LinkedIn profile for recruiters: what they check and how they find you

First they have to find you

Recruiter search filters on specific fields: current title, past titles, skills, location, industry, languages and years of experience. The free text in your About section matters far less for showing up than people think, although it matters a lot for convincing.

That changes where your keywords go. If you want a Head of Marketing role and your current title is "Growth & Brand Lead", you won't appear in the most obvious search. You can clarify a title without lying: "Head of Marketing (Growth & Brand Lead)".

The headline does the heavy lifting

Your headline shows up in search results, next to every comment and on every invitation. By default LinkedIn uses your current title, and you can almost always do better.

A formula that works: the role you want, plus two or three concrete areas, plus one proof point. For example: "Head of Marketing · B2B SaaS · Growth and brand · Took lead generation from 0 to 40,000 a year". Skip "passionate", "seeking new challenges" and emojis: they take up space and match no filter.

What they see in ten seconds

• A recent headshot with good light. Profiles with a photo get noticeably more views, and you don't need a studio.
• A clear headline, like the one above.
• Your real location and, if you want, the Open to Work signal visible to recruiters only, which your current employer can't see.
• Your current role with company and dates. An unexplained gap raises more questions than a short explanation.
• The first three lines of your About section, the only ones visible without clicking.

An About section people read

Three or four short paragraphs. The first says what you do and for what kind of company, in one sentence. The second gives two or three results with numbers. The third says what you are looking for now. End with how to reach you.

Write in the first person and keep it plain. Recruiters read dozens a day and appreciate sentences that get to the point. The role's keywords must be there, but inside normal sentences, not in a list stuck at the end.

Experience: results, not duties

Give each role three or four lines of results, not the job description. "Managed campaigns" says nothing; "Rebuilt paid campaigns and cut cost per lead by 35% in six months" says it all.

You don't need to copy your whole CV. LinkedIn is the short, searchable version; a tailored CV is the long version for each job.

Skills and recommendations

• Pick the skills that appear in the jobs you want, using the same names they use, and pin the three most important at the top.
• Two or three recent recommendations from managers or clients are worth more than twenty skill endorsements from contacts.
• Write the profile in the language of the market you are targeting. LinkedIn lets you add a second profile language.