On this page
People look you up before they reply
Who this is for
You applied, and now you're waiting. Meanwhile a recruiter or hiring manager has almost certainly typed your name into LinkedIn, and for technical roles, opened your GitHub. This is about what they find.
Your profiles aren't vanity. They're a second, always-on application that you don't get to resend. For these roles, two matter most: LinkedIn (where recruiters search and source) and GitHub (where engineers judge whether you can actually build).
LinkedIn: be findable, then be credible
Recruiters find people by searching keywords. If your headline says "Aspiring tech enthusiast," you won't appear in a search for "cloud engineer", and you'll read as a beginner even if you're not. Your headline and About section are the two highest-leverage fields.
Invisible to search
Aspiring IT professional | Passionate about technology | Open to opportunities
Findable and concrete
Cloud / DevOps, building on AWS with Terraform & CI/CD | Career-changer from logistics | Open to junior roles
- "Aspiring" and "passionate" are invisible to keyword search and read as not-yet-ready.
- Put the actual role and tools in the headline, those are the exact words a recruiter searches.
- Naming the career change is honest and memorable, not a weakness to hide.
Pro tip
Fill the basics that searches and filters use: location, an "Open to work" setting if it fits your situation, and skills that match the roles you want. A clear, friendly photo helps; a polished one isn't required.
GitHub: it's a portfolio whether you curate it or not
An engineer looking at your GitHub isn't counting commits, they're asking "can this person write and organise code?" That means a few well-presented projects beat a graveyard of half-finished tutorials.
- Pin your best 2–4 repos so they're the first thing seen, not your oldest experiments.
- Write a real README for each: what it does, the stack, how to run it, and one line on what you learned. The README is often read more than the code.
- Delete or archive dead, embarrassing, or copied-tutorial repos. Curation is a signal.
- Make the profile legible: a short bio and a pinned project tell a clearer story than 50 scattered repos.
The green-squares myth
The contribution graph is not a scorecard, and faking daily commits to turn it green fools no one who actually reads code. Don't stress about a perfect streak. A few real, well-documented projects matter far more than an unbroken row of squares.
Takeaways
Key takeaways
- Assume you're looked up before anyone replies, make it count.
- LinkedIn headline = the role + real tools, so search can find you.
- GitHub: pin a few projects, write real READMEs, hide the junk.
- Curation beats volume. Don't fake activity to chase green squares.
Reading is step one. Now do it for real.
When you're ready, the platform has live mock interviews and portfolio-grade capstone projects you can actually talk about.
Keep reading
This is general, educational career guidance, not legal, financial, immigration, or professional advice. Examples are illustrative and simplified. Norms vary widely by country, company, role, and over time, so always verify what applies to your own situation. Nothing here guarantees an interview, an offer, or any particular outcome.