How to optimize your LinkedIn profile
Your headline travels with every comment you leave, Featured is the only place video still lives on a profile, and LinkedIn Recruiter matches against canonical skills, not prose. Here is what to put in each field.
8 minute read
Your profile is the page every other LinkedIn action points at
LinkedIn draws a line most people never notice. Its help centre separates profile appearances, meaning every place your name and headline turn up across the platform, in search results, in the feed, under comments, in network recommendations, from profile views, the far smaller number of people who actually clicked through. Everything you do elsewhere manufactures appearances. The profile decides what share of them become views and what happens next, which is why it behaves more like a landing page than a CV. LinkedIn also hands you the scoreboard. The Search Appearances panel in your profile analytics refreshes weekly on Wednesdays and reports the top companies and job titles of the people who found you, along with the job titles you were found for. Nothing else on the platform tells you that directly.
The headline is not a job title, it is a caption on everything you do
LinkedIn's help centre describes the headline as the text below your name that is displayed in search results, and says it can be separate from the title of your current position. What it does not spell out is how far the string travels: it sits under your name in the feed, beside every comment you leave, and in every connection request you send. LinkedIn writes one for you when you add a position, which is why so many read as Senior Manager at Acme, a line that distinguishes nobody. You get 220 characters. Spend them on who you help, what changes for them, and one detail nobody else could claim, in that order. Something like: I help B2B founders turn one conference talk into a month of video. Put the specific part first, because how much survives before truncation depends on the surface.
About: the first two lines do almost all the work
The About field takes 2,600 characters and shows only its opening lines before a see-more link, so the first two sentences are the only part with guaranteed readership. Since the March 2024 layout change moved About to the top of profiles, that opening is also the first prose a visitor meets. Write it in the first person and start concrete: what you do, who for, and the evidence. The origin story is fine in paragraph three, where it costs nothing. LinkedIn's own profile guidance asks you to bring to life why your skills matter rather than listing them, which is sound mostly because the listing already happens further down the page. Close with one next step, something to watch, read or book, and then make that step available immediately below.
Featured is where a creator should pin video
This is the section most professionals leave empty, and it is the one place on a profile where video belongs. LinkedIn's help pages list four things you can feature: posts you have authored or reshared, articles you published on LinkedIn, links to external sites, and media you upload directly, explicitly including images, documents, presentations and videos. Uploaded video matters because the profile has nowhere else to put it. The old Cover Story, a thirty-second clip that played inside your profile photo, is gone. Social Media Today reported LinkedIn pulling it along with native carousels and in-image links during 2023, and coverage disagrees on the exact final date. Featured items default to newest first, you need at least two before LinkedIn lets you reorder, and while the list is effectively unlimited, three or four is the number a visitor will actually scan.
Skills, and what LinkedIn search actually does with them
This is where folklore takes over, so use LinkedIn's engineering write-ups instead. Its April 2019 post on the AI behind Recruiter search describes a query as a mix of structured fields, specifically canonical titles, canonical skills and company name, alongside unstructured free-text keywords. Your skills are not read as prose; they are matched against a standardised list. The same post explains that when a search returns too few candidates, the system expands it semantically, surfacing Software Developer results for a Software Engineer query using embeddings trained on LinkedIn's Economic Graph. The practical translation is to pick the standard name from the dropdown rather than a clever variant, because the clever variant may map to nothing. LinkedIn contradicts itself on the ceiling, with the help centre saying 100 skills and its own talent blog still saying 50, so aim for 20 to 30 you would defend out loud.
Recommendations and endorsements are not the same lever
Two things sit under the heading of social proof and behave differently. Endorsements are one click, come only from first-degree connections, and LinkedIn's help page says they increase the likelihood you are discovered for opportunities related to that skill, which is as far as it will commit. Recommendations are written, and LinkedIn states that your public profile shows the count plus a maximum of two of the recommendations themselves. That cap is the whole strategy: two specific paragraphs beat twenty saying you were a pleasure to work with. When you request one, and you can ask one connection at a time and one per position, name the project you want written about and the result you want mentioned. The section does not even appear on your profile until you have given or received one that is not hidden.
Creator mode is gone, and the loop that replaced it
Creator mode no longer exists as a switch. LinkedIn removed profile hashtags in February 2024 and the on-off toggle a month later, folding what it bundled, including creator analytics and the sharing tools, into every eligible profile by default. One choice survived: whether the primary button on your profile reads Connect or Follow. Follow is the right answer if you publish anything, because connections are capped at 30,000 and followers are not. The custom button beside it, offering options like Book an appointment or View my portfolio, is not free; LinkedIn's help page limits it to a subset of Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite subscribers. Then run the weekly loop: publish a clip, pin the one that lands to Featured, read Wednesday's search appearances. FrameOS handles the cutting part, at 300 credits for 3 days · no card.
FAQ
What should I write in my LinkedIn headline?
LinkedIn generates one from your current position, which is why so many read as Title at Company. You get 220 characters, and the line shows in search results, in the feed and beside every comment you leave. Use it for who you help, what changes for them, and one specific detail. Put the specific part first, since truncation varies by surface.
Does LinkedIn creator mode still exist?
Not as a toggle. LinkedIn removed profile hashtags in February 2024 and the creator mode on-off switch in March 2024, making the tools it bundled available to eligible members by default. What remains a choice is whether your profile's primary button reads Follow or Connect, and profiles that had creator mode switched on kept Follow.
Can you add a video to your LinkedIn profile?
Yes, through the Featured section. LinkedIn's help pages list uploaded media, including images, documents, presentations and videos, alongside posts, published articles and external links. The old Cover Story video that played inside your profile photo is gone, pulled during 2023 according to Social Media Today's reporting, so Featured is now the only place video lives on the profile itself.
How many skills should you list on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn contradicts itself on the ceiling: its help centre says up to 100 skills, while its own talent blog still says 50. Either way, the cap is not the target. Choose the standard name from the dropdown for 20 to 30 skills you would defend in an interview, because LinkedIn Recruiter matches against canonical skills rather than free text.
Sources
- AI Behind LinkedIn Recruiter Search and Recommendation Systems · LinkedIn Engineering
- Manage featured samples of your work on your LinkedIn profile · LinkedIn Help
- Updates to Creator Mode · LinkedIn Help
- How to Add Skills to Your LinkedIn Profile - and Why It's Important · LinkedIn
- Add and remove skills on your profile · LinkedIn Help
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