During military transition, your LinkedIn profile needs to do a lot of work. Your name must be spelled correctly on your profile, and it must feature an attractive list of keywords and sport a picture of you at your spiffy best. It must also pass the dreaded Celery Test.
After teaching our Stealth LinkedIn master class last month, so many transitioning military members, veterans and spouses asked for a review of their LinkedIn profile that we hosted a follow-up LinkedIn Lab. It was fantastic to work with you one-on-one.
While people had put a ton of good work into completing their profiles, many of them did not pass the dreaded Celery Test.
What Is the Celery Test?
Popularized in Simon Sinek's book, “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action,” the Celery Test was devised as a way to test for coherence and decide what to include or exclude in your product. It turns out that the Celery Test also works great when evaluating the LinkedIn profile for transitioning military, veterans and spouses.
Resumes also need to pass the dreaded Celery Test. Come to our FREE Resume Learning Lab and get your resume evaluated on Thursday, Aug. 17 at 4 p.m. EDT.
How Does It Work?
To give you an example of the Celery Test, here is a coaching session I had recently with a veteran who specifically wanted to learn how to improve his LinkedIn profile to crank up his visibility. He had plenty of sound experience, but he was puzzled about why he was not getting more attention from recruiters. Here is how the Celery Test session went:
Me: Do you think your LinkedIn profile passes the Celery Test?
Veteran (looks like he smells something bad in the produce department): What is a Celery Test?
Me (bright-eyed and bushy-tailed): Let's say you are in the grocery store and your cart is full of celery, tofu and rice milk. What do you think that means?
Veteran: That you are shopping in Whole Foods?
Me: Not necessarily! But you are on the right track. What do people think when they look in your cart and see those items?
Veteran: That you are on a health kick. Or you are trying to lose weight. Or you are vegetarian.
Me: Exactly. Anyone can look in your cart and make a story about what is included. So let's change it up a little. What would it mean if you had a cart that was now full of celery, tofu, rice milk, Nacho Cheese Doritos, a gallon of Kool-Aid, and a piece of very questionable meat from the discounted meat section?
Veteran: That you are not in Whole Foods anymore? Also, you are not serious about getting healthy anytime soon. So, uh, what does this have to do with my LinkedIn profile?
Me (Sparkling with the big reveal!): Well, your LinkedIn profile is just like your grocery cart. Not only is it a collection of things you have done during your career, but it cannot help but tell a story about what kind of work you are looking for -- whether you want it to or not.
Veteran (Sighs): But I'm helping them by showing them all I can do.
Me: I can see why you would think that was a good idea. It makes sense. But that is not the way recruiters and hiring managers think. They do not want to sort through a whole cart of things you could do. They don't have time.
Instead, employers want a clear, easy-to-read story. They want to see a theme. They want to instantly recognize that this is someone with a deep background in military intelligence. Or in project management. Or logistical operations. Or they are looking for someone who is clearly a skilled trainer. Or someone who knows everything about a certain kind of aircraft.
Veteran: OK, I see what you mean. But with my skills, I can do more than one thing in more than one industry.
Me: Fair. But this is why it is the dreaded Celery Test. We dread making decisions on this stuff, because it seems like we might be cutting off something that is good. Which makes perfect sense.
And still, this is how it works out here. You still have to pick one or two themes so you pass the Celery Test with your LinkedIn profile. Otherwise, you look unsure of yourself -- which is not something you do as a rule. It can be enough of a yellow flag to make the recruiter go on to the next person.
Veteran: I get that, but it is still hard to do. So what do we do next to make it pass your dreadful Celery Test?
The rest of the session, we talked through possible themes he wanted to feature. Then we checked to make sure those were the themes and keywords people in the industry use when searching for workers like him. Now he is ready to move forward on meeting with his network and talking over possibilities.
Now It is Your Turn.
When a recruiter or hiring manager looks at your LinkedIn profile, can you pass the dreaded Celery Test? Can everyone clearly see what you have done and what you want to do next? Does it all add up to being a stellar program manager? Or a clear contender for a certain job in a certain field?
If you aren't sure about the message you are sending, it is fair to talk to a career coach like me. Or you can ask someone who already works in the field to see whether you are sending a coherent message. Or you can look at other people's profiles in your field to see if they are passing the Celery Test, too.
Then set yourself up with a celery snack and rice milk chaser. You've earned it.
Jacey Eckhart is Military.com's transition master coach. She is a certified professional career coach and military sociologist who helps military members get their first civilian job by offering career-level Master Classes through our Veteran Employment Project and on her website, SeniorMilitaryTransition.com. Reach her at Jacey.Eckhart@Monster.com.
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Transitioning military, veterans and spouses may be qualified for the job, but they are missing the secrets of civilian hiring. Find out everything you need to know with our FREE master class series, including our next class. You can view previous classes in our video library. Questions for Jacey? Visit our Facebook page.
