Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile So Recruiters Find You

Recruiters search LinkedIn with keywords and filters. How to tune your headline, About, experience, skills and settings so your profile shows up in their results.

You have worked in data for four years, but your LinkedIn profile dates from your final year at university. The headline still says "Student at ..." and Experience shows only company names and titles. Meanwhile, a classmate doing similar work gets recruiter messages every month. The difference is not skill. It is whether your profile can be found.

What does optimising your profile for recruiters mean?

Most recruiters do not scroll through profiles one by one. They search with keywords such as job titles and skills, then filter by location, experience and other criteria. Optimising means putting the words they search in the right places, and making sure that when they open your profile, it is clear within seconds.

1. Headline: use the words recruiters type

The headline sits under your name and is the first thing shown in search results. Do not leave it as just your current title. Include:

• The role you do or want, using the standard title people actually search
• Two or three key skills or tools
• Your field or industry, if relevant

Example: "Data Analyst | SQL, Power BI, Python | Retail and E-commerce" is far clearer than "Passionate about data" because it contains real search terms.

Some internal titles do not match the market, such as "Business Intelligence Officer II". Add the commonly understood title to your headline too.

2. About: what you can help with, in three short paragraphs

1. Who you are: what you do, for how long, in which field
2. Results or strengths: two or three things you do well, with examples
3. What you are looking for: what kind of role or opportunity, and how to reach you

Write like a real person talking and use relevant keywords naturally, without stuffing. If you are targeting international companies, writing in English makes you easier to find.

3. Experience: do not leave it empty

For each role, add three to five bullets on main work and results. Use tool and skill names that match the jobs you want, because this section is searched too. If you held several roles at one company, list them as separate positions by period, which shows your growth more clearly than one combined entry.

• Before: "Made sales reports"
• After: "Built branch-level sales dashboards in Power BI, used in weekly leadership meetings"

4. Skills and often-overlooked settings

Skills

Add skills that match your target roles and pin the most important ones at the top. Ask managers or colleagues who have seen your work to endorse your key skills.

Location

Recruiters often filter by location. Set the city where you live or want to work correctly, e.g. Bangkok, Thailand.

Open to Work

LinkedIn lets you signal that you are looking and choose whether everyone sees it or only recruiters. If you are employed and do not want your current company to know, recruiters-only is the better choice, though no system can guarantee complete confidentiality.

Photo and URL

Use a clear face photo with a plain background, and customise your profile URL to your name so it looks clean on your resume.

What to avoid

• Information that does not match your resume, such as different dates or titles. It hurts credibility.
• Keyword stuffing that makes the profile unreadable. A human reads it in the end.
• Setting it up once and forgetting it. Update at least whenever you change jobs or achieve something significant.

Recruiters can only contact people they find. A good profile speaks the same language as the person searching.

How to start within an hour

1. Open three job ads you would like and note the repeated titles and skills.
2. Rewrite your headline with those words.
3. Write a three-paragraph About section.
4. Add bullets to at least your two most recent roles.
5. Check your location, pin your skills and set Open to Work in the way that suits you.

For more ideas, read 8 LinkedIn profile techniques HR looks for, and keep your resume consistent with your profile using Resume Lab to tailor it to each role.