How long should a candidate profile be?

Short enough to read in under two minutes, with links out to the real depth (a project, a portfolio, a writing sample) for anyone who wants more. A founder skimming twenty profiles in a sitting is not going to read a page of prose about your career philosophy.

Should I list every job I have ever had?

List enough to show a coherent trajectory, and cut anything that does not support the specific direction you are pointing your profile toward. A profile trying to be relevant to everything usually reads as relevant to nothing in particular.

What if my best work is under NDA and I cannot share it?

Describe the problem and your approach in general terms, and be specific about the measurable outcome where you can. "Redesigned the checkout flow for a fintech client, reducing drop-off by double digits" works without naming the client or showing the screens.

How to Build a Startup Candidate Profile That Actually Gets Noticed

Most candidate profiles are a resume that has been reformatted, not rethought. Same responsibilities, same job titles, same vague adjectives, just in a nicer template. That does not help you, because it gives a founder the same nothing a resume gives them, in a slightly different font.

A profile that actually gets a reply does three specific things a resume does not.

It leads with evidence, not a job history

Put your strongest piece of proof at the top, not buried under three paragraphs of chronological job history. If you have one project, deal, or result you're proudest of, that goes first. A founder deciding whether to reach out to twenty people spends seconds on each profile before deciding whether to look closer. Give them something worth looking closer at, immediately.

It's specific about outcomes, not responsibilities

"Managed social media for the company" tells a founder nothing. "Grew organic Instagram following from 2,000 to 40,000 in eight months and built the content system that did it" tells them a lot, and it's a sentence, not a paragraph. Go through your profile and replace every responsibility-shaped sentence with an outcome-shaped one. If you don't have a number, describe the change directly: what was different because you did the work.

It points somewhere real

A link to an actual project, portfolio, GitHub, or writing sample does more work than another paragraph of description. Founders evaluating candidate profiles are, reasonably, more convinced by something they can click into and look at themselves than by your own account of how good it was. If you don't have anything to link yet, that's the actual next step, not a better-written profile. See our guide on how to get hired at a startup with no network for how to build that evidence from scratch.

It's honest about what stage and role you actually want

A profile trying to look attractive to every kind of startup, at every stage, for every kind of role, usually reads as generic to all of them. Being specific ("early-stage, pre-product, want to own something end to end" versus "Series B, want a well-scoped role with more structure") is not limiting, it's what lets the right founder recognise you're exactly what they're looking for, instead of scanning past a profile trying to be everything to everyone.

What this looks like on Matchbox

Matchbox profiles are built around this directly: evidence first, specific outcomes, real links, not a resume upload with a photo attached. Join the network if you're ready to put one together, it's free for candidates and approved startups can reach out to you directly once your profile reflects real work rather than a job history.