How to Write a Great LinkedIn Summary in 2024
The summary is one of the most crucial—yet frequently underutilized—areas of a LinkedIn profile. Your abilities and expertise are highlighted in a strong LinkedIn summary, which also attracts recruiters to your profile and makes you stand out from the other millions of professionals using the platform.
The Importance of Your LinkedIn Summary
Regardless of the business, they work in, anyone who is serious about advancing their career should put time and effort into creating a strong LinkedIn profile.
- Connect and network with previous or present coworkers using LinkedIn.
- Find jobs and submit applications.
- Identify potential clients or partners.
- Promote your brand or market your company.
- Be immediately reachable by hiring managers looking for applicants.
Possibly the most significant element of your profile is your summary. It has a prominent placement at the top of the page and gives you 2,000 characters (about 300–350 words) to highlight your qualifications.
Make a strong first impression on those who are browsing your profile with a superb summary. It will be the section that readers will focus on first, before your job title and headline.
By carefully choosing your keywords, you can increase the “searchability” and visibility of your profile.
Set yourself out from other applicants for the position, many of whom won’t have a summary that is optimized.
Writing a LinkedIn Summary: A Guide
Your LinkedIn summary should have the following basic structure:
The hook serves as your first introduction as a professional.
The body – List your most notable professional achievements and career highlights.
Call to action – Whether you want to interact with other professionals or you want recruiters to get in touch with you about career opportunities, your summary should compel action.
Here are a few pointers for creating a fantastic summary:
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The Value of a Strong Hook
The first three lines of your summary are what people see when they click on your LinkedIn profile. These sentences must grab the attention of the reader and persuade them to read the rest of your paragraph and the summary. For instance: Begin with a few succinct, snappy lines that highlight your best abilities. 3D animator. Digital designer. Thinker of concepts.
Draw the reader in with a story that embodies your principles and is unforgettable. “Every youngster deserves to go to school. While I was helping at [school] in South Africa, this became my motto.
Ensure simplicity. There is no harm in stating your position and any knowledge you may have. Use numbers and facts to draw the reader in, such as your years of experience, as in, “Legal Personal Assistant with over six years’ experience in the Regulatory Disputes unit at [firm].”
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Make Effective Use of Keywords
The majority of LinkedIn summary writing tips will advise you that using the right keywords is essential. This is so that LinkedIn’s search engine can benefit from your synopsis.
Examine how people are currently finding your profile before composing your summary and selecting your keywords. To find out how many people have viewed your profile and how many search appearances you have made, first go to your Dashboard, which is located on your profile page.
Next, choose the box labeled “Search appearances.” Every week, LinkedIn will provide you with information about who is reading your profile, along with the search terms individuals used to locate you.
Your profile is not fully optimized if you have no or few keywords, and you are probably losing out on opportunities because you cannot be found.
Use the following keyword suggestions to improve your LinkedIn summary:
Look up job ads for your title or the position you seek. Look at least three job descriptions, then make a list of the words that appear frequently.
Examine the summaries of other users on LinkedIn using the search feature, especially senior-level experts in your industry. Make a list of the words and phrases that appear throughout several profiles.
To increase your summary’s visibility in the LinkedIn search feature, add your keywords at the beginning of the paragraph. Use some or all of your primary keywords here since your viewers will only read the first three lines.
Avoid stuffing your summary with ambiguous and haphazardly chosen keywords. Although soft talents like adaptability and communication are important traits, they are not detailed enough to increase the exposure of your summary. Instead, give priority to:
Titles of jobs: Business support administrator, PHP developer, and executive administrative assistant.
Industry: project management, marketing strategy, mechanical engineering.
Skills: relationship management, cloud computing, business intelligence, editing, UI/UX, and content planning.
Review your search metrics frequently after publishing your summary. Consider changing your keywords if people are still having trouble locating your profile.
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Display Your Successes
Your summary is the ideal location to showcase your successes and market your transferrable skills. Here are some pointers for bragging about your accomplishments:
To boost the impact of your summary and draw in visitors looking for particular talents and experience, be precise. The phrase “I am a web developer” may be changed to “I am a web developer with over four years’ experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript,” for instance.
When feasible, including statistics and figures. Mention the businesses and groups you’ve worked for or with. For instance, “My [company’s] social media advertising effort helped to drive a 45% increase in customers to its promotional pop-up shop this year.”
Keep it brief, and highlight your most important accomplishments using bullet points to make your profile easier to read.
Demonstrate your independence and creativity. For instance, “When I worked at [business], I designed a great hashtag campaign to promote our product affordably and engage younger buyers.”
Full Stack Developer | Sales Director | Corporate Lawyer | Blockchain Developer
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Share a Story
You should concentrate on the overall story being delivered to your readers in addition to the specific components of your summary. A well-written story will: Hold the reader’s interest all the way through.
- Provide you with a competitive edge in a saturated job market.
- Make yourself seem genuine, and make your accomplishments seem credible.
- Encourage connections with you for networking or job prospects by establishing a sense of trust.
- To effectively communicate a story
- To increase your sense of authenticity, write in the first person.
Keep in mind your goals and the audience for whom you are writing. Do you want employers to get in touch with you about employment openings? Then, concentrate on the transferrable talents needed for the position you want.
Make your summary unique to you. Your summary should not be a rehash of your CV or be modified for each job application. As you write your summary, keep asking yourself if it accurately represents who you are as a professional, regardless of whether you decide to describe your successes in your current role, your career background, or your motivations for changing careers.
Rewrite your summary frequently to reflect advances in your goals and career.
