Value Driven Data Science: Boost your impact. Earn what you’re worth. Rewrite your career algorithm.

[00:00:00] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Hello, and welcome to Your Value Boost from Value Driven Data Science, the podcast that helps data scientists transform their technical expertise into tangible business value, career autonomy, and financial reward. I'm Dr. Genevieve Hayes, and I'm here again with Sarah Burnett, co-founder of Dub Dub Data.
[00:00:21] To turbocharge your data science career in less time than it takes to run a simple query. In today's episode, you'll discover LinkedIn strategies that will transform your data science career. Welcome back, Sarah. I.
[00:00:36] Sarah Burnett: Great to be back again.
[00:00:38] Dr Genevieve Hayes: So three years ago, I set myself the goal of posting twice weekly on LinkedIn and around five months ago, I increased that to daily.
[00:00:48] Since then, I've received work opportunities I would've never known, existed. Reconnected with valued colleagues from my past and networked with data professionals from right around the globe. In fact, this episode exists entirely due to a chance conversation that you and I Sarah had over LinkedIn .
[00:01:09] So I think it's safe to say that LinkedIn has made a huge difference to my data science career. Sarah, you've also set yourself the goal of posting daily on LinkedIn. How long have you been doing this for and what inspired you to make that commitment?
[00:01:25] Sarah Burnett: So I started on the 1st of January 22. 25. It was a thought in my head, and to be honest, I didn't go public with it until I was six months in. So quite recently, probably because I was again scared if I failed would anyone hold me to it, when really it's just me holding myself to it. Unlike you, I didn't love LinkedIn historically, and I'd kind of kept away from it.
[00:01:56] But through my path of redundancy to entrepreneurialship, I started to see the benefits of LinkedIn, and it was probably around October of last year when I really started realizing how much of a social platform LinkedIn was and a potential lead generator.
[00:02:18] So I started focusing a little bit more on what it could do for me, and I'm a numbers person, so I started really tracking my engagement and then 1st of January I thought, let's see if I really doubled down on this, what I could gain over the year.
[00:02:39] Dr Genevieve Hayes: How often were you posting prior to 1st of January?
[00:02:42] Sarah Burnett: Oh, I think I probably posted twice a year.
[00:02:46] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Oh, okay.
[00:02:47] Sarah Burnett: Bef Yeah,
[00:02:47] Dr Genevieve Hayes: so you went from basically zero to a hundred.
[00:02:50] Sarah Burnett: Yes.
[00:02:52] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. I'm glad I did twice weekly and then daily. 'cause that allowed me to just get into the habit. I admire you for going all in like that.
[00:02:59] Sarah Burnett: I'll admit I built up, as we started dub dub data, I did start paying more attention and posting a little bit more frequently. But prior to that, yeah, very sporadically.
[00:03:11] Dr Genevieve Hayes: What are some of the biggest benefits you've experienced from posting on LinkedIn?
[00:03:15] Sarah Burnett: I think it's the presence and being in that line of sight of potential clients' minds. The amount of conversations, like you said, meeting yourself on there, but other businesses that I've either worked with in the past or have started working with do often comment on my content.
[00:03:38] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Has that led to business engagements or is it just a greater understanding of potential clients that you've got from it?
[00:03:46] Sarah Burnett: It's both. So having had people reach out directly with opportunities as well as, companies that I've worked with in the past coming back to me purely because they've reconfirmed that I'm still out there and working in the industry based on my LinkedIn content.
[00:04:03] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, I've had that. I've had people who I've known from my past reach out to me because they know that this is what I'm doing and the fact that I'm constantly posting alerts them to the fact, Hey, I still exist. Yeah, I think that's a big thing. And I've also had people approach me who I've never previously known with opportunities.
[00:04:23] Sarah Burnett: Yeah.
[00:04:24] Dr Genevieve Hayes: How do you find the challenge of posting daily, such as, finding the time, coming up with ideas, things like that?
[00:04:31] Sarah Burnett: Yeah, so at first it was very difficult and I actually went on leave for 10 days early January and decided I was gonna pre-do all my content for that 10 days and to schedule it, which you can do within the tool itself. And that took so much time. I probably spent. A day and a half getting that 10 days of content.
[00:04:57] And I remember reflecting on that thinking, I can't do this. I don't have all that time. How am I going to get through the year doing this? And then what I decided to do was take the pressure off myself. And I did that a few different ways. So as I started to learn things about LinkedIn and the algorithm, I started to think about what types of content I wanted to post and when.
[00:05:25] I kind of kept a bit of a brain dump in my notepad of these are things I want to talk about and do, and now I take a more organic approach and sometimes I might have had a couple of thoughts and if I've got capacity, I'll do a couple of days content in a row. But typically I find I've really got it down now to not spending too much time doing each day and.
[00:05:53] Yeah, just getting it out there
[00:05:55] Dr Genevieve Hayes: It sounds like you do it on the day, is that right?
[00:05:58] Sarah Burnett: most of the time.
[00:05:59] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, I tend to batch it 'cause I just don't like the pressure of having to do it on the day even if I'm doing it one day before, I just like to know that I don't have to do it on the day.
[00:06:09] Sarah Burnett: Yeah.
[00:06:10] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, it makes me feel happier.
[00:06:12] Sarah Burnett: Yeah, and you know, I've gone through different iterations as well where I'm like, on a Tuesday I do carousels, and on a Wednesday it's typically our blog or podcast launch, which is a bit easier 'cause that's pre-canned and it's already been created. So it's really just me pointing to something with, a small amount of copy around that.
[00:06:34] Thursdays I used to write articles, which can be a lot more laboring. But now if it's Thursday and I didn't have the time to write an article, I'm not going to stay up till midnight and make sure that I've written it. I'm actually going to say it's okay sometimes to post something else.
[00:06:54] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Obviously you do LinkedIn as a business strategy and it's the same for me. If you could go back in time to before you started dub up data, would you think this would be a good strategy for you when you were an employee?
[00:07:08] Sarah Burnett: Yes, because networking is so important. And I think the other strategy that we haven't spoken about yet is just connection. So if I could go back in time, I would say every person that you have interacted with in a business sense, connect with them on LinkedIn because you don't know where that connection could take you.
[00:07:33] Dr Genevieve Hayes: I would also go one step further. Don't just connect with people, but actually message them and start a conversation.
[00:07:39] Sarah Burnett: Yes.
[00:07:40] Dr Genevieve Hayes: I start conversations all the time. I can't remember if you started the conversation with me or if I started it with you, but that's how we ended up doing this podcast. We had a conversation which led to us having a Zoom conversation, which led to us each appearing on the other's podcast.
[00:07:57] And you never know what , just a conversation that says, hi, I noticed you liked my post. What resonated with you where that can lead to?
[00:08:07] Sarah Burnett: Exactly. Yeah. So I think, if I could go back in time, it would definitely be connect to people and like you said, have a conversation with them as well. Even if it's something small, like I really liked the way you handled such and such in the meeting because it gives you. A library to go back on another time.
[00:08:27] That person may have moved on. They might be at a company that now you are looking to go to, and you've got that train of thought of what you liked about them and a common connection that maybe you can reach out to them on again.
[00:08:39] Dr Genevieve Hayes: So if data scientists listening to this could implement just one LinkedIn strategy starting tomorrow, what would you recommend they do?
[00:08:47] Sarah Burnett: I think going into LinkedIn being a little bit more active, if you don't want to post yourself, maybe look at other people's posts and start commenting on those following people that inspire you or organizations and just realizing that every opportunity to connect could lead somewhere.
[00:09:11] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, so reach out to people and make as many friends as you can.
[00:09:14] Sarah Burnett: Yes.
[00:09:15] Dr Genevieve Hayes: And that's a wrap for today's value boost. But if you want more insights from Sarah, you are in luck. We've got a longer episode with Sarah where we explore how to transform unexpected job loss into a launchpad for an even more successful data science career, and it's packed with no nonsense advice for turning your data skills into serious clout, cash and career freedom.
[00:09:39] You can find it now, wherever you found this episode or at your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for joining me again, Sarah,
[00:09:47] Sarah Burnett: Thanks, Genevieve. It's been a pleasure.
[00:09:49] Dr Genevieve Hayes: and for those in the audience. Thanks for listening. I'm Dr. Genevieve Hayes, and this has been Value-Driven Data Science.