Mastering LinkedIN
In this episode, we have a very special guest, Air Force Veteran Adam Braatz, who is the author of the book "LinkedIn Mastery: For Veterans and Transitioning Service Members." Adam shares with us his expertise on how current service members and veterans can best utilize LinkedIn to advance their careers and achieve their professional goals.
Adam discusses the different ways that current service members and veterans should approach LinkedIn and how they can leverage the platform to build their professional network and find new job opportunities. He shares some major do's and don'ts when it comes to using LinkedIn effectively, and whether or not LinkedIn Premium is worth the investment.
Adam also talks about the importance of content creation on LinkedIn and how veterans can use it to share their unique experiences and insights with others. He highlights some of the tools on the platform that are currently converting well for people and offers tips on how veterans can use them to their advantage.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone who is interested in learning more about how LinkedIn can be used as a powerful tool for professional development and career advancement.
In This Episode We Cover:
How should current service members be looking at LinkedIN and using it to their advantage?
How veterans be looking at LinkedIN?
LinkedIN Profiles: What are some major DO's vs DONT'S
LinkedIN Profiles: What is it, and is it worth it?
Destigmatizing content creation during transition.
Hot tools and what is converting right now on the platform!
Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:
Connect with Adam:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abraatz/
Get a copy of the book:
Transcript from Episode 99 with Adam Braatz:
Keith McKeever 0:01
Welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. You definitely want to pay attention today, especially if you're a professional, if you're looking to get out of the military and get that next post military job. If you're a veteran looking for that next job, or if you're just looking to professionally network, we're gonna talk a lot about LinkedIn. What you need to know how you can leverage it, and a lot of the things about LinkedIn. So I've got the guy who knows a lot about it. He wrote the book on it. So we're gonna dive right into everything you know about LinkedIn today. Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Welcome to the show, Adam.
Adam Braatz 0:42
Thanks for having me, Keith. Man, I like the intro. That was slick.
Keith McKeever 0:46
Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Man. I'm excited to have you on here and talk about LinkedIn. I mean, it's obviously something that well, those of us who've crossed over to the veteran cool kid club, we're all familiar with because of the taps program. But for those service members who haven't yet their time is coming to be smacked in the back, get ahead by the taps people. Go get your LinkedIn profile. But before we dive into all that, tell us a little bit about yourself and your military career,
Adam Braatz 1:15
served in the Air Force active duty for just under eight years, started out under the greater wing of Air Force public affairs, and then transition into education and training command. And then I've been working in the nonprofit world almost exclusively ever since and speaking and writing on veterans issues.
Keith McKeever 1:33
Okay. Awesome. And Education and Training Command. What, what exactly was your role in there?
Adam Braatz 1:39
I was a military training instructor.
Keith McKeever 1:42
That's what I thought, yeah. I remember that from our conversation before. Which totally blew my mind when we did our little pre show interview. I was like, man, it just doesn't seem like
Adam Braatz 1:53
I can be pretty loud.
Keith McKeever 1:55
I bet but it just, you know, just didn't seem like I don't know, you think of those guys as being pretty intense. And you're pretty down to earth kind of guy. So, you know, I guess it's just, maybe it's PTSD or whatever from? Yeah,
Adam Braatz 2:07
well, I mean, a lot of a lot of things. You know, that's kind of the kind of the persona of the instructor, they have this kind of, they have this error about them that, that trainees think is, you know, confident and infallible and short fuse sometimes or whatever. But you know, I guarantee you, they were all human beings. And they all, you know, get tired and get sad and laugh. And, you know, a lot of people in the break room and they laugh about things that trainees did, and you know,
Keith McKeever 2:43
yeah, well, I shouldn't back up and say, I guess I don't know, some people could get PTSD from, you know, that made us really sound bad, because we're both Air Force guys. But But yeah, I don't know about that. laughing and joking around, we had a guy who filled in when I was in basic training. I don't know what his role was, I don't know if he was reserves or whatever. But he was a training instructor. He was batshit crazy. He would headbutt the glass and, man, like he was polar opposite from our training instructor because our training instructor was, dare I say, kind of, kind of cool. I mean, you know, because it was a training instructor but comparatively speaking,
Adam Braatz 3:23
what what, what year was that? See the, the reserve emptyeyes have have, some of them are legendary. So depending on what year it is, I might even know who you're talking to.
Keith McKeever 3:35
I was in 2006. I was in a 3/24 training squadron.
Adam Braatz 3:41
Okay. That's all I'm not sure.
Keith McKeever 3:43
I don't want I don't wanna call people.
Adam Braatz 3:45
Don't call out any names. I
Keith McKeever 3:46
Definitely won't call people out. But yeah, it was a that was that was an interesting experience. I will say I was not a fan of the section head. I was not a fan of the reservist. RtI was pretty cool. I felt bad for my brother flight. Because on weekends, RTI would, this is how cool he was. He would let us listen to music, but he gave our dorm chief, he said, You got to change the channel every 30 minutes to a different type of music. So everybody gets a chance to listen. But that's the only day you would let us do it. And you know, let's do it for like two hours, two or three hours. Okay, cool. You know, a little bit of a break, right? Our brother flight was over there listening to marching cadences all day long. That's a torture. They hated us. Friction, you know, anyway. So anyway, back back to the topic at hand here of LinkedIn. There's, there's there's obviously a lot to it. But that's something that's obviously people pounded into our heads when when you leave the service and it didn't really do much in the taps program, other than Hey, go get a LinkedIn profile, fill it out and go get a job in a resume. I don't really tell you too much about it. It's obviously a complicated platform. It's it's really for professional networking and some other things. I see some people use it a little bit more personally like Facebook. Get your two cents on that later. But what what first question you really is, what should it current service member? What should they know about it? And what should they be looking at it? How they can use it and leverage it?
Adam Braatz 5:18
Well, the I think the first thing I'd say is that you just need to get on it. And the correct timing is yesterday, I mean, I don't care if you just started it, you know, you're finished your first six months and your first investment you should get on LinkedIn. Depending on when you take your transition assistance. Course, depending on where that lines up with your separation or retirement, many times by the time you get to, to tap, if they say, you know, start a LinkedIn page, and you haven't yet, I'm not going to say it's too late. But you really have an uphill battle, you absolutely should, if you haven't yet at that point, but the earlier that you can do that, the better. There is some some ideas, some preconceived notions that prevent people from doing that. And there is just kind of a lack of communication, you know, where I can scream from the rooftops, about LinkedIn and the value of LinkedIn for veteran military transitioners. till I'm blue in the face. But the the people who I really want to get that message to are on the other side of a wall, and there are gatekeepers, and there are, you know, it's I wish I could tell, I wish I could mandate have a CBT that that starts for the first year. For anybody who's enlisted or commission do you hit your first year and you start taking regular, you know, transition awareness courses. And that would include LinkedIn, if I if I had my druthers, I do that. So the sooner you can do it, the better. And anything you've heard about it, you know, just being another Facebook or whatever. I mean, it's different. It has some parallel, it has some similarities to a lot of other platforms. But the the overarching idea behind it right now, because we all know social platforms Evolve is it has been and still remains to this day to be the best profession like remote digital professional networking platform. In the world, there's almost a billion users worldwide. And it's kind of an expectation, really, especially in the corporate world and medium large employers, it's just kind of expected that you have that.
Keith McKeever 7:40
Absolutely, you know, I heard you say something they're really sure that I couldn't agree with more about starting early. Because I've I've said that to people, like you should have a plan to transition from the moment or before you even get in service. Because I don't care who you are, you're either going to serve four years, or 20 or 25, whatever 10, whatever it is, your time is going to come up, and you're going to go on to the next chapter. It's inevitable, isn't nothing, it's not permanent. And so you should plan accordingly is same thing goes for, you know, your financials and your Thrift Savings Plan and taking care of your education, all of this all of its, you know, you should plan all of that from the beginning. Every little bit of it.
Adam Braatz 8:25
That's great advice. And also life insurance in succession and inheritance planning, and that sort of thing. Because, you know, you could choke on a cabbage leaf while you're serving, and like, at some point, you're not going to be in the military anymore. And that means you're either going to separate or retire, you're gonna get discharged. Sometimes it's short notice if it's like a medical thing, or whatever, if there's a reduction forces, or you're gonna die, you know, like, at some point, you won't be in the military anymore. So planning for those eventualities, the earlier you can do it, the better. The life insurance one is huge. You know, you have people in the military thinking that, and I know this isn't LinkedIn related, but they're like, you know, I got my fgli, I'm good. And then they retire at 45 years old. And they're like, oh, I should probably get an actual life insurance, civilian life insurance plan now. And they're 45. And they're 80% service connected disabled, and like, it's a massive cost to start a life insurance plan at that point. I think that should like getting civilian life insurance at 18. That will save you money for the rest of your life and help you prepare for the eventuality of unexpected disaster for you and your family.
Keith McKeever 9:43
Definitely a lower cost. But, you know, hey, if only we could just smack that into people's heads to be prepared for that for all those different things. So how about LinkedIn for the veterans that, you know, how should they be really looking? added, you know, if somebody has been out whether it's six months or six years, how should they be trying to leverage LinkedIn or is there really much of a difference?
Adam Braatz 10:09
So So LinkedIn is a part of a larger puzzle, it's very important part of a larger, you know, if you look at a pie graph sort of thing. And that larger idea is professional network development. The goal is to develop a, a, an engaged, organically built professional network. And we can talk about that that's a really important caveat, organically built professional network that is mutually beneficial and fruitful. To know someone who knows someone to know a guy or gal who knows a guy or gal, to be well connected. To have a platform, whether that is in person or online, is the best way to build a business, it's the best way to build a platform of influence is the best way to get a job, it's the best way to expand and grow and develop your career, that professional network that I mean, that hasn't changed that whole idea since since the 80s. Really like aggressive professional networking. And knowing someone on the inside is the best way to get the job to make the sale to you know, to build business karma by connecting other people, it really is important and right now, and for the foreseeable future. LinkedIn is the best way to do that, digitally remotely in the web. You cannot do it exclusively, remotely. There are challenges. Obviously, if you're in the service, you're pretty much going to be networking for your post service career exclusively remotely. So you need to be using LinkedIn. If you're already out, or you're approaching your transition, you know, that coupled with kind of more of the having coffee, warm handshake, face to face, sit down, informational interviews, advice sessions, that that sort of thing. It's integral to your success in pretty much every way. The the old adage your network is your net worth is not an exaggeration. It's not a lie. It's not old fashioned. It is 100%. Accurate?
Keith McKeever 12:21
Absolutely. So I had heard years ago, and just just popped in my head that you should get on LinkedIn. I don't know if this was from taps or not. So I don't know how old this guy's back that you should get on there, like every day, and you should just go you know, find two or three people that you know, are loosely connected with and go follow them. Is that still kind of a good strategy? Or how do you go about building that network? Because there's, like, obviously, when you're connected to somebody, they're a first connection. And you got a second level. And I think third level. And the other thing that they do is they tell you on your product, you know, when you look at somebody's profile, you know who all those mutual connections are? So you're like, how do you go about doing that.
Adam Braatz 13:01
So this is assuming first that your profile is optimized, your profile doesn't have to be perfect. It will be kind of a living, breathing thing that evolves as you evolve professionally, and you change things and work things differently. It does not have to be perfect, but it does have to be complete. So take a minute to make sure that your profile is filled out and then absolutely developing your network is an important step to. And so my advice when developing a network is to do it in a very targeted fashion. They LinkedIn wants you to do targeted Network Development and only connect with people you know, which is kind of a bit extreme for for my tastes. But ironically, they also suggest like, here's some people that you may tangentially know, through this person or this person, like you went to the same college. Yeah, sort of 50,000 other people. So there's no you know,
Keith McKeever 13:56
it's funny, like, yeah, exactly. What year did they graduate? Like, yeah,
Adam Braatz 14:02
we weren't in the same department, you know. And so it gives you the option to one click Connect, and that that is impersonal. It doesn't necessarily provide value. I mean, it could. The thing about targeted network development is start with your circles. Start with people you know, start with grandma and grandpa if they're on LinkedIn, stay mom and dad, your brothers, sisters, cousins. Go to people you know from college from high school people you serve within the military who are already LinkedIn reach out to those people because that's not that's not a high pressure ask. They're going to recognize your name and they're going to connect with you. From there, your research. Research is an important phase of your network development. If you go into your search bar at the top of your LinkedIn browser window or whatever, and you hit enter without putting anything in there. It brings up their full, full search It filters. And the thing that sets LinkedIn apart, that makes it the most powerful professional platform in existence right now is less of the social media aspects. And more of the database aspect is the largest professional database in the history of the world. And it's not like second place isn't even close. Not even in the same galaxy. And so using those search tools to be able to whittle down, you know, you look for you can niche down to first and second level connections, you can niche down to finding people who have some sort of connection with you that a leverage point, a connection point. So if, if, if it's me searching for the first time, let's say I'm six months from service, or six months from my separation, rather. And I live in San Antonio, but I'm moving to Boston, after I get out. And I want to work in it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to search exclusively in the Boston area for it or some sort of tech professionals. And I'm going to be searching for folks who also served in the Air Force, or, you know, you look for previous job United States Air Force, you want to look for military members, previous jobs, United States, Army, Air Force, Marines, don't click the marine recruiting one Marines, why do you have a separate LinkedIn company page for marine recruiting, give me a break, look for Space Force, look for Coast Guard all that all the different branches, if you want to expand, and they'll give you a list, and at first, that list will be short, because you don't have a big network. But as it grows, you know, your, your second and third Degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of expand, right? And, and it will provide you a list of like, here's all of the Air Force veterans in Boston, who work in it, that's a great list of people to reach out to. So niching down or like, and if they give you 400 people on that list, that's a lot. Why don't you see, you know, maybe Air Force veterans who went to your alma mater, or Air Force veterans who also served in a specific squadron or who have also served in San Antonio, you can find all these different connection points who volunteer with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, you know, they give you all the options to niche down on things that that could potentially be a connection point between you and other other people, then you reach out to them, send a connection request and always add a personalized note. If you're just starting, always send a personalized note, don't ask for anything, don't attach a resume. Don't expect anything, you're not entitled that nobody's you're not entitled to a job just because you're a veteran. There a lot of you. It's very competitive. And what you're doing is you're planting seeds. And reaching out to people, Hey, I noticed that you are in the Boston area working in it. That's where I'm going after I get out. I'm also an Air Force veteran. I'd be honored if you join my LinkedIn network. Done, ask for nothing. Some sometimes they'll reach out they'll reply and be like, Hey, let's get a coffee when you get here, or hey, let's hop on a zoom call or Oh, hey, are you looking for something in it because I have I know this person who blah, blah, blah, lot of times a law firm. Sometimes they won't, whenever at least you're growing your network of people who you can usually provide value for. So that especially when you get your first 500 connections, whether you have 501 or 30,000 connections on LinkedIn, if you're over 500, there's that little 500 Plus badge when it says how many connections you have, and use that as kind of a goalpost anyone who has anyone on LinkedIn is that 500 You have more than 500 connections, just make sure that those first 500 that it's done in a targeted very targeted fashion and you're reaching out to those people personally, you can do five a day and it takes 15 minutes and you should just do that and during the day find different connections points not not even the same industry if you want to find all the Air Force veterans in Boston all the all the fellow Army veterans in Boston that okay, do that reach out to those people and so that's a good starting point. And that'll keep you busy for a long time.
Keith McKeever 19:13
That will definitely keep you busy. I felt like I knew quite a bit about LinkedIn but holy cow i i had no idea that you could do that with the search feature.
Adam Braatz 19:23
It's the it is it is a I don't know why it's a little known weapon but the fact that LinkedIn is a database and that it is a powerful and gives you the opportunity to laser focus. Your searches for mutually fruitful connection points is it's the best thing about LinkedIn period.
Keith McKeever 19:44
That just sent a bunch of people down the rabbit hole way down the rabbit hole. But ya know the interesting thing you said like the message Yeah, just be genuine. Just just be genuine be authentically you. There's nothing worse than some of those LinkedIn messages, or connection requests that oh, yeah, the InMail or go be that person that sends it and then follows up, like an hour later with the, the hard pitch. Oh, yeah, oh, get up. I was in I was in the Zoom chat like last week. And somebody was joking about it. And I started laughing. And they're like, what's funny, and I was like, What's funny is that's literally happened already that day. And this was a zoom back in the morning. It's like, oh, it's not that common.
Adam Braatz 20:34
And that's one thing that can sour people to the platform. Because just like any social media platform, there's a lot of garbage to sift through. And, and that's why it's doubly important for your first five for that first chunk of your connections in particular, to be targeted. And for you to have a personal connection point, as transactional and short lived as it may be, it's really important, because those are the people who are going to populate your newsfeed, those are the people who are going to populate your inbox, it's possible for you to you can go with a service and have 30,000 connections overnight. I know someone who did that he paid pay to service, it had 30,000 connections on LinkedIn and decided that wasn't enough. So he opened a second LinkedIn account, and paid to max that out, and used to brag and be like, oh, man, you know, like, I'm big time, I'm 30, I got 30,000, I maxed out my connections on LinkedIn. And I needed another, you know, profile to do that. But he would make a post or a call out or something, and he gets zero engagement. And so if you were to look at that person's network, and look at where they were from, they're like, all from Bangladesh, India, Auckland, and there's nothing wrong with being from those places. But this person being in sales in Wisconsin, obviously not a mutually beneficial opportunity. And a lot of those profiles are just throw away not used some bots. But yeah, the number that you have, the number of connections that you have, and followers that you have is is a worthless number on LinkedIn, as it is on Twitter, and Instagram and whatnot, it's about the quality and the depth of those connections. And so the earlier you start having a an intentional focus on that outreach, the better.
Keith McKeever 22:36
Maggard point, people in those places aren't useful to you, unless they're engaged, more, that's your target business audience, because you happen to do something internationally, and whatever their niche is. So
Adam Braatz 22:48
when you go with the service, they're gonna, they're just going to automate you sending a cut and paste message to those people and to a half million people, and then you get 30,000 accepts, and, okay, you've got a full network, great good for you. None of them care about you. None of them care about what you're selling. Nobody. They don't care what you say, then I can engage with your content. They're just following discuss. And, and they're probably paying a service to help stack their network to because they don't know any better. And so you've got a situation that is mutually wasteful.
Keith McKeever 23:26
Like, do we put that mutually wasteful, it's probably just a bunch of interconnected accounts that I'll probably look at that now that anytime I see that I owe 1000s upon 1000s of followers, I'll probably just, I'll be definitely much more conscious of what's going on there. So now how about you kind of mentioned profiles and completeness? Yeah, I actually look actually every guest that I've had on this podcast, I look all of them up. I look them up on LinkedIn first. Look up as many places that I can but I do see a varying degrees of completeness. When I do that as some people I've not even been able to find a LinkedIn it's amazing. Some people put their entire life story on there and are super active. Some people have you know, just the basics. You can get a little bit information about their education and where they're coming from and a few of those skills and some of the things but what what would you say makes you know, a complete profile and what are some of the do's and don'ts of unknown miles.
Adam Braatz 24:33
So long conversation, but what I will say is your, your two most important part, your three most important parts your name, it's a really easy one shouldn't be in all upper or all lowercase. capitalize it like you would writing in an email or in a book. Some people like adding emojis before or after their Name, you know, personal preference, I suppose. But having emojis in the front end before your name actually makes it more difficult for people to find you in a search or a tag, if they want to tag you in a message. Some people like having alphabet soup after their name, you know, like Mr. Andy Johnson, comma, MBA, MLA, Ph. D. S. Hrm? I mean, it's just a long list of PMP. Personal preference. I'm not a fan of it. But I mean, if I had a PhD, I would probably put that on LinkedIn, you know,
Keith McKeever 25:41
I would handle the rest of it, you could pretty much put in the description right below. Right?
Adam Braatz 25:47
Right. And so I get why people would put PMP there because you know, having a project management, professional certification, or having like a scrum master or a black belt. You know, I'm talking about
Keith McKeever 26:05
six sigma or something. Yeah, that's it.
Adam Braatz 26:09
That would be attractive to a recruiter, someone who would be trying to employ you via LinkedIn. But again, that should definitely be in your description. It should be in your certifications, it should maybe even be in your headline. Just be deliberate about your name, because you don't want to look, I mean, that's one of the first things that people see next to that people see your profile picture is really important. And I see a lot of folks in veteran land have their their photo from their, their, their military headshot, and I was guilty of this at first too. Oh, yeah. With but with my, you know, me, imagine that angry 45 pounds ago or whatever. Yeah. But with the campaign hat looking all tough. And my logic behind that was, I thought people would see that and be like, Wow, that's the ultimate professional, that guy's polished and blah, blah, you know? And yes, they may think that, but they, subconsciously, will view that as other and separate. And they want to hire people who they think are going to be cultural fits first and foremost. And people would look at my picture of me and my campaign hat, I think and be like, Well, okay, thanks for your service. But I don't want you in the break room. You know, I don't want you hanging out with us. I don't want you part of the team.
Keith McKeever 27:35
We don't want you breaking out the knife hand. Yeah, exactly.
Adam Braatz 27:39
And so it's it's, it's a, it's a long conversation that accompanies the profile picture thing, because there are unfortunately, subconscious prejudices that that civilian employers have against military members and veterans. And these are, I mean, whether they have magnetic ribbons on their cars or not, that and so it's important that you dress for the job you want, and you display that you're dressing for the job you want. If you have to consider it civilian camouflage at first until you feel mentally transitioned, that's fine. But if you're dressing for the job you want that's not in a military uniform anymore, I'm sorry. So your professional headshots. As this is a preparation for you making a transition, if you're within a year of your transition, you need a civilian attire professional headshot, and you should be brace for it, smiling in that picture,
Keith McKeever 28:33
cracks in some sort of smile, some
Adam Braatz 28:35
some sort of smile motion on your face, right. And there's science behind that there's data that shows that people will view you as more confident, more capable, more personable, better, a better team player just by simply smiling, in your in your phone. So that's something that you got to have. And then the next third important thing is your headline. And that's that that thing that LinkedIn automatically populates with, you know, job title at location. Which is a huge missed opportunity. By doing that people are missing an opportunity. That's your billboard, that's, that is an opportunity for an elevator pitch that is just pitching 24/7 on your behalf. And so having your headline be something that expresses what you do, how you do it, who you serve, to what extent the value you provide, shows a little bit of personality that headlines are an art form, man, they really are. And they're super important because they show up next, every post you make every comment, every reply, that headline is there and it's constantly giving you that elevator pitch on your behalf. So that first part of it, formula that people use is I help blank accomplished blank through or by blank. It's corny, but I'd start there. At least it gets you in the thought process of you know, who do I serve? How do I serve them? You may need to be broad if If you're doing a career transition, and I have like a chapter on, you know, writing headlines for career transitions in the headline section of my book or whatever, and it gets pretty granular, but that headline is crazy important. And then for the rest of it, Completion, visual completion doesn't have to be long, but you shouldn't have blank sections. You shouldn't have broken links, you shouldn't have images that don't populate. Just make sure it's complete.
Keith McKeever 30:28
Awesome. Great point to make here. I've got your book link. LinkedIn mastery. For Lincoln, Maxim mastery
Adam Braatz 30:41
for veterans and transitioning service members rolls right off the tongue, right.
Keith McKeever 30:45
I know, I totally got myself tongue tied right here. It's in the show notes got to scroll across the bottom there. But yeah, for completeness, there's so many other things, their skills, education, volunteer things, just off the top of my head. There's a lot of those things, I think it's specifically back since we're Air Force thing, those things that you know, end up on your EPR you know, your performance reports, all those volunteer things you do, right? Go back to those, you know, if you're still serving, and say what kind of things I volunteer for, right? Go pull those up and be like, hey, you know, for a couple of years here, I went to the soup kitchen, and I did this, okay, go put that in there, that I did this these couple years, right, it may sound kind of corny, you may have only done it four or five times, it's still an experience. Go, well, if I want to get to know, your skills that you do in your job, and put some of those skills in there, get those listed in there. You know, it don't focus on the speaking to the grunts here that you can, you know, shoot targets accurately at 300 yards, focus on other skills, personal skills, you know, those kinds of things that are going to matter to an employer that you're that you're prompt that you can, you can work on Microsoft products, and you know, those kinds of things, right, or what other skills you've learned through your college experiences or whatever, fulfill all about go through every section.
Adam Braatz 32:09
And think don't think that long either. And use use somebody else's complete profile as as a jumping off point, you know, to imitate, obviously, have your own personal information in there, filling your experience section, your EPR bullets are great, you just have to unmilled terrify them. Take out the acronyms. Soften the verbiage make it sound like something. And then when you're done with with that have a civilian buddy who doesn't know the military review it to say Do you understand this,
Keith McKeever 32:39
here's here's a good one for you. Check those EPR bullets, copy and paste them into something like chat GPT and say write this in a soft manner, or something like that rewrite, rewrite
Adam Braatz 32:52
these for a civilian resume. That's a great idea. And Chechi BTR,
Keith McKeever 32:59
here's another one, if you're still in service, there's always, you know, civilians that are working in your unit. If they've all had to build resumes, to get their job through USA Jobs. Start working together with those senior NCOs. And the officers and as people who are, you know, have transitioned to say who's got a resume, who's got a LinkedIn who's who's got one is filled out, like, hosted, ask them if they'll host a seminar in your unit, about doing it and have everybody bring their personal laptops and just start filling them out together, collaborate together a couple hours in a session, start working it out together, and do it together.
Adam Braatz 33:43
The earlier the better. And if it's possible to build a culture within the military, of being forward thinking, you know, and it's tough, my I sympathize your mission focused, you got a lot going on. You got you got the mission, you got your unit, you got your family, you got your community, there's a lot. So I'm not I'm not asking a huge time commitment of people. But I think it would be really important for the military to start building into the culture a forward post military forward thinking element to their training. Because, you know, there's a lot of talk about recruiting right now. And it's really hard to recruit talent. When you have veterans who are vocal about not being prepared not being taken care of not being you know, how many veterans are out there saying that my military service set me up for the future professionally, personally, financially. Like that was a good professional experience. For me. It was for me personally, and I evangelize for it. But I know not everybody feels that way. And you know, so. So by taking care of people and ensuring that they can transition quickly effectively as I mean, it's a journey as quickly as as possible effectively and achieve success after service is a force multiplier because those folks will be evangelists for joining the system. So it's not a waste of time or resources to, to put post, like, post service career training into the curriculum, if you want to have, if you want to have people say, I'm glad I did this, it helped my career. You know, because if people are not saying that, and especially if they're saying the opposite, like military, yeah, military didn't help me for my transition, it didn't help my resume didn't help me get a job didn't help me, blah, blah, blah, you know, all the things people say, that's not going to encourage this generation to want to sign up.
Keith McKeever 35:53
Plus, you know, there's the old saying, you take care of your people, your people take care of you, if you're purposely doing things take care of your people with setting them up for their eventual transition, their financial success and their insurance, you're having all these different conversations with them. Eventually, they're going to face that and be like, well, do I want to re enlist, you know, it's, it's been three years, it's time to re enlist or, you know, hit that 10 year mark, do I want to push for 20? What do I do? You know, but if they've, if they sit there and you think, Well, my leadership, and my NCOs have taken care of me, and they've set me up for success on the outside. But they've also taken care of me, then you've got a choice, you got success. Either way. You got leadership that taking care of you, or you have every opportunity to succeed on your side. It's a win win. Like you said, you go out there, you succeed and evangelize. And, you know, you're spreading good positive messages. So but couldn't agree more with that. But another interesting thing, I wanted to ask your opinion on LinkedIn was LinkedIn premium. I know some veterans can get it free. What's What's your take on that? Is it worth it? Why should you get it? How should you get it? Those kinds of things.
Adam Braatz 37:12
So you're, if you Google search, you know, LinkedIn, premium free for veterans and military families, it'll bring you to their social impact page, sign in through id.me, or whatever they're using these days to verify your service. And you'll get a free year of premium. They don't say it's just one year. They they don't like. So my advice is to Yes, get your year of free premium. Prior to that year expiring, cancel your subscription. So it'll have a set date for it not being in premium anymore. And after it runs out, do it again. I haven't paid for premium for years and years and years. It's just been free every time. So that's that's my secret advice. If you're a military member, you can do it more than once. Maybe they close the loophole, or they will at some point, but it's not just one year, or at least it hasn't been. So that's that's the first thing. So there's really no downside to it. It's not like when's the best time to do it. It's like, Just do it. So do you need premium to be successful on LinkedIn? No. Does anyone look at the gold badge and be like, Okay, this is a better professional. Now. The thing that that that LinkedIn premium has that is a like worth its weight in gold is the LinkedIn learning platform that's associated with it a lot of computer based training modules to help with 1000s. To help with a wide range of things. There's military transition modules taught by LinkedIn, head of military outreach, Corey Boatwright. Which is fantastic. They have, you know, civilian workplace etiquette. They have specific training on you know, Facebook, ad marketing, or like everything that you would want to know, great way to diversify your skill set and get educated, they give you the certificates for it. And that you can actually put on your LinkedIn profile that shows that you're like actively trying to learn and upskill and blah, blah. But it's just it's really valuable. All that information is great. And you have unlimited access to that while you're in premium. And then also you get to do more searches, more InMails that sort of thing. But not having premium. I've gone through stretches before I knew that you could do it. More than one year I've gone through stretches where I haven't had premium and it's not been like a huge thing. When you're first getting started, and you know, trying to build that network. aggressively trying to get to that 500. Plus, we with your targeted outreach, you may been brought up on limits. If you are on the free version.
Keith McKeever 40:10
That's definitely some good advice at least take advantage of until or if they close the loophole. So
Adam Braatz 40:15
I'm not even sure if it's a loophole. I am not sure.
Keith McKeever 40:19
They may not care. I mean, it may not. Look, we're a very small percentage of the population is probably not affecting their bottom dollar that much to give veterans some pre free premium. So
Adam Braatz 40:33
it's a good look for them to eat. Well,
Keith McKeever 40:34
it's good. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is helping them. So another thing that you mentioned, when we we talked a while ago. And I'm gonna quote you mentioned destigmatizing content creation during the transition process. What exactly did you mean by that? And what might that kind of look like for somebody content creation during transition?
Adam Braatz 40:59
You know, I think a lot of people are really tired of social media. And so the social media aspects or the things that LinkedIn has that appear to be social media esque, or Facebook esque, can sometimes be intimidating. And I've heard 1000 times 1000s of times, like now I really feel like sharing my my personal feelings, my life what I had for dinner. And, you know, I don't feel like making content, or oh, gosh, I've heard you know, I'm not trying to be an influencer or anything like that. It's frustrating. First off the whole, I don't want to be an influence or anything like that is that's like, if you've never worked out before, and you're saying like, well, I don't want to go to the gym, because I don't want to get too muscular.
Keith McKeever 41:47
Like bodybuilder go into the week.
Adam Braatz 41:50
You can't just decide to be an influencer. Like, that takes a lot of work a lot of time. And even if you get lucky and go viral on one thing, there's a lot of maintenance, because all of a sudden people have expectations of you. And when I say I mean, it's, it doesn't happen overnight. And nobody's gonna think you're trying to be an influencer, nobody's gonna roll their eyes at you unless you have like, the worst, most contrived click Beatty posts, which don't do that, and then you're fine.
Keith McKeever 42:20
Or you're out there just being like, look at me, I'm an influencer. Right? Self proclaiming it or I mean, we all know there's kind of people out there and I'm sure aren't everybody's rolling their eyes at them anyway. So,
Adam Braatz 42:32
but a lot of people don't want, they don't want to deal with another social media platform. They don't want to share their thoughts or feelings or whatever. And my answer to that is okay, then don't like don't share your thoughts or feelings. Right? You it's possible for you to share your journey. Without explicitly saying somebody helped me because that looks desperate. And that's not a good look. You can share your journey, you can ask for advice. There are ways that you can make content that reaches your target audience, because remember, you built your your audience in a targeted fashion, those are all mutually beneficial connections. Now you have 500 plus of them, are you going to reach out to all of them every day and get touch points in to say, How's it going? No, probably not. That would be a full time job. But if you create content, and you share your story and your journey, and you show up in one of their news feeds, guess what that counts as a touch point. And all of a sudden, you're touching large groups of people in your network, let's say they engage with that post, they're likely to see more stuff from you. They're going to remember your name. So when you post like, Hey, I'm, you know, my transitions coming up in a year a little nervous about it. For people who have transitioned, what should I know? What's your best piece of advice? People love giving advice, make a post like that? You know, don't say I'm transitioning in a year who has a job? That's a bad look. But there's nothing personal or excessively vulnerable about saying, you know, what's your best piece of advice for someone that's transitioning, or I'm sure I'm going to be relocating to Boston, what are some of the best IT firms out there that I should be looking into, even if you know what the best IT firms are, ask it, put it out there people want to help you and you are on focuses radar. And then when you get to the point where you're I'm three months out and I'm starting to look for jobs like that network has been prime you prime the pump you are you've planted the seeds already. That's why content creation is so important because it gets you in front of those folks who you are trying to reach frequently and at scale.
Keith McKeever 44:47
And there's a lot of other great things you can do to like if you're talented writer, LinkedIn has LinkedIn articles. They absolutely an article every now and then instead of posting pictures of your food or whatever, you know, you could. There's a lot of different things. You could do that don't take a whole lot, just kind of go with your skill set.
Adam Braatz 45:06
You can you can post a picture of your food, it doesn't really get a lot of traction on LinkedIn. But what if you wrote a story around it? You know, I had a lunch meeting yesterday. And I was really impressed by the waiter by our waitstaff, here's what they did, that tells me that they're trained well. That's a great businesses centric story, I got a flat tire on my way to work yesterday, here's what it taught me about risk preparedness, risk management, you can take it
Keith McKeever 45:38
out there and teach your industry to like, Hey, this is what I'm an industry I'm in. Here's where my level of genius or knowledge base, whatever is like, this is what I do. Here's what you need to know about it. Like, here's a video, here's an article that I wrote, here's whatever,
Adam Braatz 45:53
whatever industry or discipline you're in, you should have unique thoughts and opinions about it. I guarantee you, you do even if you're in a career transition, I'm sure if you want to go to a different field, I'm sure you have unique thoughts and opinions or questions about that. Share your expertise, your subject matter expertise, write a LinkedIn article about it. They're searchable in Google Now. So like you don't even need if you want to have a blog, do it through LinkedIn, you don't even need your own website. You know, if the thoughts are that
Keith McKeever 46:24
slightly controversial, not super controversial, just enough to get people be like, oh, I want to comment, not like, you know, don't cross lines or anything like that. But just enough to poke the beehive a little bit like, yeah, exactly. I could poke the bear a little bit, when they're hibernating, that when they're awake.
Adam Braatz 46:43
I mean, I would all the time. And it's not just because I mean, I'm trying to stir up engagement for engagement sake. You know, I am sharing my values with my audience. And then we're like self identifying, like, Is this somebody, I still want to be connected with someone who I like the cut of their jib or not, they can unfollow me or I can unfollow them or connect with them or whatever.
Keith McKeever 47:10
I think I helps align people with you and you with them. Like, this is who I am. Whether you like it or not, if you don't like whatever. But it's unpopular opinions, right? I mean,
Adam Braatz 47:24
stay away from politics and religion on LinkedIn. Unless you want to have a really frustrating experience, or you are specific, you are a politician or a religious leader, or you work in a religious institution. Otherwise have,
Keith McKeever 47:38
you know, you could make up posts that? Gosh, like, I don't know, I mentioned it quite a bit. So you could have an unpopular opinion on a particular server brand. Like, I'm in it. And I'll tell you, I am really not a big fan of this particular style of server. And here's why I've had problems with it. I've worked on them, whatever, they're a little harder to work with whatever, you know, like, might be pushing the boundaries a little bit, you're kind of like saying, Hey, I'm not a big fan of it. I've used it. Personal opinion. My start a little bit of controversy. might piss off the company a little bit. But don't call them out by name.
Adam Braatz 48:27
Yeah, I can say like, here, I have learned over time that here are some of the things that make a server, here's some unexpected things that make a server easy or difficult to work with on a daily basis. Some things that I didn't expect some features that I wish existed that I don't deal with now.
Keith McKeever 48:46
Customers, you know, here's, here's what makes some customers here easier to deal with or not, or Yeah, exactly, just don't. Yeah, keep keep the names out of it. Just kind of keep the details and cut enough details out of it. So nobody really knows exactly what you're talking about less than maybe specifically in your industry, and they can read between the lines enough to be like, I know exactly what he's talking about.
Adam Braatz 49:07
Yeah, you don't have to call anyone out by name. Yeah. You know, I mean,
Keith McKeever 49:11
you know, unless you really want to be controversial, but you know, you can push those boundaries just a little bit, to get some people to, to read it and be like, Oh, wow, that's an interesting heartache. Like, I'm going to engage with that. Right? versus just being like, I really hate this. List. Any other like, nobody's going to engage with that.
Adam Braatz 49:30
Right? Yeah. No, complaining is not a good look.
Keith McKeever 49:34
Yeah, unfortunately, there's, there's a lot of that and there's a lot of other things but you know, things just celebrating things, lessons tying things in for many things, right. There's a lot of different things you can do. So but you know, hey, honestly, what they really just need to do is just get your book, and they can just read through that. I mean,
Adam Braatz 49:52
I get deep in the weeds on all of those things that kind of three verticals of profile optimization, network development, and content creation?
Keith McKeever 50:01
Yeah, well, really, I mean, obviously, I need to read your book. But LinkedIn is one of those things too, you know, if you just get on there, and if you just look at enough people's profiles, you'll see the good, the bad and the ugly, you know, and then when you dive into your book, you know, you'll, you'll see the way you've got everything in there. It'd be a good guide on how to kind of start optimizing things and working things through but anything, anything else that you want to add about about your book?
Adam Braatz 50:32
Ah, well, not not about the book, I think just about LinkedIn in general, you know, whether you read my book or not, don't be intimidated by it. And don't write it off. Because you hear other people say that it's a waste of whatever. It's very important. And I can tell you from someone who is a hiring manager on the civilian end of things, it's very important. It is, and don't be intimidated. Just dive in, make mistakes. Just just do it as soon as possible.
Keith McKeever 51:02
You can always fix the mistakes, right? And you know, you never know when you're going to need the the profile, you may not need it for six months or six years. But to better to have not needed to need and not have.
Adam Braatz 51:17
You still need to use it though. Like yeah, so use it. But yeah, even if you get the job, that doesn't mean like Well, I'm good on LinkedIn now. Yeah.
Keith McKeever 51:25
But you know, I mean, it's exactly. So Adam, I appreciate you coming on the show here and sharing with us and spending almost an hour with us to you break down a lot about LinkedIn. There's a lot of great nuggets in here that people can take away. And hopefully that translates to better connections and maybe a few job opportunities for some people.
Adam Braatz 51:45
You bet, man, my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Keith. Yep.
Keith McKeever 51:52
All right. There you have it, folks, I hope you enjoyed. Remember, go to the website and check out all kinds of resources. If there's something that's not on the website you think should be, please reach out, let us know. So we could look at trying to add that and if you're struggling for any reason, the National Suicide Hotline number is 988. Press one
