The LinkedIn “About” Section

By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP

What information should go in the About section of your LinkedIn profile?

Not your biography.

Not a plea for a job.

Not simply a paragraph about your skills.

Assuming that you have an eye-catching headline (as touched on briefly in a previous post), your About section needs to be engaging enough for interested parties to keep reading to find out more about you.

You have up to 2,600 characters (not words) in the About section to talk about your career and your strengths.

Notice I did not say you have 2,600 characters to talk about your life and your passion. Unless your passion has led to impact and value-add. LinkedIn is a business platform.

The information from your Experience & Achievements section on your resume goes in the Experience section of LinkedIn, so you don’t have to worry about including job descriptions and company descriptions in the About section. Your About section is a bit more casual place where you can talk/write about your career and the work that you love to do.

• You can put quotations and testimonials in the About section.

• You can write a story about a specific incident in your life that helped you determine your career path.

• You can write about your three or four favorite career accomplishments and why you are so proud of them.
  
  

You can let loose a little bit and talk about yourself a little more creatively than you would on your resume. The About section provides a space to elaborate on specific goals that you reached, specific jobs or actions that you’re proud of, or just to speak about your career successes within your industry.

Remember that your LinkedIn profile is public and global and can be seen by hundreds, or even thousands, in one day.

Try to make the first 2-3 lines in the About section a bit more eye-catching. If someone likes your headline, when they click on you, only the first 2-3 lines from your About section will show. So you want to make those initial lines juicy and engaging.

If you use the About section wisely, it will definitely get people interested in you. They will want to know more about you. A few of my clients have gotten interviews from their LinkedIn profile alone.

Think about what else you could add and or change in your About section. It does deserve a little bit of your time and energy to figure out how you want to present yourself to the world.

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Better job. More pay. More control.

For a free resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!