How to set up your LinkedIn profile for a job search, from the top of the page down to the details that back it up. Check yours below, or see how the LinkedIn profile checker works.
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Before anyone scrolls
Open any LinkedIn profile and the top card is what you get without scrolling: the banner and photo, the name, the headline, the location, and the current employer and school.
For a job search, that card has one thing to say: which role you are after, and why you are a credible person for it. Everything further down is evidence for that line.
Two of those fields also matter to search. Recruiter tools filter on job title, location, current company and skills fields. A title nobody uses, or a location left blank, gives a filter nothing to match.
LinkedIn’s Open to Work setting can add a green frame to your photo, or tell recruiters only. Either way, it says you are looking, so your headline does not have to.
For the photo itself, see the guide to your LinkedIn profile picture.
Fictional example: one top card, before and after
Fictional. Every After line rests on the current role’s description and the skills already listed on the profile. Nothing was added that the profile does not show.
Headline
Lead with the title you want to be matched to, as job postings write it, where your profile shows you have done that work. Then add one thing that makes it specific: a segment, a scale or a result.
Leave the search itself out. “Seeking new opportunities” and “Open to work” spend your headline on your status, and the Open to Work setting already says it.
Changing careers? Lead with the new title only where your profile backs it up with a role, a project or a certification. Your earlier years can still count, as long as the line says what they were.
For headlines by stage, including students and people between jobs, see the LinkedIn headline examples guide.
Fictional examples
ICU Registered Nurse | Eight years in adult intensive care | Night shift charge nurse
Rests on: The current role’s title and start date, and its description, which states the charge nurse shifts.
Data Analyst | SQL and Power BI | Six years in retail store operations
Rests on: A six-month data analyst contract in Experience, the skills listed, and the store management roles before it.
About
The About section is the only place you write in sentences, so use the first two lines for what you do and for whom. Then give two or three results, each one tied to the role where it happened.
Where you want to go next is yours to say. If you say it, put it as a condition before the claim, so it reads as an offer rather than as a fact the profile cannot show.
More structures, and summary and bio examples by goal, are in the LinkedIn About section guide.
I run payroll across borders. In my current role I look after monthly payroll for 1,400 people in the UK and Ireland, in ADP and Workday.
Last year I moved our Irish payroll in house from an outside provider, and the correction runs after each pay date fell from six to one.
If your team is looking for someone to own payroll across several countries, I would be glad to talk.
Rests on: The current role’s description, which states the headcount, both countries, both systems, the move in house and both correction figures.
Experience
Your current role sits under your name on the top card, so make it right first. Mark it as current, and give it the title your headline uses. If it has ended, end it: an old job left at “Present” says you still work there.
Under your recent roles, write what you owned and what changed because of you. LinkedCheck’s completeness check looks for at least three roles described in 80 characters or more, and at least one figure among them.
Keep every result under the job that earned it. A win from two jobs ago, written into your current role or your headline, reads as something you are doing now.
The thresholds are LinkedCheck’s, not LinkedIn’s. See every completeness check, explained.
When LinkedCheck reads for Getting hired
When LinkedCheck reads a profile for a job search, these are among the things it raises. None of them makes a profile wrong. Each one leaves a reader guessing, and a line from you can settle it.
A title alone does not say whether you ran a team of two or twenty. State the scope where it is true: the team, the budget, the accounts or the sites.
An employer listed as “Confidential” or left blank makes the role hard to size. If you can name it, name it. If you cannot, describe it: “a listed logistics company with 3,000 staff”.
Two roles at once are common, such as a side contract or a board seat. Say which was the main job, and mark the other as part time or freelance with LinkedIn’s employment type.
You do not owe anyone a reason for a gap. If you want to cover it, LinkedIn lets you add a career break to Experience, and one sentence in your About will do the rest.
An empty Featured section is not a defect, but it is the one place near the top where someone can see your work rather than read about it. One relevant item is enough to start.
Skills and Featured
Recommendations
A recommendation is the one part of your profile written by someone else. LinkedCheck checks for at least one, then for three or more.
Ask someone you reported to, or a client or stakeholder you delivered work for. Name the project you would like them to mention, so the recommendation describes work rather than character.
Send the requests at the start of your search, because they take time. LinkedIn lets you request one from your profile. Let the other person write it in their own words.
Being found
Known
Our advice
LinkedIn has not published how it orders search results, and LinkedCheck holds no data on what recruiters type. More on how recruiters search LinkedIn, and where each term belongs, is in the LinkedIn SEO guide.
Complete is not convincing
LinkedCheck scores a profile two ways. Completeness asks whether the parts are there, on 16 checks with fixed weights, so your goal does not change it.
Effectiveness asks whether the profile works for your goal, and it has its own checks. When you choose Getting hired, what matters is whether the profile makes plain the job you are aiming for, and whether your titles, dates and scope back that up without a reader having to guess.
That is why most LinkedIn optimization for job seekers that stops at filling in sections falls short: a profile can pass every completeness check and still not say what you do. See how the LinkedIn profile score works, or what the LinkedIn profile optimization tool writes for you.
Read this before you rely on any score, ours included.
Job search checklist
A short list for a job search. It is not the full checklist LinkedCheck scores against; that one is linked below.
In the words job postings use, where your profile shows the work.
Same title as the headline, marked as current. Ended roles are ended.
Where you want to work, if you can work there.
Your face clearly visible, on its own.
Then two or three results, each from the role that earned it.
What you owned, how big it was, and what changed.
Top skills echo your headline. Old-career skills are gone.
At least one received, and more asked for, each about specific work.
Every check LinkedCheck scores, with how to fix each one, is in the full LinkedIn profile checklist.
Common mistakes
Your employer’s grade as your title
“Associate II, People Operations”
Nobody searches for a grade. Use the title the market uses for the same level of work.
A headline that is only a status
“Seeking new opportunities | Open to work”
It spends the line on the search, not on what you do. The Open to Work setting says it for you.
An old job still at Present
“Operations Manager · 2021 to Present”, a year after leaving
A reader takes the dates at their word. End the role, then lead with the work.
A result under the wrong job
A migration from two jobs ago, written into the current role
An achievement belongs to the job that earned it. Moved, it reads as something you do now.
A target named nowhere
Headline: “Experienced professional”
If you know the role you want, the profile has to say so. Nothing else on it can.
Skills from a career you left
“Visual merchandising, Stock control” on a data analyst’s profile
Search reads the list as written. Lead with the skills of the job you want, where you have used them.
Choose Getting hired as your goal. The Free LinkedIn Profile Audit shows both scores and what to change first. New wording for your headline and About is in Profile & Content Intelligence.
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