How to make your Lambda School 'Profile' look great
Tags: lambdaschool, webdev
Published: 2021-04-23 21:13:15

I was on the team that built the [Lambda Profiles](https://profiles.lambdaschool.com/) feature for Lambda School. It is a comprehensive list of students that shows skills, projects, education and other introductory info. It was built primarily for Lambda Hiring Partners, but any employer with a role to fill can browse and contact you, the Lambda School graduate.

Aside from the public presence that it offers, your Profiles card is also a kind of "canary in a coal mine" that can reveal issues with your Lambda info.

**It is an unhindered look at your most important data, and it is highly relevant for your job search that this display is looking spiffy.**

That being said, here are some tips to optimize your Lambda Profile.

## Find yourself

The system is designed to minimize any personal or systemic favoritism or any sort of preference. Additionally, the list is randomized on each load. It is not possible to find yourself directly by name. Therefore, the most specific way to find yourself will require some manual copy/paste.

1. Edit your [Lambda Profile](https://dashboards.lambdaschool.com/profile). Keep this tab open.
2. Right-click your photo > `Open image in new tab`. *First tip: If you don't have a photo,* ***add one.*** It will otherwise be generic art.
3. In the url bar, you'll see something like `/Student/s60q34hjlah89af89/image/`. The hash in the middle is your Student ID. Double-click > `Copy`.
4. Go to https://profiles.lambdaschool.com/
5. In the url bar, manually add to the end: `?g=PasteYourHashHere`.
1. `https://profiles.lambdaschool.com/?g=s60q34hjlah89af89` is an example of how it should look. Press enter.

The end result shows only your profile. Your card will be added to a list which you can return to by using the "Saved" tab. It will persist through reloads (it uses LocalStorage). You can copy the link to your card via the "Share" button on the right.

Anyone (*including You*) can use the link to give someone a clean and concise snapshot of what you are capable of. If Covid Calendar ever comes to a close, I personally can see myself using this link at meetups and conferences because it is quick and simple with no digital requirement.

The main point right now though is that your Lambda Profiles card will clearly show any issues with your profile. You can see any misspellings, missing images, inaccuracies, etc. *This is as it appears to the general public.*

Lambda Profiles works from the same database as the Edit Profile page, but the database information is cached (I don't know how long). This same data is used throughout the automated Lambda matching and Job Search systems. *In other words, bad data on your profile could hinder your hunt in more ways than just this card.*

#### Personal Data
**Yes, this is important.** If your name and track need updating, speak with your Lambda Career Coach to get it changed. 

Your *Location* is used with some regional mapping logic to derive a relationship to the cities in the Location filter, e.g. filtering on Seattle, WA will regionally hit Portland, OR. Location can be changed on the Edit Profile page, left sidebar, Contact Info block.

To account for international students, location is set via *free text field*. Due to this, we found wild variations in how people entered their U.S. location. My favorite was ` , Brooklen`. *Set your location to Full City, then comma-space, then 2 letter state to have your location hit by the filter.* e.g. "Boise, ID". Entries like "LA, Calif" or "NY NY" will not match. 

If your profile does not have relevant links to your materials, the buttons on your card will be *omitted*. Without profile entries for Portfolio website, LinkedIn profile, GitHub presence, or a Resume link, it will be more difficult for a potential hirer to contact you, in addition to your profile appearing incomplete and bland.

The Resume field can link to anything you wish, but it is highly suggested to use a PDF or link to an online doc like Google Doc or Word 365.

#### Skills
*All Skills that you have chosen are used by the filters section to find* ***you***. Even though the display only shows the first 4 rows of skills, *all skills* entered into your profile are used for filtering. A change was in progress  that would prioritize display of skills that a viewer filtered, but I'm unsure of it's completion.

#### Projects
Ensure that your links are accurate. Your entered project image (hard scaled to 240 x 104) will be shown, or a generic Lambda image will be used in its absence. Long project titles will overflow the layout, making your card look janky so it is best to keep them to just a few words. Descriptions look great when limited to 20-30 words.

#### Education
Your Lambda School certification will appear first, derived from your  Lambda School track and cohort. Other education items should be entered in the Degree field to-the-point, e.g. "BS Communication". Spelled out would be best, but the most common abbreviations will be hit by the filter.

#### Industry Experience 
Knock yourself out. Your choices here will be hit directly by the filter of the same name. 

#### Job Preferences
There is no filter based on this section. However, expect that it will be used by the viewer to help find who may best fill their available roles.

# Conclusion
Following the above tips, you should have a sleek Lambda Profiles card.

***If by this point there is still something inaccurate or missing, start a Frontdesk ticket in Slack by sending the message `/frontdesk` to either @Slackbot or yourself.***

While Lambda Profiles is not a "winner take all" octagon blood-match against other students, these few steps can help you maximize the effectiveness of your card. The extra added bonus is having updated and accurate partner matching information for other sections of the Lambda Job Search ecosystem.