How To Write a Good LinkedIn Summary: Examples and Tips

One of the most important tools for a job seeker is their LinkedIn profile. But without a great LinkedIn summary, a profile is bound to fall flat.

A well-written, engaging LinkedIn summary tells people who you are and where you plan on taking your career. If it’s compelling enough, it has the power to attract recruiters, land interviews, and even convince a customer to use your product or service.

So, what makes a LinkedIn summary unique and how do you write a good one?

Table of Contents

1. LinkedIn Summary vs. Career Objective
2. 5 Writing Tips
3. Examples for Students and Job Seekers

LinkedIn Summary vs. Resume Career Objective

A huge mistake that a lot of job seekers commit is treating their LinkedIn summary the same as their resume objective and using the same text for both. Even though they both appear at the top, LinkedIn summaries and resume career objectives are fundamentally different in two ways.

Difference 1: Available Space

Because resumes have limited space, your career objective needs to be concise. Specifically, it shouldn’t be more than 3 sentences. This doesn’t give you much time to express who you are and what value you bring to a company.

However, LinkedIn summaries have a 2,000 character limit, giving you much more space to creatively express yourself. You can use this space to show off a bit of personality and highlight professional interests, as well as elaborate on future goals, allowing employers to see a side of you that a career objective can’t capture.

Difference 2: They Serve Different Purposes

Because career objectives are used exclusively for job hunting, they always hit the same points: here is what I bring to the table and here are my goals. After reading it, a recruiter or hiring manager should be able to answer the question—are you a good fit?

LinkedIn summaries are quite different. People have LinkedIn profiles regardless of whether they’re actively job hunting, which means that they aren’t written with the sole purpose of attracting job offers.

Because of these other purposes, when you craft your LinkedIn summary, you need to approach it differently than if you were writing a resume introduction.

5 Writing Tips

1. Establish Your LinkedIn Summary Audience

Before you write a single sentence, you need to figure out who your audience is.

To determine your audience, think about whether you are:

• Catching the attention of hiring managers or employers
• Attracting candidates to work for your company
• Advertising your products or services
• Expanding your network

Once you pin down the primary goal, you’ll be able to decide how personable or professional your writing tone should be, as well as what key information you want to highlight.

2. Pay Attention to Keywords

Before you start, research and incorporate keywords throughout your LinkedIn summary to ensure your profile shows up when employers search for candidates via keywords.

Great places to look for keywords are:

• Job descriptions
• Job listings
• LinkedIn profiles of prominent people in your field

One way to provide an extra boost is to list keywords at the bottom of your summary—like tags on a blog post—which increases the chances your profile appears in search results for a specific keyword.

3. Break Up Your Writing

Nobody who lands on your profile wants to read a huge block of text. This rationale applies to viewers of your LinkedIn profile as well.

When you’re writing your LinkedIn summary:

• Break up the text into short paragraphs
• Keep sentences succinct and to the point
• Organize information into lists
• Leave plenty of white space

Using these strategies makes your LinkedIn summary easier to read, as well as more interesting and appealing.

4. State Your Future Ambitions

Regardless of what your LinkedIn summary’s main purpose is, you should clearly state your career goals. Doing so helps your audience better understand you as a professional, and if they’re a recruiter, lets them evaluate whether your aspirations align with those of potential employers.

Here are common goals and corresponding reasons why you should include your future ambitions:

When specifying your career goals, it filters out unsuitable opportunities early on and ensures that the LinkedIn contacts you gain are relevant.

5. Include a Call To Action

A Call to Action’s (CTA) purpose is to jolt the reader into performing an action. For LinkedIn, you’re usually encouraging visitors to your profile to reach out and connect.

A CTA can be a few sentences long, and usually starts with actionable verbs.

Usually, you want to place a CTA near the very end of your LinkedIn summary, because it encourages your audience to interact with you rather than simply leave your page.

Examples

• Reach out over email at your.name@email.com if you’re interested in connecting to discuss future business opportunities.
• Check out my online store at mystore.com or reach out over email at your.name@email.com if you just want to say “hello”.

@resumegenius Having a complete LinkedIn profile is essential if you’re job hunting in 2024. Your LinkedIn profile is often the first thing potential employers will see, so make sure to cover the basics and optimize your profile for your job search. #linkedin #linkedinprofile #linkedintips #jobsearchtips #jobsearching ♬ original sound – Resume Genius | Career Tips

Two Examples for Students & Job Seekers

Here at Resume Genius, our goal is to help you in your job search. If you’re a job seeker wondering what a stellar LinkedIn summary looks like, take a look at our LinkedIn summary examples below.

Need resume help? Don’t forget to check out our easy-to-use resume builder, our stylish resume templates, or our expert-crafted resume samples!