LinkedIn Profile Review

About the linkedin profile review

Your LinkedIn profile gets judged in two places: in search results, where a recruiter sees your name, photo, and headline, and on the profile itself, where they decide in a few lines whether to keep reading. Most profiles lose people at one of those two points because the headline is just a job title or the About section never says what the person does. This free LinkedIn profile review checks the text that carries both moments.

Paste your headline on the first line, then your About section and experience. The review runs in your browser on that text. It does not connect to your LinkedIn account or read your profile URL. You get findings on headline length and content, About section depth, numbers, buzzwords, and, if you add a job description, the target role's keywords your profile is missing.

How to use it

1. 1

   Copy your headline onto the first line

   Open your profile, copy the headline under your name exactly as it appears, and paste it as the first line. The review reads line one as your headline, so keep it separate.

2. 2

   Paste your About section and experience

   Add your About text, then your current and recent roles with their descriptions. Plain text is fine. Formatting, emoji, and line breaks do not affect the checks.

3. 3

   Add a target job description

   Paste one posting that represents the role you want next. The review lists its key terms that are missing from your headline, About, and experience. This step is optional but makes the keyword findings specific.

4. 4

   Fix the top findings on LinkedIn

   Edit the headline and the first lines of your About section first, since those are seen most. Then paste the updated text and run the review again.

What the LinkedIn profile review checks

The review looks only at the text you paste, and each check targets a place where profiles commonly lose a reader. Here is what it reports and why each item matters.

• Headline length and content: flags headlines that are just a title and employer, which is what LinkedIn fills in by default, and headlines so long that the important words come last.
• About section depth: flags an About section that is missing or too short to say what you do, how well, and what you want next.
• Opening lines: checks whether the first sentence of your About section states your role or specialty, since only the opening shows before a reader clicks to see more.
• Numbers: counts how many claims in your About and experience are backed by a figure.
• Buzzwords: flags phrases like "results-driven," "passionate," and "dynamic" that recruiters skim past.
• Keywords: with a job description added, lists important terms from the posting that appear nowhere in your profile text.

How to choose keywords recruiters search for

Recruiters find candidates on LinkedIn by searching for titles, skills, and tools, so the words in your headline, job titles, About section, and skills list decide which searches you show up in. The goal is not to stuff in every term. It is to make sure the five to ten words that define your target role appear where they belong.

Use a simple rule. Collect four or five postings for the job you want and note the terms that repeat. Any term that appears in at least three of them is a core keyword. Put the target job title in your headline, work two or three core skills into the headline and the first paragraph of your About section, and make sure each one also shows up in a specific experience entry so the claim has evidence behind it. Add the rest to your Skills section.

Use the employer's wording. If every posting says "financial planning and analysis" and your profile says "budgeting," switch to the phrase recruiters type.

What a strong About section looks like

LinkedIn's own profile guidance describes the About section as a place for your mission, motivation, and skills, and suggests keeping it to one or two paragraphs. In practice that means roughly 100 to 250 words, written in first person, with short paragraphs that read easily on a phone.

Order matters more than length. Lead with what you do and for whom, because the first sentence is all many visitors read. Follow with one or two results that prove you do it well. Close with what you are looking for or how people should contact you.

• Line one: your role, specialty, and the kind of company or customer you serve.
• Middle: two results with numbers, plus the tools or methods that matter in your field.
• Close: the roles or projects you want next, or a direct way to reach you.

What to check by hand

A text review cannot see the visual and settings parts of your profile, so walk through these yourself after you fix the text. The photo is worth the effort: LinkedIn's help center says members with a profile photo receive up to 2X more profile views.

• Photo: a recent, well-lit headshot where your face fills most of the frame.
• Banner: a simple image related to your field, or a plain color, instead of the default.
• Custom URL: a clean public profile URL with your name, which also looks better on your resume.
• Job titles: standard titles a recruiter would search, with an internal title in the description if yours is unusual.
• Skills: the core keywords from your target postings, with the most important ones pinned first.
• Open to Work settings: the job titles, locations, and work types you want, set to recruiters only if you are job hunting quietly.

Examples

Frequently asked questions