Last Updated on May 7, 2026 by Fly High Coaching
LinkedIn in job search has become one of the most important tools for executives and professionals. But let’s be honest, so many people feel overwhelmed by networking online or enhancing their profile. Putting yourself out there in a visible way can feel scary, especially when you really need a job.
In this episode, you will learn how to use LinkedIn in job search with strategy and real confidence. Host and CEO Porschia sits down with guest Christina Cella for a warm, helpful conversation. They share how LinkedIn can help you build visibility, connect with the right people, and find opportunities that never get posted publicly.
They also talk about how to make your profile shine, reach out to people connected to roles you want, and shift the way you think about rejection during your job search. The conversation includes practical ways to use AI for research, targeting companies, prepping for interviews, and coming up with outreach ideas, all while still keeping your own unique voice.
Christina Cella is a recruiter, career strategist, and founder of Star Compass Careers. She has helped scale companies during crazy growth phases. Now, she leads Go To Market recruiting at Cresta, an AI company focused on amplifying human potential. Through her business, Christina helps professionals strengthen their networks, optimize LinkedIn, and use AI as a caring career copilot.
What you’ll learn:
- Why LinkedIn in job search matters so much for getting noticed by recruiters
- The biggest challenges professionals face when trying to network online
- Tips to optimize your LinkedIn profile with better keywords, headlines, About sections, skills, and featured content
- Practical ways to use LinkedIn to connect with people and find hidden job opportunities
- How AI can support your job search research, interview prep, outreach ideas, and profile strategy
Resources:
- Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today we are talking about using LinkedIn in your job search with Christina Ella. Christina Ella knows what it feels like to pivot, reinvent yourself and navigate uncertainty because she’s been on both sides of the hiring table. First as a job seeker, then as a recruiter shaping careers, she helps scale six sense from 150 to over 1300 employees during hypergrowth.
And now leads go to market recruiting at Cresta, an AI company focused on [00:01:00] amplifying human potential. Through Star Compass careers, Tina helps professionals navigate the job market, strengthen their networks, and optimize LinkedIn and career strategy using AI as a co-pilot. Her background in psychology and mindfulness shaped by study and her yoga teacher training.
Oh wow. Interesting. Informs how she combines strategy, storytelling, and mindset to work to help clients move forward with clarity and confidence. Hi Tina. How are you today?
Christina: I’m doing well. So happy to be here.
Porschia: Great. I am excited to have you with us to discuss using LinkedIn in your job search, but first we wanna know a little more about you.
So tell me about 7-year-old Tina.
Christina: Oh, God. I was probably a little bit of a wild child to be honest with you. I am very stubborn. Always thought I knew what was best. I think it’s funny that when you’re a kid you think you know everything and the older [00:02:00] you get. You realize, oh my God, I know nothing.
But also, I was always curious. I was a very curious child. I asked very interest. I asked my mom at five, what, why are we here, mom? What’s the meaning of the world? And she’s go play with your Barbies and, chill out. But I was always very introspective. And I always had a big heart.
I’ve always, loved people and making them happy. So that was from a young age.
Porschia: So what did 7-year-old Tina want to be when she grew up?
Christina: There were many iterations of that. I would say at one point I wanted to be a lawyer because my dad’s an attorney and I was always a daddy’s girl, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps, and I loved to argue.
So it came. But then I, at one point I wanted to be an actress. I went through a whole, thing. We lived in SoCal, so it worked really well. And I made my parents buy me like this whole like acting class situation. They took headshot and all of that. And then as I got a little bit older, I decided I, I wanted to be, go into psychiatry.
Mostly because I struggled with some mental health challenges and I had an eating disorder [00:03:00] from the age of 10. And ultimately I decided not to do that. But a lot of. A lot of what I do, I use kind of the idea of like how the, my brain works and psychology influences a lot of how I do my job. So ultimately I didn’t do it, but.
Kind of in a way I’m working with people every day and helping them. So there’s that.
Porschia: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us. That’s a similarity that we have in that I have my undergraduate degree in psychology and I originally was planning to get my PhD and become a counseling psychologist.
And then when I was in undergrad, I just. Decided the clinical side of psychology, just I wasn’t as interested in, so I just went into the working world. But yeah, you’re right. Psychology is in so much of I think what most people do every day, but definitely what you and I do. So Tina, tell me about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started the business that you have now.
Christina: Yeah. [00:04:00] Yeah. I think one pivotal moment was I fell into recruiting after college. I decided I didn’t wanna go into psychiatrist mostly. ’cause I think I was afraid I would be too impacted emotionally by it. And so then I was like, what else can I do when I work with people? And I fell into recruiting.
And it was, I loved it, but it was like I was doing legal recruiting and it was very hard. I was doing a lot of temp work and people would get quit or fired and that was very frustrating. So I think one pivotal moment was when I pivoted into tech. And ultimately I just, the legal world is interesting and I was legal world is interesting.
I was over it in the temp. And so I just randomly, and this goes back to the power of LinkedIn really. ’cause I randomly opened myself up to new opportunities on LinkedIn and I got reached out to by a guy named Reese who was starting a company called Vault Recruiting. And he literally cold called Six Sense and.
Kyle, the head of talent at the time, picked up the phone, needed a lot of help. I met him at the Salesforce Tower. He hired me that same day. And, I was a contractor for six months, then I converted right before COVID. Definitely a very pivotal moment as I broke into tech and the crazy world that, [00:05:00] that tech is.
But I loved it. I think it really works with my personality, I like things to move fast. Tech moves crazy fast. I like to be able to make an impact and a difference. And, the startup tech land is you can make things happen a lot more than if you get into the big corporate world or you’re in the legal world.
So that was one pivotal moment. I think another one, this goes into kind of starting my business, but was when I left Six Sense, right? I like literally was I could have gone right into another tech company. I even interviewed for a couple, but I just wasn’t ready to go back into all of the politics that I had experienced, the latter period of six Sense.
And so I, random people just started reaching out to me asking for help and that’s how I ended up deciding to open, to start what is now Star Compass careers. So that was definitely a turning point. And then another one was when I decided to come back into the crazy my, honestly, it wasn’t super intentional like I was biz deving into Cresta.
’cause I knew Melissa, my former work wife from Six Sense had landed there and was just raving about the place. And they were going, obviously through hypergrowth. And so they needed [00:06:00] help. But I meant to just help them by like placing people or, that. I got on the phone with the head of people and I had, I haven’t had a strong female leader prior to my boss currently.
And she is that. And so that was what kind of made me think, okay, like I can do it again. I can take another chance on the company. And the technology is crazy Cool. And so the feature, I mean it’s AI that’s about not replacing humans, but rather optimizing and augmenting. And that really appeals to me on a personal level.
Like I think AI is here to say there’s, it’s, we can’t escape it, but it’s also scary in certain ways. And there’s things that. Are unattractive about it. So I love that this company focuses on what, how, I think with the job search, it’s your copilot. It’s not meant to replace you. It’s meant to optimize and augment you and help you tell your story in a way that’s gonna have the most impact on the audience that you are trying to deliver it to.
So yeah, long answer.
Porschia: Oh, I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing that with us. You’ve had a very interesting career so far. Yeah. So when you were [00:07:00] starting your company, you said people had reached out to you and asked for help, but how did you decide to focus on like career coaching and career support as one of your areas of expertise?
Christina: Yeah, I naturally started doing it when I was at Six Sense, right? The last year I was there. They promoted me and I was managing a team overseeing customer success and professional services hiring, but. Mentoring has always come really naturally to me. I love it. Comes back to the really love helping people and love seeing people succeed.
And so I realized when people started reach out to me that I had a lot of value to offer and there were a lot of things I could do to help make that job search not so painful, because it is, like the job search hits people where it hurts, right? Like it’s your ability to pay for your kids to go to camp, right?
Put Christmas presents under the tree. Like these are big things. And it’s so psychological too, because those rejections, even if they’re not real rejections, whether they flood your email box, you feel rejected. And like that rejection sensitivity I think is one of the things that kills the job search.
And so one of the things I try to do is educate people that those are not rejections. [00:08:00] 99% of the time your resume wasn’t even seen. So like you have to like. Change that, flip the script on that a little bit. Because otherwise you will feel horrible. Like the job search is painful enough without adding to it by unnecessarily feeling bad when it’s really true that you just were not seen.
So it’s how do you get yourself seen? But even then, it’s not like people get, like I’ll tell people, one of my concepts is reach out to five people every time you apply to a job on LinkedIn. Like one should be some more in talent, one should be a potential peer asking for more information on the role, and potentially to have them refer you in after they know, after they get on a call with you and understand your experience.
It’s not gonna do any good to send a resume to someone, just have them throw it in if they can’t speak to the person that matters and tell them why they should talk to that person. So yeah, just helping people understand like what works, and not feel like it’s them that’s.
Not feel like it’s like then that somehow is not good enough, because that’s just not true. It’s a game. Like at the end of the day, it’s a game [00:09:00] and you just have to learn how to play it. But it’s hard, again, it’s hard. So I don’t ever say that it’s not, but it is doable and it doesn’t have to be horrific.
It doesn’t have to be, I do my best to make it fun when I can. Because also, oftentimes out of the job search. You end up gaining so much in that period of time, like upleveling yourself and you know those skills, they go with you after that. It’s not like just about getting your next job, right?
It’s about what you can learn about yourself and how you can. Improve, certain areas as you’re getting that job. So yeah, so I like to think about it like that because like sometimes it takes longer than people like, and that’s, but also it’s like we don’t just want a job, we want a career. We want something that’s going to uplevel us in our lives, yes, you could probably get a job faster, but if you’re gonna be looking for another job in six to three months, sit in three to six months, or even a couple, then what’s the point? I like to help people find places that hopefully, tech is volatile and un you never know completely.
But there are certain things [00:10:00] you can do to know as much as you can. Like I always suggest you should be reaching out to people outside the interview process too. Oftentimes interview process, you’re not gonna actually understand what it’s like internally or people that just left the company like that can be gold.
So yeah, answer to another long answer.
Porschia: No, it was great. It was great and I. Wanna follow up on a couple of things there. So I like what you said about really reframing that rejection Yeah. A feeling of rejection that people might have. And it’s really a mindset shift for people. Totally. And so I love how you said, make it a game.
I say something similar to our clients. Something else you mentioned earlier on was. Recommending that your clients reach out to five people about a job, do you recommend that they reach out on LinkedIn? Or is that, another thing?
Christina: Yeah. LinkedIn. If you have their phone number, like if you know them and you have their phone number, like you, that, like if somebody know, then use that.
Because I think the most, the more personal, like the closer you can get, that’s why I [00:11:00] let my candidates text me because I know that LinkedIn messages get missed, but if you don’t have, obviously I don’t necessarily suggest like using Apollo and like cold phone, texting people. I think that can get a little, some people might be turned off by that, but on LinkedIn no one’s gonna get like, turned off by that.
That is what you’re supposed, that is what LinkedIn is literally there for. And yeah, and like I think I, I use the word multithreading because I do a lot of customer success hiring. And I think about it the same way you think about an account when you’re A CSM, right? If you only reach out to one person, then that person goes on maternity, whatever happens, right?
Then that connection is gone. But if you reach out to five different people, you have a better chance of getting in the door. And you also have a better chance of understanding what door you’re actually entering. So there’s multiple reasons ’cause you’re interviewing them, and that’s the other thing that can’t be lost.
I get like people get this desperate feeling sometimes, right? But you can’t forget that you’re interviewing them too, because also they, the best companies, the companies you really wanna be at, they want to see that. They wanna see that you are not easy to, they want that. [00:12:00] It’s like dating, there’s a little bit of that push and pull.
Like you need to be a little bit like harder to get. If you’re, because there’s still that perception, like that is more valuable. And that’s not always necessarily true, of course, but again, it goes back to a game. It’s a game.
Porschia: Yeah. Yeah. So why do you think LinkedIn is an important part of an executive or professional’s job search strategy?
Christina: Because it’s a free storefront. Literally a storefront that you are given for free to show people what you do so they understand, they’re clear on it. If you make it like it, no one’s gonna reach out to you if they don’t understand your value. And like also the job search is often chasing, like we wanted to flip that a little bit and have people start to reach out to you.
So how can you optimize your LinkedIn keyword? Like how do recruiters search? Think about it logically. They search by keyword, they search by skills. So how can you make sure, and there are different ways of saying things, and some of these searches actually do that for you, like different ways of saying, but some of them don’t.
So like relationship management, customer success, client success, like you can say account management, like [00:13:00] the, they’re all like pretty much the same thing. Account management’s a little bit different. Like depending on where you go though, it can be very much the same thing, but. My point is have all of the words on there so you’re turning up in as many that, that are work that you’ve done.
Don’t just put random skill, but have all those key words that you’re turning up in as many searches as possible. Tagline is a great way to stand apart from other people like. Most people just have a title, right? The title of their job. There’s 9 million other people with the same job title.
How do you have a specific ROI that you can call out that differentiates you from, sets you above the pack? Like with one CSMI worked with, we did I drive revenue through relationships. That’s just so much like cooler than like customer assessment. Then you also wanna have there’s three, I actually took a LinkedIn Lin class and this was like a year and a half ago, so maybe some of it.
LinkedIn loves to change their algorithm constantly, but when I did, there was a formula to a tagline. Your ROI and you can use an I statement if you want, or you can do it in a different way. I like the I statement ’cause I think it, it just makes it clear that this is me, this is what I’m doing. And then the job [00:14:00] titles, because those, you need to stand up in the searches, right?
And then something unique, fun, different, something that gives you a little bit of personality. People wanna hire people they like. That’s never gonna change. So if you can give a little, it can be whatever you want. Dog, mom, Yogi, I, my tagline’s gone a little crazy. I don’t necessarily recommend going to the length of mine like that.
I’ve gone a little just off the rails there. But I do think that that formula it’s good, and you can play, use ai, play around with it, right? Say what your value is in our chat gt and then play around with like, how can I express this in different ways and make it, again, going back to making it fun and making it, again it’s your ability.
You’re marketing yourself, but that’s what you’re doing through your LinkedIn, your marketing yourself. And also it’s everyone’s, it’s just like in the world that we live in, if you don’t optimize that, you are losing opportunities left and right and you don’t even know it. There are a million other ways, like the about section.
I love to turn it into kind of a story. Everyone loves a good story, right? And this is your story. It you, but I also break out, LinkedIn does [00:15:00] not specifically have an accomplishment or an achievement section. So within the about section I break out, it’s like your story starts with your story.
Then you have a little bit of your achievements, then ends with, a little bit of a call to action, making sure people understand you wanna connect what you wanna connect about. Those kinds of things. I also love, like under the experience, continue the story. So like under each of your experience, there’s one sentence that says why you did, why you moved there.
What was like, where did you come to do, like I came to overhaul customer success, like a customer success team and turned it into a revenue, turned it into a more revenue generating, whatever it is that you were hired to do, put it there and then put the achievements under that, that you the things that you accomplished in that role.
I’ve seen that work really well. What else is there on LinkedIn? There’s also featured section, right? So if you’ve written any articles or you’ve done any, anything like that you’ve made cool videos or anything like that. Make it professional like it is LinkedIn don’t, like people need to be, but that’s really another cool way.
But yeah, there’s, the skills I think is a huge [00:16:00] one. Add everything, add your volunteer experience, add that. The picture, like when I took this class, they gave me a formula for the picture. And I’m not saying by the way, ’cause I posted about this on LinkedIn and I got some like backlash that like, it shouldn’t matter what your picture looks like, but it does, if you’re looking at a customer facing role, people care how you present yourself. That’s just the reality of it. If somebody wants to put you in front of Marriott. They care how you present yourself. That’s just normal. And what I’m not saying you need to do this, like it’s up to you, but like a smile, right?
People. Like a smile. That’s always a, in professional clean headshot with a clean background. That’s, it’s a simple formula. But that has been shown through statistics to have people perceive you as more confident, kinder. Like they showed us a picture of the same person for different facial expressions and how they had been rated on and obviously this is.
Bias. This is bias, but that’s, we are human beings. Like we can’t help the inherent oh, a smile appeals to us more. That’s there’s parts of that and I’m, this goes back to it’s playing a game. You’ve gotta [00:17:00] feed into that. If you don’t want to fine, but you’re just like you’re definitely a affect your chances of recruiters reaching out to you for customer facing roles at least engineering is a whole different world, right?
But I think it always matters how you present yourself at the end of the day.
Porschia: Yeah, I agree. So we discussed LinkedIn profile optimization on the podcast back in episode one 11. Yeah. You mentioned one of the benefits was that recruiters can find you online through, the keywords and all of that.
But what do you think are some other benefits to having an optimized LinkedIn profile during a job search?
Christina: I think the biggest ones are it’s clarity, right? Like it provides clarity to those and it’s, it also opens you up to things that like, it doesn’t even have to be a job. Like o other things come out of having an optimized LinkedIn profile, like I get reached out to now about like podcasts and appearances and things like that.
And if you don’t have an optimized LinkedIn profile, like that’s a big part of people reaching out to you for think, like there could be side gigs that you don’t even know about. But if you if you don’t. [00:18:00] Let people know, if you put your volunteer experience on there, somebody could see that you on the side, own a dance club and reach out to you about something cool like that, or so yeah, it’s networking at, like at the end of the day it’s networking, right?
And so even if it’s not about the job, it’s just about making it clear what you do and opening yourself up to meeting the right people that are gonna help you open the right doors.
Porschia: Yeah. So I’ve seen many clients be overwhelmed by the thought of networking or putting themselves out there online. What do you think are some of the best ways to network on LinkedIn?
Christina: I think start with like close connections, the more, the closer you are, the more likely you are to get a response, and then think about it strategically, look, if you’re trying to figure out what companies to go after, you can use Chatt PT to figure out what are the most aligned companies,
and then connect yourself to make sure you’re following that company page, connect yourself to the leaders at that company. Sometimes send a quick message like, see, you’re doing something really cool [00:19:00] here. Like that. There’s a whole world where there are jobs that are never posted. By the way, never posted.
And if you reach out to a company right after they’ve been flooded with money and you say, Hey, I’ve solved a problem that you’re about to face, and here’s a case study that shows you how. That holds a lot of power, especially with younger founder led companies. Like I’ve known people that have gotten jobs by doing that.
It doesn’t work every [00:20:00] time. And that’s what people like. They’re like, oh, I’ve done this 45 times and it hasn’t worked well. It’s also sales cycle. That’s the reality of this. And that’s what’s so hard about the job search. It’s a mix of yes, the quality has to be super high, but the quantity also has to be there or you’re never gonna get there.
So yeah, I think that’s the basics.
Porschia: So what about if you have a client who is an introvert or yeah. Feels, uncomfortable or awkward with reaching out to people that they don’t know? What would you tell them?
Christina: That at the end of the day, like. The worst that they can do is not reply. And even if they don’t reply, it doesn’t mean it didn’t work.
By the way, like when I was at Six Sense, I had the VP of Cs multiple times reach out to me because somebody had pinged her on LinkedIn. She never responded to them, but she damn sure told me to rush. They were the top of the pro, like we needed to interview them right away. Especially if you’re talking about a sales or a CS role, any kind of relationship role, you’re demonstrating the skillset of the role by doing it.
And I get it’s [00:21:00] hard, but like at the end of the day, like that’s. If you don’t demonstrate the skill, this is a proof of the putting job search we’re in, meaning you like it’s not necessarily fair, but you have to do more than you’ve ever had to do before in a job search to get a job. So I would say like minds going back to mindset, just taking away, like it’s not, if you don’t hear back in no way means that like that you’ve been rejected or they didn’t hear you.
And also providing templates, like helping guide, like I help guide them. Sometimes that helps, like they don’t know what to say. They’re tongue tied. They’re like, how do I reach out? What do I say? And so I, like doing some research on that person and then reaching out with a thoughtful message like, Hey, I read your post, or I, see that your company’s working on this.
Something like that I get it, it’s still gonna be hard for introverts to do it, but also like in this job search you have to learn how to do it, or it’s gonna be a lot harder for you and take a lot more time for you and prac, like just. We can, I like to have sessions with people where we go back and forth and create different templates until they feel something that they’re comfortable with.
And it just, like it, but sometimes I have I’ve [00:22:00] had candidate, I’ve had clients where they won’t do it. Like no matter how many times I’ve told them to do it, they won’t do it. And at some point, like it’s somebody’s they just don’t wanna do it. You can’t force people to do what they don’t wanna do.
The reality is it’s gonna, if you can’t, if you’re not gonna network, it’s gonna make your job search a lot harder. I’ll sit with them and help them write it and help them send it. ’cause that moment of sending, sometimes I’m like, it’s like they’re not, probably not even on LinkedIn.
Taking away that it’s such a big deal, it’s just not that big a deal.
It’s just not, like the worst thing that happens is they don’t get back to you. Moving on with our lives, it, I think people just, oh, and I, you know why I used to be like that in large part.
When I first started my career, I was afraid to reach out to the CEO of the company or whomever because I, I thought I was overstepping, right? And like the thing too, when you’re reaching out to I always say, to reach out to the head of the department that you’re going after, but you’re not asking them for anything.
You’re ne you’re not asking them for anything. All you’re trying to do is get yourself on their radar so that you know that, so that they know that you exist before you come up in internal [00:23:00] conversation. And the thing about this is I’ve seen this work in real time, right? Like when I was doing a retained contingent search for a company, we had two candidates.
One was. Perfect on paper. Like perfect. Down to the tiniest detail. The other guy, even before he started interviewing was messaging people on LinkedIn and sharing why he thought he was a good fit. Not in a, there’s a line here, right? If you go after 20, they’re gonna be like, what is wrong with this person?
They’re like, too much coffee or something. But like a normal, like 3, 4, 5, that’s completely acceptable and considered a good thing right from most companies. And so the other person who’d done that, and he also followed up after each interview and said, reiterated how they, what they’ve discussed, and then added what his value would be to solve a problem.
They’d mentioned You can create advocates every step of the interview process. If you understand the pain point that they are concerned about with the job, every like product has a different thought about that, what they need from that job than sales does. So how do you address that specific one? So every step of the way, you have somebody that wants to hire you.
And then when that group meeting happens [00:24:00] at the end, and everyone’s talking about you, everyone’s yeah, I want him on my team. That’s how, that’s what really works. And I saw it worked that the guy wasn’t perfect on paper, got the job, and he is been there for over a year now and he’s happy, so it’s it’s sometimes doing those things can also overcome gaps, in your resume or in your experience especially in startups because people wanna see that. I’ll go above and beyond. I’ve got that grit, I’ve got that determination. Even if I need to work harder than others to get there, I will do it.
That’s what most startups are looking for. So doing stuff like that in the interview process just shows them that’s what you’re gonna do once you get in the door.
Porschia: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I love how you talked a little bit about what we call the hidden job market, those jobs that aren’t posted in the public domain online, and how with LinkedIn you can actually still get that visibility and attract recruiters for, potential interviews for those types of opportunities.
So Tina, from your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve [00:25:00] seen professionals and executives have? Using LinkedIn in their job search?
Christina: I think they just like, they don’t they don’t fear, like fear of reaching out, just like what we just discussed. Not wanting, like just not optimizing their profile correctly.
Because they try to do it on their own and like they’ll, I’ll, I’ve cc people with like weird spaces on things like, just like you have to have a detail oriented mind when you do the LinkedIn optimization or it can work against you. And backfire, right? I think that’s one.
And also it’s I think some people are just overwhelmed by LinkedIn. I get overwhelmed by LinkedIn sometimes, and I live there. So I think that’s definitely a challenge. People are just like, it’s too much, like it’s just too much activity, like that. I think one of the things I think’s worked is like giving, like limiting the time, like scheduling an hour each day, doing something like that where you go hardcore on it, if it’s, if it does seem overwhelming to you.
I live there every day and it’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of posts. Sometimes there can be like contentious [00:26:00] posts and people arguing about things that are like really ridiculous. Like my post about, you should look presentable in your picture. Apparently that offended some people somehow.
So like that I think people get turned off by that kind of stuff. And I do too. It’s social media, and I get I don’t go on Facebook and Instagram much because for that very reason, but also this is the world we live in. And it is a free storefront and industry. So you have to figure out a way to break through those challenges that I think every, most people experience that are not, even people that like me, that live there still get overwhelmed and still, sometimes don’t know exactly how to optimize my profile.
But you’ve gotta just keep keep improving it. That’s the other thing too. It doesn’t always have to be completely overnight. You can do one section at a time. Sometimes I have clients do that ’cause they’re like, I, it’s too much for me to redo my about section, redo my experience section, redo my, they’re like, okay, like today, just optimize your skills.
Just, and LinkedIn let’s you add up to a hundred. It’s cool, right? So you can just keep going with those skills. So yeah, I think the biggest challenge is just, it’s social media. [00:27:00] Like it’s social media.
Porschia: Yes. I completely agree. And I think to your point about not knowing how to optimize it, I’ve seen clients think this is what I really wanna share, and I really wanna talk about this.
And if you really wanna talk about something, but it’s not relevant to the types of opportunities that you’re targeting. Yeah. Or if it’s not the type of thing that will attract recruiters to you, then sometimes we have to remove like. What we personally wanna say. Yeah. And shift that a little bit to what the market wants to hear, what the market is interested in.
And maybe when you get into an interview you can share that. But I do think, to your point, sometimes people, they don’t know how to optimize their profiles, so they just think whatever I wanna share, whatever I wanna put up there. Is going to be effective. And
Christina: that
Porschia: always
Christina: Yeah. And that also goes to posting.
’cause I recommend, posting, like trying to start posting, which is really hard for people like you think for reaching out to [00:28:00] people, like trying to get them to start posting is very hard. Like it’s if you just, you have to think about what the market wants. Yes. Think about what you like to do or whatever, but be careful what you post.
Like even I, there’s huge debate about these I’m still searching for a job post.
Because I think one, after you get laid off is totally fine. I do think that if you. Our six months into the job search, it can come off a little, unfortunately, come off a little desperate if you’re just continuously posting on LinkedIn about how you’re still looking for a job.
And that’s not necessarily the most attractive thing to hiring managers, unfor, I’m not saying like we should all use our network, ask for help. But going back to a game, it’s image, like it’s your image that you’re protecting and it matters. There’s, even in this day, most hiring managers now are aware, layoffs are left and right.
The stigma has been lifted. But even this day I have hiring managers that are like, why are they, so like, why are they laid off two times in a row? I’m like because they work for series A companies that went under but there’s still a stigma. There’s still a bit of a stigma.
And it goes back to dating. It’s if somebody was, you were dating somebody and they kept texting you every three weeks, I’m still [00:29:00] available. Hey, I’m still here. I wanna, like that would be a little turned off by that. That’s just human nature.
But yeah, I have one client who I love to death, and I, she had just the second time I worked with her and she just got a job and she’s got this fire personality, but like I’ve had to talk her down with posts,
’cause she’s great, but two there. But there’s also I have a one friend who posts like all this stuff that like, is just very emotional and like she has a really huge following. But it’s like also know where you’re trying to get a job and what’s gonna appeal to those people.
If you are not trying to get a job and you have your own business and that’s working for you, then post away what you want. But if you’re trying to get a job in corporate, or in a start perception matters their perception in particular,
Porschia: yeah I completely agree.
And yes, a lot of our clients are afraid of posting and, we talk about coming up with a posting strategy that’s comfortable for them. But to your point, it really needs to be [00:30:00] thoughtful in terms of what you’re posting, because. People will see a post and make assumptions about you, about what’s important to you and all of that just based on your posts.
And then to your point about your friend who has a large, or a client who has a large following. A lot of times based on what you post, those are the types of followers that you’re going to attract as well. This is also, you and I know this from a business and marketing standpoint, but also who are you looking to attract?
Who do you want to be in your audience? It’s definitely good to think about a posting strategy and the types of content and varying it up yeah. In terms of what you post. So thank you for sharing that, Tina. I know that you use AI a lot. What are some helpful ways that people can use AI in their job search?
Christina: Research is the number one. There is no excuse anymore for showing up to an interview and not knowing what the heck you’re talking about. Like in, five, six years ago I was. Reaching out to somebody and they have back to backs. I got it. Okay, they get on the call and they don’t know what I’m talking, I get it [00:31:00] like, they’re back to back.
I’m pulling them, right? But now it takes two minutes with chat two BT to plug the damn company and ask what the company does. Like it. It literally takes two minutes. So research is the number one. Finding aligned opportunities, I think I mentioned this earlier in the conversation, so figuring out what kind of.
Companies, like different kinds of companies, like people don’t know what’s out there oftentimes, right? And your LinkedIn feed too doesn’t always show you it sh it’s like an algorithm, right? So it’s not necessarily showing you the broad range of what’s out there. So use AI to define different companies that attract you.
What do you like to do? What are you most, like this market makes pivot and growth very hard. So I always say if you really wanna get a job faster, like sticking to the same industry and looking for companies that are competitors, things like that. Like I can’t tell you number of times that I’ve worked with a client and last second they’ve been in finals and last second, somebody’s come in with that industry experience and they’ve gone with them.
That is very powerful, incredibly powerful in startups. Having that direct, the more aligned you are, the more plug and play you are, the more likely you’re to get at that job. So finding those kinds of [00:32:00] companies, like competitors, obviously if they suck then you’re gonna have to look outside them, but that’s your best bet.
And then it can help with like ideas, posting ideas for posts. It can help with templates for outreach, right? You can train the brain like you don’t, I you can actually go into touch, bt, and there’s like a memory setting where you can tell it like who you are, how you think, how you speak, so that the posts start becoming you.
Because we don’t want, again, this goes back to it’s your copilot. We don’t want it to replace you. And I iterate with ai. I never just. Have ai, share something with me and then post that, ever. It’s, I probably way over iterate with ai. I get lost in it and I’m like, oh wait, crap. I just spent an hour going back and forth about one post.
But it’s my, I want it to be me. I want the AI to help me optimize it and streamline it and make it the most in the format that’s gonna be best for LinkedIn and all that. But I want it to remain my story. And sometimes I write posts without ai. Sometimes I just write my story like my truth or my story.
I go back and forth again, not letting it [00:33:00] replace you. But it is an incredibly powerful tool and if you don’t use it, you are gonna get like you’re gonna be behind others that are using it. It’s an incredible tool for research on the particular person you’re interviewing and how you can address, like going back to addressing their specific pain points.
What do they care about? Yeah, there’s. And like the, I think the biggest thing is like the research, like ultimately it just, it speeds it up. It makes it fast. You can also use it to practice like interviewing. Like I think that’s a really powerful one. There are actual tools now, like Google has one, like an interview tool that you can go back and forth with it.
Ai. But again, like just make sure that like you are using your human judgment always with it. ‘Cause I have had people come on calls and they don’t know what’s on their resume. ’cause they used I to write their resume and they didn’t, they just threw the job description in and they threw their resume and they’re like, make this align with this job.
And they didn’t even check to make sure they actually have those, did those things. They’re just like,
And that’s just not a good look. The one, it was funny though, the one guy. One guy that it happened to, he’s yeah. I realized as I was [00:34:00] going into the interview that I’d put something on there because I used AI that I didn’t do.
So I went and did a demo, which I was like, okay, this is a little bit better than just having no idea coming into the I. But still not, he didn’t get the job. It’s just that. But yeah, I mean it, it’s it is an amazing tool and we gotta use it. But we just gotta stay us.
We gotta remain human. That’s what people want. Like people want to talk to people. They don’t. For the most part I don’t know. Some people do want to talk to AI probably at this point, but overall, you gotta keep being human with it.
Porschia: And I love how you shared that, because I actually have a podcast episode coming up on why AI resumes fail.
And so I’ve talked to executives who have been using AI to help them tweak every resume that they’ve sent out for two years and still haven’t had any job interviews. And I think,
Christina: oh, now,
Porschia: yeah. And I think people believe that AI is just. The blind solution. And I do agree that it can be helpful, but you have to know how to use it.
And my [00:35:00] personal opinion, Tina, is that for more experienced roles, definitely executive level roles, just trying to rely only on AI is not the right thing. It needs to be an iterative process and I actually recommend, obviously working with the professional writing team. But I think people are now starting to come to the realization that AI just can’t do it all for them.
Especially when it comes to, the resume and the job search. Great.
Christina: Tell us,
Porschia: oh, go ahead.
Christina: I was gonna say, why would we want it to. Great
Porschia: question.
Christina: What are we trying to get at here? Like for me, one of the things that I bothers me about, like Chatt BT, is kids aren’t necessarily learning to write in the same way.
And I’m a writer, like in heart, like I love writing. I run awards for it when I was in high school. And I’ve always loved to write and, we gotta find ways to make sure especially our youth are still using their brains. This is like human judgment needs to continue to be.
There, like terminated or scared, that was like, that is, [00:36:00] not, I don’t think that, who knows? That could happen, but like it, we gotta stay human and we gotta use the AI with ethics and integrity and humanity or we will get lost.
Porschia: Very well said, Tina. So tell us more about your business.
Christina: Yeah, so originally it was called Unicorn Career Compass, and then I was actually threatened with a lawsuit by some girl that owns a company called Career Unicorns and thought I was infringing upon her trademark. At first I was like, oh God, I’m gonna fight this. But then I realized she’s already in court with a company called Your Unicorn Career in federal Court, and she’s been there for two years.
And I’m like, okay, bye bye unicorns.
So yeah, so I work with job seekers. I have multiple different packages that include just like the simple resume, LinkedIn revision, all of that. And then like more full cycle packages where I work with you throughout the process, help you from the beginning, then help you go through each interview tailoring, making sure each interview you are focused in on the persona you’re gonna be interviewing with how to best impress them so you get to the next step.
All of that, all the way through negotiation and helping them negotiate the [00:37:00] offer. All of that. And then I also do I also just have coaching for upleveling, so coaching to help you actually, do well in your job that you’re currently in. I read an article that it’s all, like how you’re perceived at work is only about I think it was 10 or 20, I can’t remember if it was 10 or 20% performance.
The rest is image and exposure, meaning it’s the image you that people like see you as and who you get on your side. And one thing I did incredibly well at Sixth Sense is got a lot of people on my side that were in leadership roles very early on. And that that’s the reason I was named a Sixth Sensation.
That’s the reason I went to, obviously I did the work too, but everyone knew who I was, everyone knew who I was. And there’s power in that, there’s power in that. People know exactly what I’m known for. Yeah, I think that at the end of the day like it really, it doesn’t, it’s funny ’cause you would think it would come down to performance, but it just really does.
It doesn’t,
Porschia: yeah.
Christina: It goes back to we’re human beings. At the end of the day, we wanna work with people we [00:38:00] like. And some people we like, makes a little mistake. We like if they’ve bo we’ve bonded with them and overall their work product’s been good. They let it, it’s no big deal.
That’s the reality of it. Like I, I’ve made so many mistakes in my career, like so many mistakes in my career. Some that are pretty big, but I always know how to it’s how you respond, right? And I always know how to clean it up and I always know how to not make the same mistake again.
And I always know how to have those relationships where people have my back. And you need that in this world, in this tech world. Like without that, it’s lonely too. There’s, there was a study that people aren’t happy, they’re really unhappy if they don’t have at least one friend, like one real friend at work.
And I’ve lived that, like my hardest period was sixth Sense, like they built the talent team of 60 people. I was one of the last few. And so they fired everyone around me, including my work wife. And I had that for a year, and that was the hardest year career of my life because I didn’t have anyone to talk to really about it all.
[00:39:00] Everyone that was, I did outside of my department of course, ’cause I’d hired, like most of the CS team was like on, but as far as like my day to day and like my struggles and like somebody to bounce ideas off of that was completely gone. Yeah. So I.
Porschia: Yeah, I could definitely see that.
I could definitely see that. So we will be providing a link to your website and other social channels in our show notes so people can find you online. Now Tina, I wanna ask you our final question that we ask all of our guests. How do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their career?
Christina: Obviously we, the one obvious one is optimize your LinkedIn right? I think live events are way under done, or like people don’t think about it as much, but I’ve met so many clients at live events, like networking events, like things like that. Like I think like in person time is really powerful especially in this remote world that we live in.
It’s seen as even more, it’s even [00:40:00] more valuable. And that’s how you really like, connect and bond with people. So going to like a conferences, events, introducing yourself to different kinds of people, building your network, having coffee chats, like all of those kinds of things. And upleveling yourself.
Like what, where is the future going? AI. We all know that. What are the certifications you can get, classes you can take, things like that. How can you prepare yourself for where the world is going?
I think that’s really powerful. Use the, these ai, like you have to use these AI tools.
And I think sometimes more senior executives too, they’re not as ingrained. They, they’re, it’s just. It’s hard to pick up new technology as you get older. Prob, ’cause you’re more set in your ways typically. And so some of them I think it’s like AI is bad, like AI is evil.
It’s gonna take over the world and maybe put like on it, it’s here right now and like we, if you don’t, use it or get left behind is the reality of it. It’s not being afraid to use, to learn the AI the way, ’cause that’s the direction of the entire [00:41:00] world, regardless of where you land.
Any company, every company or God Spoon nurse right now has slapped AI in some capacity. I say this all the time when I’m talking about Cresta, because Cresta is built to be AI from the ground up. It’s one of our biggest German trade differentiators from a lot of other companies that have slapped AI on all over the place.
But it honestly isn’t usually doing much because, it might do something, but it’s not, if it’s not made to be that it’s not gonna do what AI can actually do in 2026. But yeah, those would be the basics that come to mind.
Porschia: Love it. So Tina, you have shared a lot of wisdom with us today and I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers.
We appreciate you being with us.
Christina: Of course. It was my absolute pleasure.
[00:42:00]
