What belongs on your card — and what to leave off

A card is not a résumé. It is a handshake with a memory. The person looking at it is standing in a room, holding a drink, half-listening to someone else. You have their attention for a few seconds, and everything on the card either helps them place you or makes them work.

So the test for every line is simple: does this help someone decide to talk to me again? If the answer is no, it goes.

The five things people actually need

1. 4.1Your name, spelled the way you want it written. Not a nickname you outgrew.
2. 4.2What you do, in nine words or fewer. A stranger should be able to repeat it.
3. 4.3One clear way to reach you. The channel you actually answer.
4. 4.4A photo that looks like you this year.
5. 4.5Your card link. Everything else can live behind it.

That is it. Everything beyond those five is optional, and most of it is noise pretending to be thorough.

Write the headline like a person, not a database

“Chief Innovation Officer | Digital Transformation | Thought Leader | Speaker | Investor” is not a headline. It is a filing cabinet. Nobody reads it, and most people skip straight past to the phone number.

Compare it with: I help hospitals stop losing patients to missed appointments. Same person. One version starts a conversation; the other ends one.

If you struggle here, describe your work in one plain sentence — who you help and what changes for them — and let Karrd draft the role and headline from it. You approve every word before it goes live, and it will not invent employers, awards or numbers you did not give it.

What to leave off

• Your whole work history. That is what the conversation and the follow-up are for.
• Prices you might change next quarter. Quote privately.
• Your home address. There is no version of this that ends well.
• Three phone numbers, two emails and a fax. Pick the one you answer.
• An old photo. People feel tricked when the face does not match the room.
• Sixteen links. If everything is important, nothing is a next step.

Order matters more than quantity

People read top to bottom and stop early. Put your name and what you do where the eye lands first. Contact next, because that is the job of the card. Links last, and only the ones that move a relationship forward: your work, your calendar, your portfolio, the one social platform you post on.

The best card feels like the shortest version of a good conversation. It says who you are, what you do, and how to continue — then it gets out of the way.

You can change any of it later, at no cost, without reprinting anything. The link and the QR code stay exactly where they are.