The Legion
l/legion
2,171 members
About
Welcome to The Legion.
Leadership
Founder of Legion | Product Lead · Singapore, Singapore
Founder of The Legion. Having once been an isolated Catholic, I created this platform to help every Catholic to connect with the global Catholic community no matter where they are in the world, and develop the skills they need to do so.
Take A Leap Of Faith! · San Diego, United States
Encouraging authentic masculinity through Catholicism Co- Organizer of Men's Rosary March in Southern California Founders’ Circle of Catholic Owned Consecrated to St. Joseph 2021
Senior Talent Manager · Austin, United States
Catholic Convert 26 | Texas Lover of Jesus, strawberry banana smoothies, a good book, history, chai lattes, and every random baby I see on the street! I work in the creator space as a talent manager, and am helping build the Tiktok Livestream team at my agency. I love sharing my conversion story + my life on Insta: @aubreykern
The Official Legion Account
IT Help Desk Analyst · Irvine, United States
I love the Lord and Holy Mother Church. based in socal. need more Catholic friends. Interested include theology, apologetics, political and economic theory, philosophy, martial arts, heavy music, and dancing. also, follow me on IG @joseph.f.ramos
Relationship Coach | Marriage & Family Therapy · Mumbai, India
So fun to be here! I’m Judith 👋 Catholic trauma-informed dating coach. Currently in grad school. Writer & Speaker on dating, marriage & womanhood/femininity. Hobby: obsessively taking personality quizzes. Fav saints: All four women doctors of the church; and JPII!
Aerospace Engineering Student (3rd Year) · Greater London, United Kingdom
I am a 3rd year Aerospace Engineering student at QMUL (St Joseph of Cupertino O.P.N.). I have a strong interest in CAD design and have been involved in personal and engineering society projects. I serve as President of the QMUL Catholic Society and am involved in Catholic student life across London, working with parishes and Newman House to support and encourage people to reconnect with their faith.
@thelegionApr 23, 2026New course: First time job seekers
We just dropped a new course for those thinking about how to navigate this stage of life. This isn’t the advice your parents will give you. (Unless they happen to be very plugged into today’s job market.) You will find this and other new courses in the **Courses** tab! Be sure to join l/career if you need guidance, or have experience that you can share.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Final Word. Post Your Stuff in the Forum.
You made it to the end. Here's the thing about everything we've covered: reading it is step one. Actually doing it is step two through two hundred. So before you close this course, here's what I want you to do. Go to the Legion forum and post your resume for peer feedback. Not a recruiter. Not your uncle. Actual other people who are in roughly the same spot as you. This community is full of people who've looked at a lot of resumes, including their own, too many times. Fresh eyes will catch things you can't see anymore, because you've been staring at the same document for three weeks. If you've got a cover letter draft, post that too. If you've got a LinkedIn profile you're not sure about, share the link. If you've been ghosted and don't know what went wrong, post the job description and your resume and let people tell you what they see. You don't have to take all the feedback you get. Some of it will be wrong. Some of it will be useful. You decide. But you can't get feedback you don't ask for, and you can't get better in a vacuum. The whole point of Legion is that your vocation isn't just your prayer life. It's also the actual work of building a life in the world. A lot of Catholic content treats professional life like an afterthought. It isn't. Work is where most of us spend most of our waking hours, and doing it well — and getting to do it in the first place — is part of what it means to show up as a Christian in the world. So use the forum. Ask for help. Help someone else while you're at it. Keep applying. Keep tracking. Keep going. You've got this. And when you land the job (and you will), come back and tell us. Somebody three months behind you needs to hear it.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Handling Rejection and Ghosting
This is the hardest chapter to write, because there's no trick that makes this part not hurt. You will get rejected. A lot. You will also get ghosted, which is worse in a way, because at least a rejection tells you where you stand. Ghosting leaves you waiting for a reply that was never coming. The volume of "no" you're going to receive is hard to describe in advance. It's not two or three. It's sometimes dozens. Sometimes more. Some will be from companies you thought you had a real shot at. Some will come after you already did three rounds of interviews and started getting excited. A few will come after you'd already told your family it looked promising. It's brutal. All of it. **Here's what I've learned about surviving this part:** - **Rejection is usually not about you.** It's about fit, timing, internal politics, budget freezes, the person they interviewed right after you, a thousand things you can't see. Stop reading it as a verdict on your worth. - **Volume is your friend.** The only way not to be crushed by any one rejection is to have enough things in the pipeline that no single one matters too much. If your whole search is pinned on one company, every delay feels catastrophic. If you have 15 applications out, any one of them going cold is a Tuesday. - **Don't apply and wait.** Apply and move on. The moment you hit submit, mentally file it under "who knows" and keep applying elsewhere. Treat any good news later as a bonus, not an expectation. - **Ghosting is also rejection.** If two weeks have passed with no reply to a follow-up, it's a no. Grieve it briefly and move on. Don't keep checking your inbox at midnight. - **Don't internalize the silence as proof you're unworthy.** The market is genuinely broken right now. Companies ghost people with twenty years of experience. You're not the exception. One more thing. You can't control whether they reply. You can't control whether they pick you. You can control whether you keep going. The ones who make it aren't the ones who were obviously the best. They're the ones who kept applying after the fiftieth rejection. The ones who kept fixing their resume, kept asking for feedback, kept showing up. That can be you. But it's a choice. Every morning, a choice.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Salary. Make Them Fall in Love First.
Salary negotiation is its own art. But for your first job, here's the only rule you really need: **Make them fall in love with you before you talk numbers.** When an application or a recruiter asks you for your expected salary upfront, before any interview, before any real conversation, do not anchor yourself. Give a very wide range. Or say it depends on the full package. Or ask what the range for the role is. Deflect the question politely until later in the process. Why? Because if you name a number that's too high before they've decided they want you, they'll just move on to someone cheaper. And if you name one that's too low, you've left money on the table. I'll tell you a story because this is a mistake I actually made. I had what would have been a great first role. Good work, good team, good field. When they asked my salary expectations early, I anchored high — higher than I would've actually been happy to take. They went with someone else. I later found out my number was the reason. If I'd just deflected with "happy to discuss once I understand the role better," I'd have had the offer. Instead I lost the opportunity entirely. **For your first job, the rules are:** 1. Get them to want you first. All the way. 2. Don't name a specific number until they've essentially told you they want to make an offer. 3. When it's finally time to talk money, research what the role actually pays (Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, LinkedIn salary data). Aim for the middle to upper end of that range. 4. Once you have an offer, it's often worth trying to negotiate up 5 to 10 percent. Most people don't. "Is there any flexibility on the base?" is a fine line to use. 5. Don't price yourself out of your first job. A slightly lower first-job salary that gets you on the ladder is worth more than the perfect salary you never actually get because you pushed too hard. Your second job is when you really start earning what you're worth. Your first job is when you earn the right to have a second job. Have you actually looked up salary data for roles in your field? If not, go do it now. Come back and share a range that surprised you, high or low.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026In-Person Interviews
Most first-round interviews are remote now, but some companies still do in-person, especially for final rounds. Here's the thing about in-person: the bar is lower than you think, because most people underdo it. You don't have to wear a three-piece suit to stand out. You just have to look like you cared. **Dress:** - Business casual is the modern default. Collared shirt, clean pants, closed shoes. Blazer optional depending on the industry. - Finance, law, consulting: lean more formal. Suit, tie. - Tech, creative, startup: you can dress down slightly but still look put together. No hoodies. - When in doubt, dress one level up from what they wear day to day. Slightly overdressed reads as respectful. Underdressed reads as lazy. **Grooming:** - Hair neat - Shaved or beard trimmed - Nails clean - Light on cologne or perfume. Some people are sensitive to it. - Shoes actually shined or at least clean (people notice more than they say) **Logistics:** - Arrive 10 to 15 minutes early to the building. 5 minutes early to the actual office. - Have a printed copy of your resume, even though they already have it. - Know where you're going before the day. Don't figure out the parking for the first time at 9:55am for a 10am interview. - Phone on silent. Not vibrate. Silent. **The soft stuff:** - Firm handshake, eye contact, a real smile - Be nice to the receptionist, or whoever greets you. They sometimes get asked. More than one hire has been lost because the candidate was rude to the front desk. - If they offer water, take the water. Gives you something to do with your hands. The actual interview itself — the questions, the frameworks, the hard stuff — is a whole course. This chapter is just about showing up the right way. If you look the part, arrive on time, and treat everyone well, you've cleared a bar a surprising number of people don't clear.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Remote Interview Setup
Most first-round interviews now are remote. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, whatever. People underestimate how much the setup matters. Two candidates with identical qualifications will come across completely differently if one looks like a news anchor and the other looks like a hostage video. **Lighting:** - Face a window. Don't sit with one behind you. - If your natural light is bad, get a cheap ring light. $20 online. Single best career investment you'll make this year. - Goal: your face is clearly lit. Not shadowy. Not blown out. **Audio:** - Do not use your laptop mic unless you absolutely have to. Laptop mics are bad. - AirPods or any decent earbuds are a massive upgrade. - A cheap USB mic is an even bigger one. - Do a test recording before the interview. Listen to yourself. If you sound muffled or echoey, fix it. **Camera:** - Camera at eye level. Stack books under your laptop if you have to. - Not looking up your nose. Not looking down at your chin. Eye level. **Background:** - A clean wall. A bookshelf. A tidy room. - Not your unmade bed. - Not a door people are walking in and out of. - If in doubt, use a subtle blur. Not a fake beach scene. **Clothes:** - Dress like you would if this was in person. Even though they'll only see your shoulders up, wear real pants. It changes how you feel, and therefore how you come across. **Connection:** - Test it the day before. - If your wifi is shaky, plug in via ethernet or pick the spot closest to the router. - Have your phone ready as a backup in case everything breaks. One last thing: **log on five minutes early.** Not one minute. Five. It gives you buffer for tech issues and lets you settle. Showing up flustered at 1:00:47 for a 1pm interview is a bad start. What's one small upgrade you could make to your remote interview setup this week for under $30? Commit to it in the comments.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026It's All About Getting the Interview
Everything we've done so far has one purpose: get you in front of a human. Once you're in an interview, the game changes entirely. You're not competing with 400 other applications anymore. You're competing with maybe four other people they liked enough to call. Your odds just went from roughly 1 in 100 to roughly 1 in 5 or better. That's the whole reason this course is focused on the application process. Interview prep is a whole other skill set, and a whole other course. But you can't interview well if you can't get interviews in the first place. So the mindset for this entire phase is simple: **everything I'm doing right now is to get the interview.** - Is this resume getting past the screen? Is it getting the interview? - Is this cover letter getting read? Is it getting the interview? - Is this follow-up helping or hurting? Is it getting the interview? If the answer to "is this getting me the interview" is no, fix it or drop it. This also means your measure of success during this phase shouldn't be "did I get the job yet." It should be "am I getting more interviews over time." If you're not getting interviews at all, something upstream is broken. If you're getting interviews but not offers, the problem is downstream — that's an interview skills thing, not an application thing. Track it. Adjust. Keep moving.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026The Tracking Sheet
If you're applying to more than five jobs, you need a system. If you're applying to twenty or more, you needed it yesterday. I use Excel, but Google Sheets or Notion or a plain doc works too. What matters is that you have **one single place** where you track what you've applied to and what happened. **Here's the minimum set of columns:** | Column | What goes in it | |---|---| | Date Applied | When you sent the application | | Company | Company name | | Role | Exact job title | | Source | Where you found it (LinkedIn, referral, company site, etc.) | | Resume Version | Which tailored version of your resume you sent | | Status | Applied / Following up / Interview / Rejected / Offered / Ghosted | | Follow-up Date | When you plan to follow up, if at all | | Contact | Recruiter or hiring manager name + email, if you have them | | Notes | Anything useful (weird interview question, salary mentioned, etc.) | **Why this matters:** - You'll know when it's time to follow up without having to remember. - You'll know if the same company keeps posting and ghosting everyone. - You'll know which resume version you sent, so the interview conversation matches what's on the page. - You'll know what your own stats look like. How many applications to get an interview, how many interviews to get an offer. That last part is underrated. If you've sent 50 applications and gotten 0 interviews, that tells you something specific (your resume or your targeting is off). If you've sent 50 applications and gotten 10 interviews but 0 offers, that tells you something different (your interview game is the issue). Without data, you're just guessing and feeling bad. Review the sheet once a week. See what's working. Adjust.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Following Up Without Being Annoying
You sent the application. A week goes by. Silence. Should you follow up? Usually, yes. But there's a way that helps and a way that hurts. **Helpful follow-up:** - **One short email, 7 to 10 days after applying.** Not two days. Not a month. One week-ish. - **Address it to a real person if you can find one.** The hiring manager, the recruiter, the head of the team. LinkedIn and the company website are your friends. - **Three sentences, max.** "Hi [Name], I applied for the [Role] position last week and wanted to reiterate how interested I am. I think my experience in X would be a real fit. Happy to share more if helpful. Thanks for considering me." - **Then stop.** One follow-up. Not two. Not "just checking in again." **Annoying follow-up:** - Multiple emails to the same person in a week - Direct-messaging the CEO on LinkedIn - Showing up at their office (yes, people still do this, no, it doesn't work anymore) - Sending "did you get my last email?" every three days Here's the hard truth. Most of the time, silence means no. Hiring managers are slammed and just don't reply to every application. If you don't hear back within two weeks of a follow-up, move on. Keep applying elsewhere. Don't take silence personally, even though it feels personal. It's usually not about you specifically. It's volume. They got 400 applications and yours just didn't rise to the top this time. One positive use of follow-up: after an interview. Always, always send a thank-you note within 24 hours of an interview. Short. "Thanks for your time, enjoyed talking about X, excited about the role." That one's not optional.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Cover Letters
I know. Nobody likes writing them. A lot of advice online will tell you cover letters are dead. They're not. Here's what's actually true in 2026: - If the application doesn't ask for one, don't include one. Nobody will read it. - If the application asks for one, even if it says "optional," write one. "Optional" is how they screen out the people who can't be bothered. Assume everyone serious is submitting one. If you skip it, you're losing to everyone who didn't. **The purpose of a cover letter is not to repeat your resume. The purpose is to:** 1. Show you can write like a normal human being 2. Connect one specific thing in the job description to one specific thing about you 3. Bait them into an interview That's it. Don't overcomplicate it. **A structure that works:** **Paragraph 1:** Why you're writing. Name the role. Mention one thing that genuinely interested you about it. Not "I was excited to see this opportunity." Something real. "The part of the job description that caught me was X, because [specific reason from your actual background]." **Paragraph 2:** A concrete example. One story, one experience from your background that shows you'd do well in this role. Specific. Not a list of traits. **Paragraph 3:** A closing line that invites a conversation. Not "I hope to hear from you soon." Something like, "Happy to get on a short call if it'd be useful. I'd love to talk more about how I could help with X." Keep it under 250 words. Three short paragraphs. Read it out loud before you send. If any line sounds like it was generated by a machine or a 1998 career counselor, rewrite it. One non-negotiable: make it sound like you. If you're someone who talks normally, the letter should sound normal. If you're a little dry and witty, let that come through. The whole point is that the person reading it thinks, "huh, this one sounds like an actual person." Yes, you can use AI to help draft it. But rewrite the AI's draft in your own voice before sending. If you send what ChatGPT spits out word-for-word, the person reading will clock it immediately.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026The Omission Rule
Here's a rule that took me too long to learn: **When in doubt, leave it off. Let them ask.** Say a job description says "3+ years of experience" and you have one. The instinct is to dress up what you have to make it look like three years. Don't. Instead, describe your actual experience clearly, and let the interviewer decide whether to bring it up. Why? Because if they ask in the interview, you get to have a real conversation about it. You get to explain your experience, what you did with it, and why you'd still be a good fit. You control the framing. But if you try to pre-emptively fluff it on your resume, you've now lied on paper, and an interviewer who notices will never trust anything else you've said. **The same principle applies to:** - **Gaps in your work history.** A short gap doesn't need a label. Don't highlight it. Be ready to explain it if asked. - **Short stints at jobs.** Left somewhere after four months? That's awkward. Don't open the conversation on your resume. Be ready to handle it in the interview. - **Things you're not sure how to frame.** If you're not sure how to describe something, it's usually better to leave it off than to phrase it badly. The general principle: lead with your strongest stuff. Minimize or omit anything that could be a question mark. And prepare a solid, honest, two-sentence answer for every question you know they might ask. "What did you do in 2024?" Have an answer. "Why did you leave that role after three months?" Have an answer. The answer doesn't have to be impressive. It just has to be clear, confident, and not make them worry about you. You don't have to volunteer your weaknesses. You just have to handle them well when they come up.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Why We're Using AI (and How)
Let's be honest about what's actually happening. Most companies now use AI or automated systems (called ATS, or applicant tracking systems) to filter resumes before a human ever sees them. The AI scans your resume for keywords that match the job description. If you don't have those keywords, you're buried. Doesn't matter how qualified you actually are. So we're going to use AI to fight AI. Not to lie. Not to fake qualifications you don't have. Just to make sure the qualifications you do have are described in the exact words the screening system is looking for. **Here's the step-by-step:** **Step 1: Build one master resume.** A single, complete version of your resume with everything relevant you've ever done. This is your base template. It doesn't go out as-is. You'll tailor versions from it. **Step 2: Find the job description.** Copy the full text of the job posting. Every word, from the role summary to the requirements. **Step 3: Paste both into an AI tool.** ChatGPT, Claude, whichever you have access to. **Step 4: Give it a clear prompt.** Something like: > Here's my master resume. Here's a job description I'm applying for. Please rewrite my resume so it's tailored to this role. Keep everything factually true. Do not add experiences or skills I don't have. But rephrase my existing experience to match the keywords and language of the job description wherever that's honest and accurate. Give me the tailored version. **Step 5: Read what it gives you. Carefully.** The AI will sometimes exaggerate or word something in a way that isn't quite true to your actual experience. Fix those parts. You should be able to back up every single line on the final resume in an interview. **Step 6: Save it as a new version, named for the company.** "Resume_AcmeCorp_2026.pdf". You're going to be sending out a lot of applications and you'll need to keep track (more on that in Chapter 18). Repeat this for every serious application. Yes, it takes time. No, it's not negotiable if you're applying to anything competitive. The reason this works: your resume is being read by a keyword-matcher first and a human second. If the keyword-matcher throws you out, the human never sees you. That's the whole game right now. Play it.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Don't Be Picky (For Now)
Here's a truth that's unpopular but useful: your first job probably won't be your dream job. And that's fine. **The goal of your first job isn't spiritual fulfilment. It's:** 1. Get you paid 2. Get you experience you can put on a resume 3. Get you out of the "no experience" loop 4. Give you a stable base to look for better jobs from That's it. You're not marrying this job. You're using it to get to the next one. The working world has a weird rule almost nobody tells fresh grads: the best time to look for a job is when you already have one. Companies take you more seriously when you're currently employed. You have more leverage. You're less desperate in negotiations. You can say no. So even if the first role isn't exciting, take it if it's decent. Work it for a year or two. Then start looking again, this time with actual experience and a paycheck behind you. A caveat. Don't take jobs that are actively harmful to you. Not scams. Not places with a reputation for burning people out or mistreating them (Glassdoor will tell you). Not things that would compromise your ethics. If you're Catholic and a role would require you to do something that directly violates your conscience, that's a hard no. Short of that? Don't wait around for the perfect opening that might never come. Take the decent one and keep moving. One more thing. The companies you're applying to would drop you in an instant if it served them. The "culture" language, the "we're a family" stuff, all of it is marketing. Take the job, do good work, and leave when a better opportunity comes. That's not betrayal. That's just how the game is played. If you took a 'good enough' job tomorrow, what would you want it to teach you or give you access to by the time you leave? Think of it as a two-year plan.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Ghost Jobs and Red Flags
Not every job posting is a real job. Some are reposts of roles that got filled months ago. Some are companies "pipelining," collecting resumes without any actual intention of hiring. Some are straight-up scams. You need to learn to spot the fakes, because applying to them is a waste of the one thing you can't get back: your time. **Red flags:** - **The posting has been up for more than a month.** Real entry-level roles usually fill or get pulled within a few weeks. If it's been up for 60+ days, ask yourself why. - **The description is extremely generic.** Real jobs have real specifics. Ghost jobs tend to be vague. - **The pay or perks sound too good to be true.** If some company you've never heard of is offering $90k for an entry-level remote role with "unlimited PTO" and a four-day week, something's off. Some of these are data harvesting schemes. - **You apply and immediately get an automated video asking you to create a profile on some third-party site and complete a bunch of quizzes or assignments.** These are almost always data harvesting or MLM-adjacent pyramid schemes. Real jobs don't put you through an obstacle course before a human has even looked at you. - **They ask for your SSN, banking info, or any kind of payment before you're hired.** Close the tab. - **No findable company online.** No website, no LinkedIn, no reviews. Either not a real company, or not one worth working for. Rule of thumb: when in doubt, search the company name along with "review" or "scam" or "Glassdoor." If there's a string of results from angry ex-employees or people warning others, believe them. It's tempting when you're desperate to apply to anything. But every hour you spend on a fake posting is an hour you could have spent on a real one. Be ruthless. What's the weirdest or most suspicious job posting you've come across? Share it so others can watch out for similar ones.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Using Personal Connections
Most jobs in the US get filled through someone knowing someone. That's not a rumor. It's just how it works. If you're not using your network, you're playing on hard mode for no reason. Here's the thing. You have more of a network than you think. It's not just people in your industry. It includes: - Your parents' friends - Your friends' parents - Former professors - Old classmates who got jobs before you - People from your parish or church community - Anyone you did an internship or volunteer thing with - Friends of friends you met twice at parties None of these people need to hand you a job. They just need to make an introduction or pass along your resume. A referral from an employee usually gets your application looked at when an anonymous one wouldn't. **How to actually ask without being weird about it:** 1. Reach out to someone you have an actual connection with. Not a total stranger on LinkedIn. 2. Be specific. "I'm looking for entry-level marketing roles at tech companies in the Boston area" is way more useful than "I'm looking for a job, let me know if you hear of anything." 3. Make it easy for them. Attach your resume. Offer a short intro message they can forward. Don't make them do the work. 4. Follow up once. If they don't respond, let it go and move on. Don't guilt them. If you're thinking "I don't have connections," you probably do. You're just not thinking broadly enough. Talk to your parents. Talk to your friends' parents. Mention it at your parish. You'd be shocked how often someone says, "oh, my cousin works at a place that might be hiring." This is also where being part of a community like Legion actually matters. Post in the forum that you're looking. Say what you're looking for. Someone in here might know someone. It costs you nothing to ask.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Where to Actually Look
Most people spend their entire job search on Indeed. That's a mistake. **Different places, different kinds of jobs:** - **LinkedIn Jobs.** Where you'll probably spend most of your time. Best filtering, most legitimate listings, and you can see if you have any connections at the company. - **Indeed.** High volume, lower quality. Worth checking but a lot of it is reposts or ghost jobs (more on those in the next chapter). - **Company websites directly.** If there's a company you actually want to work for, check their careers page. Some roles never make it to the boards. - **Industry-specific boards.** Every field has them. Google what yours are. - **Handshake**, if you're a recent grad with university access. Still surprisingly useful. - **AngelList / Wellfound** for startups. - **Twitter/X.** A lot of small companies post roles here and nowhere else. Follow people in your field. One rule that's saved me more time than anything else: when you see a posting you like, don't just apply through the job board. Go to the company's website and apply directly there too. The board is where applications go to die. A direct application at least lands in their own system where a human on their actual team might see it. Here's the one most people miss. The best time to look for a job is when you have one. If you ever do land somewhere, don't stop. Keep your LinkedIn active, keep your network warm, keep half an eye on what's out there. Companies will drop you in a second if it serves them, and you should be willing to do the same when something better comes along. That's not disloyalty. That's just how work works now.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Cleaning Up Your Online Presence
Before you send out a single application, Google yourself. Seriously. Open an incognito tab and search your full name. Scroll through the results. Now search your name plus your city. Now check image results. Now check Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, anywhere you have a public account. What you find is what a recruiter will find. Most of the time, it's harmless. Maybe an old blog post. Maybe a photo from a party in college that's not ideal but not career-ending. But sometimes there's something that's going to cost you interviews, and you need to know about it before they do. **Things to clean up or lock down:** - Party photos that tell the wrong story - Old posts you wrote when you were 19 and angry at the world - Public profiles with content you wouldn't want a future boss scrolling through - Weird usernames tied to your real name on old forums, if those are still public **Now, about faith specifically.** Being openly Catholic online is fine. I'm not going to tell you to hide that. But there's a difference between being vocal about your faith and looking like an extremist. If your profile is you sharing reflections and the occasional Mass photo, that's one thing. If it looks like you'd start a holy war in the breakroom, that's another. If you have a personal account that leans heavy in any direction and you're worried a recruiter might read it wrong, put it on private during your job search. You don't have to delete anything. You don't have to pretend to be someone you're not. Lock it down, apply, and unlock it once you've landed somewhere. The goal isn't to be fake. The goal is to make sure the person they meet in the interview is the first version of you they form an opinion about.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026Your LinkedIn is your resume's public cousin. Every recruiter will check it. Most will check it before they even reply to you. **Here's what it needs, at minimum:** - **A headshot** (see the previous chapter). - **A banner image.** Anything is better than the default blue gradient. A clean texture, a photo of your city, something simple from Canva. Five minutes, huge difference. - **A headline that isn't just your current job title.** This is prime real estate. "Marketing graduate, looking for my first role in brand strategy" beats "Student at [University]." - **An About section that sounds like you.** Not like a press release. Two or three short paragraphs. What you've done, what you're looking for, what you're actually good at. - **Every job, internship, and leadership role filled out with real descriptions.** Yes, including the cafe job. - **Skills endorsed by at least a few people.** Ask friends, ask former classmates. Not cheating, everyone does it. - **Education filled out properly.** Here's the part most people skip. Start posting. Not every day. Not constantly. But once every week or two, share something. Something you learned, an article you found interesting, a short reflection on something you did. It doesn't have to go viral. It just has to exist. The posts don't need to be original takes on the state of the industry. The easiest and most useful thing you can write about is your own experience. A project you worked on. A specific thing you did at an internship. Something that went wrong and what you learned from it. A skill you picked up and how you picked it up. There's a second benefit to this that nobody mentions. When you've written something out once, you're going to remember it much better when it comes up in an interview. You've already fleshed out your thoughts on it. You've already found the words. Posting becomes interview prep, accidentally. When a recruiter lands on your profile and sees you've been actively thinking out loud about your field, that reads as someone who cares. When they land on a dormant profile with a 2021 photo and no activity since graduation, that reads as someone who's drifting. You want to look like someone who's moving, even if you haven't found the door yet.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026The Intro Video
This one's optional, but it's a big edge if you use it right. The idea is simple. Record a short video, 60 to 90 seconds, introducing yourself. Who you are, what you're looking for, what you bring to the table. Then include it with applications when it makes sense. Some employers will ask for one. Some won't, but you can offer. Either way, you want one ready. Keep it vague and flexible enough that you can reuse it for every application. Don't tailor it to one specific company unless they explicitly ask. The whole point is that this is your vibe check. They just want to know if you're normal, coherent, and someone they'd want to spend 40 hours a week with. **What to include:** - Your name, and what you studied or did most recently - A sentence about what kind of roles you're looking for (general, not hyper-specific) - Two or three genuinely true things about you that would matter to an employer - A closing line about being excited to hear from them **What to leave out:** - Your life story - Every award you've ever won - Anything you wouldn't say in a first conversation with someone you just met Film it in decent light, against a clean background, in clothes you'd wear to an interview. Your phone is fine. Don't overthink the production. The goal is that you come across as a real person someone would actually enjoy working with. Watch it back once. If it makes you cringe, re-record it. But don't get stuck in a loop of watching it back fifty times and re-recording thirty times. At some point you just have to send the one that's good enough. What's one thing about you that doesn't come through on a resume but would if someone met you in person? That's what the video is for.
@gabrielstcharlesApr 23, 2026The Headshot
Get a headshot. Not a selfie. Not the photo from your best friend's wedding where you cropped out your ex. An actual headshot. This matters more than people think. Recruiters will look at your LinkedIn. They'll look at it before the interview, and sometimes before even deciding whether to interview you. A bad photo, or no photo at all, sends a signal. A good photo sends a different one. You don't need a $500 professional shoot. Here's the minimum viable version: - A plain wall (white, beige, a soft grey, nothing busy) - Natural light from a window, facing you (not behind you) - A shirt with a collar, or a clean sweater - A friend with a decent phone camera - Shoulders up, looking at the camera, soft smile Take twenty shots. Pick the best one. Edit it lightly. Just color and exposure. Don't airbrush yourself into someone else. **A few do-nots:** - No sunglasses - No filters that change your face - No group photos cropped down - No photos from three years ago when you looked different - No gym mirror selfies. No bathroom anything. If the whole headshot thing feels vain to you, I get it. But think of it this way. You're asking someone to trust you with a job. They're going to form a first impression of you whether you like it or not. You might as well have some say in what that impression is.
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