was close to the park entrance, more or less. And it met all of our needs. I head over to read the one-star reviews to see what's wrong with it. And there were a few one-star reviews that were clearly one-off situations. I never pay attention those – stuff happens.  There was one that stuck out to me so much that I have talked about it for over a decade now. This one was complaining that this place had mosquitoes - in the summer -  in Alaska. 
 
 If you go Google Mosquitoes Alaska summer, you will find images that will keep you up at night. There are even stickers and jokes about the mosquitoes in Alaska being so large they could carry off a small pet - or child. The reviewer complained that there were mosquitoes everywhere. Well, there's no air conditioning in Alaska and this was camping. So yeah, mosquitoes were everywhere as they should be. They're just a thing in the summer, it happens, and this complaint was pretty vicious over something that the establishment could do nothing about. You might as well complain that the water was too wet in the creek.
 
 When someone is telling you that something is bad, you have to run it through the filter of your own common sense. Maybe it's not really so bad.  Maybe it’s actually great.  Someone will always be frustrated.  I want to tie this into your day-to-day life as a teacher, so really key into this: We all know that teachers make eleventy-billion decisions in a day. There is no way everyone is going to like all of them. If someone doesn’t’ like one of those decisions, it’s still a great overall batting average. If you teach 180 students and two parents are angry, that’s a .01% negative opinion rating.  Or rather, a 99.99% positive one.   Baseball players would love to have averages like that.  And let’s be honest – that angry parent or two is probably not angry about every single decision you’ve made. If one colleague isn’t happy with something you tried, that doesn’t have to define your entire existence. The math works in your favor.  
 
 I remember a principal telling us once in a faculty meeting that they had received requests from parents that ranged all the way from “I want you to call me if he sneezes” all the way to “don’t call me unless he stabs someone.” Think back to Aesop – the man, the boy, and the donkey and realize that it’s impossible to meet every single expectation and keep everyone happy all the time. 
 
 So, do the best you can. You are enough even when you are made to feel you aren’t. Yes, it hurts when we do what we think is best and then we get yelled at for it by someone.  And yes, it is STUNNING how some people are comfortable talking to you as a teacher. I hope that you can find a little comfort in the math – even if math isn’t your thing. 

And now it’s time to move to today’s teacher hack, which is designed to help you save time and brain space so that you can spend it on you getting ready for that job hunt or job hunting.  Whether you're up skilling for a new career or applying to jobs, these hacks are designed to make your life easier so that you can spend time on you. So today: take a look and see where a bad habit has crept in and figure out how to back out of it.  
 
I have a confession. I love Dr Pepper.  There’s a line in the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon is describing his mom and says that she has a mild Dr Pepper addiction.  That line made me laugh and that’s how I’ve always described my love for the drink.  I’ll tell my doctor it’s my one big vice. I was limiting it to one a day though. In a period of high stress, I’ll drink Dr Pepper.  And it’s been stressful.  One day I realized that’s ALL I was drinking.  So, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to buy anymore – soda is getting too expensive anyway. I decided it was a great time to make use of the new Stanley cup that was given to me, and I made a bit of a cold-turkey switch. 
 
I was really surprised at how it affected how I felt in my day. I feel more energy, my skin looks better, and I feel a little more focused.  
 
Now, I *know* that water is good for me.  And I *know* that soda belongs in moderation.  But it is amazing how something can get worse by degrees until you don’t realize how bad it’s gotten.  Maybe you also have a soda habit.  Maybe it’s an energy drink habit – if so, REALLY check that. That is not healthy to have those too often or in too large a quantity.  Maybe it’s something else – but look for a bad habit and see if you can back out of that a little. You’ll feel better when you do. 

Today on our job-hunting segment, we are going to talk about your LinkedIn profile. 

For those of you who are already familiar with LinkedIn, maybe skip forward a little bit and. go to about the 18-minute mark.  But for those of you who are not familiar with LinkedIn, think of it as a living, digital business card. This has become the business go-to site. It is not and should not be used for social fluff.  You would definitely not be posting about your vacation pictures or your family or as I like to do on my personal social media profile - many, many pictures of my dogs. LinkedIn is a business clearing house. 

You will need some time set aside to work on it, but don’t feel like you have to completely finish in one sitting.  Start with the profile. You’ll notice quickly that it several places to add information that looks suspiciously like a resume. There is a section for places that you worked and experience that you have had.  There is a place for you to upload a photo of yourself and a place to have a cover photo. There is a place for a headline and an about section and these are sections that you really want to make sure that you nail and that really reflect you as a person, your pink socks, if you will, as we talked about in a previous episode, there was a hiring manager who got down to the best 10 candidates that she interviewed and ended up hiring the one with the pink socks because although their qualifications were more or less the same. But there was this one person wearing pink socks who got the job because those pink socks made them memorable. So here on the podcast, I use pink socks as an allegory to the fact that you need to stand out in some way or another. 

Let’s start with your profile picture. 

You are going to want to have a good professional picture up there.  However, you do not need to be paying a photographer to do that. You can use the portrait setting on your cellphone with a nice clean background like a neutral-colored wall. Dress professionally – there will be buttons or lapels or both. When taking your pictures, do not let your husband, your spouse, your partner or a parent take those pictures. They don't see your flaws. My husband's a lovely photographer. He very willingly took my headshots, and I was really disappointed because I looked awful. He takes horrible pictures of me. It finally occurred to me that he does not see my flaws.  My son on the other hand, takes wonderful pictures of me so I usually ask my son to do that sort of thing. If you are not sure if your picture is putting forward what you were looking for, there is this wonderful site named photofeeler dot com that you can use for free. I have that link in the show notes. You put upload the picture that you field testing, and then you build Karma points by going and rating other people's pictures. You can rate them on their professionalism, and you have the opportunity to put comments on what you liked or didn't like or that you think should be different to be better. The more that you answer for someone else, the more people answer for you. It allows you to get a broad idea of what strangers think about that picture. After all, it is most likely strangers that will be looking to hire you. If you wear glasses, leave them on in your picture – people tend to think that you look smarter in glasses. Also, you want to look as much like you as possible. And that means your photo should be recent – less than a year old. 

Like so many other people who have been hit hard by the economy and the pandemic and whatnot, I have given up trying to cover my gray hair. Actually, my hair is growing in straight white, and I blame that on teaching. Nonetheless, I have decided to stop coloring my hair. It would be very jarring for someone to see a picture of me looking twenty-five and then have me show up in person looking fifty. So you want a recent picture.  Sure, that comes with a little bit of the risk of ageism creeping in there. However, a lot of people are starting to use gray and white as a fashion choice in their hair color, so it doesn't necessarily mean age anymore.   Besides, a former hairdresser used to call them used to call my wisdom glitter, so I am going to go with that now. 

The next thing that you are going to want to do is to have a strong headline. These are bullet points or perhaps a quick phrase of the things that are important about you that you want to push forward -that you are a problem solver, that you are conscientious, you have critical thinking skills, and so on.  This is a good place to highlight soft skills. Instead of bullet pointing them, separate these items with the little pipe stems. These are the straight up and down lines. They're on the keyboard and it shares a key with the backslash. Use your shift key to get to the pipestem.
 
 After you fill out your headline, move into the About section.  The About section gives you a lot more characters to work with, and this is where you would put sort of your summary and/or a vision statement. You can include some of the awards and accomplishments you are most proud of, past experiences, and a pink sock of some sort that gets someone’s attention. Feel free to surf around on LinkedIn as you start finding connections (we’ll talk about that next) and see what others have put in their About section.  Just like the PhotoFeeler site, you’ll start to get a sense of what works well in the field you are interested in and what does not.  You’ll start to spot those pink socks out there and you can go back and edit your About section anytime you feel like it. 
 
 And Connections are the next thing to start working on. You will never finish this part. This is  digital networking.  Start with everyone you know. Start working to connect with people at companies you might be interested in working in. It always looks better to do this before you apply there.   Collect as many connections as you can. The more connections you have, the more serious that LinkedIn feels that you are. Another reason that you want connection is when you begin to reach out to network with people you do not specifically know, but want to know it will help you make those connections. Think back to when we talked about networking in episode 189. That’s where I talked about the six degrees of separation, and LinkedIn is really a place to see that in action.  Say that you reach out and directly connect with me, I encourage that & I will have a link to my LinkedIn profile in the show notes. I will be happy to connect with you. When you directly connect with someone, you and that person become first level connections. This means that everyone in their network is now your second level connection, and beyond that it becomes third level connections. LinkedIn, like all good algorithms, will prioritize people you know and interact with rather than ones that you don’t really know.  They won’t even show you beyond 3rd level connections. And the more people you were connected to, the more you are connected to the people that they are connected to. So go out and start making those connections - and feel free to start with me.  Then we’re 1st level connections, and all my connections become your second level connections!
 
 Now let’s go back and OPTIMIZE that LinkedIn Profile.  

We’ll start by personalizing your. LinkedIn link.  LinkedIn automatically assigns a link to you which includes a lot of internet alphabet soup. You can shorten that to make it easier to access. You can!  Ideally, it would be first name, under score, last name, but a lot of people out there on the planet have the same name. I'm often stunned at how many Vanessa Jacksons there are. So, find a way to differentiate yourself. Do not use the year that you were born. I used my zip code, in case you are wondering.  I used to like to put 88 because that's the number of keys in a piano, but now it could represent a birth year, so I just personally avoid using 88 in those sorts of things. It is common practice you have your LinkedIn Link in your resume, so you want it to work for you and not against you. 

The next thing to do to optimize your LinkedIn, is to upload a cover photo. You can use a picture that you have taken. Do not put up pictures of things you do not own because of copyright reasons.  What I Mean by that is that you should not copy a pretty picture off the internet.  Those are often copyrighted and it can come back to haunt you or cost you money later.  Let’s avoid that.  Hopefully there is a beautiful vacation picture somewhere that you can use. Anything is better than the grey bleh that it comes with. If a recruiter or potential hiring sort of person sees that, the first thought is that you either don’t know or don’t care enough to put that best digital foot forward – either one hurts you.  And that cover photo space is some valuable real estate!  You can make your own with Canva! There is a free version of Canva and a Pro version.  You can make magic with either version. You will need to tinker with it a little bit because it’s not a straightforward perfect fit, but you can make it work, and then you have a background that highlights the things that you want highlighted. You can put that valuable real estate to work advertising for you. 

You can further increase the value of your LinkedIn Profile, if you choose, with courses and certificates.  LinkedIn Learning is at an additional fee – it comes when you sign up for Premium.  Recruiters and Hiring Managers do like to see evidence that you are learning and filling in your own gaps when assessing whether you’d be a fit or not for their company.  It allows you to answer questions in interviews about potential weak areas and to already have proof in hand that you are addressing them through your own motivation. There are also some certificates you can test for through LinkedIn and have that little badge of honor to show how well versed you are in a variety of areas.  LinkedIn Premium also comes with nifty insights as to how you how to stack up against other applicants, InMail credits which allow you access to message people you might not normally be able to message, and see who has been looking at your profile!  It’s pretty cool.  
 
 You may not be ready to tell the world that you are leaving education just yet. There is a setting where you can tell recruiters and hiring people that you are open to work without putting the banner on your profile picture. 
 
 

My last tip about LinkedIn today is this:  Do not feel like you have to finish it all in one day. In fact, it is much better to work on it across several days and to continue to tinker, refine, and connect.  When A recruiter goes to LinkedIn and looks for just the sort of pink-sock-wearing-sparkly-unicorn that you are, it prioritizes people who have been recently active on LinkedIn by rating your ‘likelihood to reply.’  If you haven’t opened your LinkedIn in weeks or months, you might get missed.  

But why bother with spending time on your LinkedIn?  Remember that statistic where you the average person scanning your resume only looks at it for 6 seconds?  If that scan piques their interest, it is highly likely that they’ll head to LinkedIn to get a better feel for you.  Or maybe that person found you through a search they did on LinkedIn.  They do that. They’ll spend an average of 25 seconds looking at your LinkedIn page.   That’s 4 times longer and THAT’s why you make one!

 I hope this has been helpful.  There is a whole module dedicated to LinkedIn in our program.  In our higher tiers of membership, I will go over your profile and offer my own insights and suggestions to really make your LinkedIn page pop out.  

But the podcast is always free. Please help me help other burned out and overwhelmed teachers by sharing this podcast with them. Your recommendations really help a podcast to grow. They really do help to me and I am grateful for every one of them.  

And come join me on Facebook! The Teachers in Transition Podcast Club is a place where you are welcome and wanted. You can ask me specific questions and I’m happy to answer. Just search for Teachers in Transition Podcast Club and it will come right up, but I also have a link in the show notes. It’s a small group, but we’re starting to grow.   

If you are stuck in your job search, or are having trouble getting started, please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a complimentary discovery call to see how Teachers in Transition can help you pivot careers and find the job of your dreams. Start laying your groundwork now and working on that LinkedIn Profile.  And remember – you don’t have to make the whole world happy at the same time – you’re not going to do that anyway.  Hold your chin up and know that you are not alone out there. 

That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques.  And I want to hear from you!  Please reach out and leave me a message at Teacher in transition coaching at gmail dot com.  You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099. 

I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!