How to Write a LinkedIn Summary (About Section), With Samples and Headline Examples

What the About section is for

Your experience entries list what you did in each job. The About section connects them: what kind of work you do, what you are good at, what you want next. It is read by recruiters who found you in a search, by hiring managers checking you after an application, and by people you have just met.

Only the first two or three lines show before the "see more" link, and on a phone that can be fewer. Everything that matters most has to be in those lines. The rest can go into more detail for readers who are already interested.

It is not your resume summary pasted in. A resume summary is two or three compressed lines tailored to one job; the About section is written in the first person, in full sentences, for everyone who might look you up. The resume summary guide covers the resume version.

A four-part structure

1. What you do now, and for whom. One or two sentences in plain words. This is the part that shows before "see more".
2. Proof. Two to four specific things you have done: a project, a result, the scale of what you handle. Short paragraphs or a short list both work.
3. How you work or what you know well. The tools, methods or domains you are strongest in, written as sentences. This is where most of your keywords naturally appear.
4. What you are looking for and how to reach you. One line on the roles or work you are open to, plus an email if you want people to contact you directly.

Aim for roughly 150 to 300 words. LinkedIn allows considerably more (the editor shows a character counter), but a longer section rarely gets read to the end. Use short paragraphs with a blank line between them, because a single block of text is hard to read on a phone.

The opening lines: before and after

The first sentence should tell a stranger what you do. Avoid opening with a quotation, a general statement about your industry, or a list of adjectives. These use up the visible lines without saying anything about you.

Keywords: where they come from and how to use them honestly

Recruiters search LinkedIn by job title, skill and location, and the About section is one of the places that search looks. The words that matter are the ones that appear in the job postings you want. Open five postings for your target role and note the skills and titles that repeat.

• Use terms you can defend. Include a skill only if you could talk about how you used it for five minutes in an interview.
• Write them into sentences. "I build dashboards in Power BI and write the SQL behind them" reads better and works as well as "Skills: Power BI, SQL, dashboards".
• Include both versions of common terms where people search both ways, such as "search engine optimisation (SEO)" or "accounts payable (AP)".
• Use industry words, not internal ones. Your company may call it "Project Phoenix" or a "growth pod"; a recruiter will search for "ERP migration" or "product marketing".
• Add the same terms to your Skills section and pin the three most important ones there.

Three samples

These are written for fictional people. Use them for structure and tone, and replace every fact with your own.

Notice what the career-change sample does: it names the old field and the new one in the first line, then shows the bridge (transferable work, training, samples). The same approach on a resume is covered in how to write a career change resume.

Headline examples

The headline appears under your name in search results, comments and invitations, so it is the most-read line on your profile. By default LinkedIn fills it with your current title and company. Replace it with your role, a specialism, and one concrete detail, using the words people would search for. The field allows around 220 characters, but shorter headlines are easier to read in search results.

Avoid adjectives that cannot be searched or checked ("visionary", "go-getter") and emoji-heavy headlines in conservative fields such as finance and law.

Common mistakes and when to update

• Writing in the third person ("Rohit is a dedicated professional…"). On your own profile it reads as if someone else wrote it. Third person belongs in speaker or company bios, covered in how to write a professional bio.
• Claims that contradict your resume. If the About section says you "led" a project your resume says you supported, a recruiter reading both will notice. Our guide to aligning LinkedIn with your resume has a checklist.
• Leaving it empty. Even three honest sentences are better than nothing, because without them the reader has to piece together your story from job titles.
• Writing it once and forgetting it. Reread it whenever you change role, finish a significant project or start looking for a new job.

Key takeaways

• Put what you do, and for whom, in the first two lines that show before "see more".
• Follow a simple order: what you do, proof, how you work, what you want next.
• Take keywords from real job postings and write them into sentences; include only skills you can defend.
• Write in the first person and keep it to roughly 150–300 words in short paragraphs.
• Replace the default headline with role, specialism and one concrete detail.