What LinkedIn's CEO is seeing

At LinkedIn's Talent Connect conference, LinkedIn's CEO, Dan Shapero, described:

"a sea of applicants coming in our direction that look pretty similar."

His explanation was simple. People are using AI tools "to put their best foot forward, based on what they think you want."

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he went further: "It's gotten harder and harder for employers to know who can actually do the job anymore." He also said job seekers are sending out 30% more applications than they did before the pandemic.

More applications, polished by the same tools, aimed at the same guess about what an employer wants. No wonder they look alike.

Why your lived experience matters more now

AI can polish your words. It can't invent the projects you've delivered, the problems you've solved, or the lessons you've learned the hard way.

That's the part of you nobody else can copy, and right now it's the part that gets you noticed.

If you're an experienced professional, you have years of it. The problem usually isn't that you lack it. It's that it isn't written down anywhere people can see.

Blending in versus standing out

Blends in

"Results-driven operations leader with 15+ years of experience."

Stands out

"I help growing teams turn messy, stalled projects into processes that run without me chasing them."

The first line could belong to thousands of people. The second could only have been written by someone who has done that work and knows what it feels like.

Start with your LinkedIn profile

Your LinkedIn profile is often the first place people check whether you can actually do the job. Three places to start:

  • Your headline. Swap a list of job titles for what you do and who it helps.
  • The first line of your About section. Write the sentence only you could write: a problem you solve, in your own words.
  • One experience entry. Add one real example: what was stuck, what you did, and what changed.

You don't need to post every day or reinvent yourself. You need a few lines that sound like you.

Is there a line on your profile that only you could have written? If not, that's your quiet power move for this week.