Had a client I’d been bugging to let me help her for almost two years.
(She finally said yes. I was insufferable about it.)
She wanted a new job. And lucky for her, I know how to position someone looking for a new job.
We started where I always start: at the very bottom of her profile, working up. Evidence first, story second.
(The narrative is so much easier to write once you can actually see what you’re working with.)
Somewhere in there, almost in passing, she mentioned she’d given presentations on rare diseases.
More than one. On topics most people can’t pronounce. To patients and caregivers who needed to understand them.
She almost didn’t bring it up. Didn’t think it counted.
It counted. Much to her surprise, we added it to Publications.
What is the Publications section on LinkedIn actually for?
Most people think “Publications” means journal articles or a book. No book, no bylines, no white papers, so they skip the section entirely.
I use it differently. Publications is earned media. It’s any time your work, your voice, or your expertise showed up somewhere that wasn’t your own resume. Talks. Panels. Guest articles. A podcast. Presentations on rare diseases to rooms full of people who needed them.
That’s exactly where hers went. Publications and Projects, both. We’d barely cracked open her Experience section.
Your LinkedIn profile can work before it’s finished
She started applying before we were done.
Within a week, she had a job offer.
She interviewed. They checked her profile. They saw the unusual work she’d almost left out entirely. They made their decision within an hour.
We still hadn’t finished her profile.
Why did the unfinished profile work?
Because the right detail was finally visible to the right person.
The rare-disease presentations weren’t relevant by the obvious logic. In fact, they weren’t relevant to the job she was applying for.
But they showed range, depth, and her ability to take something almost nobody understands and make it land for the people who need it most.
That’s a skill set. It mattered to the people who hired her. It just had to be somewhere they could see it, instead of sitting in her head where she’d filed it under “not relevant.”
This happens more than you’d think. Not always in a week, of course. But the early, unexpected win isn’t rare. It shows up the moment the details that actually matter stop hiding and start living on your profile.
Most profiles are missing exactly those details.
Where to start
The free Profile Cheat Sheets walk you through which sections matter most for your goal, including the ones most people overlook. (Publications is almost always one of them.)
And if you want eyes on your actual profile, the Profile Audit ($147) is a 15-minute personal video review that surfaces this exact thing: the accomplishment you almost didn’t mention, the section you’ve been ignoring, the detail that changes the conversation.
Watching a client realize their profile is actually working — sometimes before we’re even done — is the part that never gets old.