Your LinkedIn About section shouldn’t sound like this:
“Results-driven professional with a proven track record of success, strong communication skills, and a passion for delivering results.”
Sure, it technically sounds professional. It also tells us almost nothing.
Your About section is one of the few places on LinkedIn where you aren’t restricted to job titles, dates, and bullet points. You have up to 2,600 characters to explain what you do, what you’re good at, what you’ve accomplished, and where you’re headed.
Start with what you actually do
The first few lines matter because someone viewing your profile has to choose whether your About section is worth expanding.
Skip introductions like “Hi, my name is Sarah” or “Thanks for visiting my profile.” Your name is already at the top of the page, and they did, in fact, already visit your profile.
Weak:
“I am a highly motivated marketing professional with seven years of experience.”
Better:
“I build B2B marketing campaigns that turn complex products into messages customers actually understand—and buy.”
The second version immediately tells someone what you do and the value behind it. Your opening needs to make someone understand you quickly.
Explain your expertise without copying your resume
Your LinkedIn About section is not your resume summary pasted into a bigger box.
Your Experience section already tells people where you worked. Use the About section to connect those experiences and explain what you’re particularly good at.
For example:
“Over the last seven years, I’ve worked across SaaS and financial services, primarily focused on demand generation, product launches, and customer acquisition. My strongest work usually happens where marketing, sales, and product overlap.”
Now a recruiter understands your professional lane rather than simply seeing another list of previous jobs.
Think of the section as the answer you’d give if someone at a networking event asked, “So, what do you do?”
Prove the claims you make
Anyone can call themselves strategic, innovative, analytical, hardworking, or results-oriented. Evidence is harder to fake.
If you say you’re good at something, give the reader a reason to believe you. Add two or three accomplishments that show the scale or impact of your work.
Instead of:
“Experienced sales professional with a strong track record of exceeding targets.”
Try:
“Last year, I finished at 128% of quota, brought in $1.4M in new business, and helped expand three existing accounts into six-figure contracts.”
Numbers aren’t mandatory, but specificity is. You can reference projects completed, teams managed, customers supported, processes improved, products launched, territories covered, costs reduced, revenue generated, or any other outcome that gives your experience context.
“I’m a strong leader” is an opinion.
“I built and managed a team of 12 across Canada and the U.S.” gives us something to work with.
Use LinkedIn keywords without sounding like a robot
Relevant keywords can help recruiters understand your background and find your profile when they’re searching for particular experience. The mistake is treating your About section like this:
“Project Manager | Project Management | Senior Project Manager | Agile Project Manager | PMP Project Manager”
LinkedIn itself warns against repetitive keyword stuffing. Instead, naturally include terms that accurately describe your experience, such as your target job title, industry, technical skills, software, methodologies, certifications, or areas of expertise.
If you’re a cybersecurity professional, terms such as SIEM, incident response, cloud security, SOC, threat detection, Azure, or CISSP may belong in your About section if they’re part of your experience.
A simple trick is to review several job descriptions for positions you actually want. If the same skills and terminology keep appearing, make sure the relevant ones are represented somewhere on your LinkedIn profile.
Write for people first. Make it searchable second.
Give us a little personality
Your resume has to fit within fairly strict professional conventions. LinkedIn gives you more room to sound like yourself. Use it.
That doesn’t mean explaining your entire childhood or adding six paragraphs about your love of coffee. It means allowing some indication of how you think, what you enjoy about your work, or what kind of problems interest you.
For example:
“I’ve always enjoyed taking messy processes and figuring out how to make them simpler. That’s probably why I ended up in operations.”
One sentence like that can tell us more about you than another paragraph filled with corporate adjectives.
Tell people what you’re looking for
If you’re actively job searching, you don’t need to finish your About section with:
“DESPERATELY SEEKING NEW OPPORTUNITIES. PLEASE REACH OUT.”
You can be direct without sounding desperate.
Try:
“I’m currently interested in Senior Financial Analyst opportunities where I can work closely with business leaders on forecasting, budgeting, and strategic decision-making.”
If you’re not job searching, your ending can still tell people why they should connect with you. You might be interested in networking with people in your industry, discussing partnerships, meeting other professionals in your field, or simply sharing ideas.
Give the person reading your profile somewhere to go next.
A Simple LinkedIn About Section Formula
If you’re staring at an empty text box, use this structure:
1. What you do: Start with your role, specialty, or the problem you’re particularly good at solving.
2. Where you’ve done it: Briefly establish your experience, industries, or professional background.
3. Proof: Include two or three specific achievements, results, projects, or examples that demonstrate your ability.
4. Expertise: Naturally mention the skills, technologies, industries, or areas of knowledge most relevant to your work.
5. Direction: End with what you’re working toward, the roles that interest you, or a reason for someone to contact you.
You don’t need five separate paragraphs labelled with those headings. They should simply be clear by the time someone finishes reading.
LinkedIn About Section Example
Here’s what that structure could look like for a marketing professional:
I help B2B technology companies turn complicated products into marketing customers actually understand.
Over the last six years, I’ve worked across SaaS and fintech in demand generation, product marketing, content strategy, and sales enablement. Most recently, I helped launch a new product into the Canadian market, generating more than $800K in qualified pipeline within its first six months while improving lead-to-opportunity conversion by 22%.
My experience includes HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Analytics, SEO, paid media, GTM strategy, lifecycle marketing, and cross-functional work with product and sales teams. I particularly enjoy projects where the problem isn’t “we need more marketing,” but figuring out what actually needs to change.
I’m currently interested in growth and product marketing opportunities within B2B SaaS and fintech. Feel free to connect if you’re working in the space.
Notice what’s missing: “dynamic professional,” “proven track record,” “passionate self-starter,” and practically every other phrase people have learned to ignore.
The example works because it’s specific.
What Not to Put in Your LinkedIn About Section
Before publishing yours, remove anything that falls into these categories:
- A word-for-word copy of your resume summary
- Long lists of responsibilities from previous jobs
- Claims such as “hardworking” without evidence
- Repetitive keywords added purely for LinkedIn search
- An autobiography that takes ten paragraphs to reach your career
- Third-person writing that sounds like someone else wrote your biography
- Contact requests that sound desperate or overly sales-focused
Most importantly, read the whole thing out loud before you publish it.
If you’d never introduce yourself that way in real life, rewrite it.
The LinkedIn About Section Rule to Remember
After reading your About section, someone should be able to answer four questions:
What do you do? What are you particularly good at? What proves it? What are you looking for next?
If those answers are obvious, your About section is doing its job. If the reader only knows that you’re a “results-driven professional with excellent communication skills,” you still have some editing to do.
