Lesson Introduction
The About section of your LinkedIn® profile, previously known as the Summary, offers a unique opportunity to present a well-rounded view of your professional self. Unlike the more structured Skills and Experience sections, the About section allows for creativity and personalization, enabling you to weave a narrative that connects your past achievements with your future aspirations.
Framework Note
Your About section should support the reason you are on LinkedIn®. A job seeker may need to connect experience, strengths and future direction. A consultant or service provider may need to make expertise, outcomes and commercial relevance easier to understand. Someone focused on Reputation may place greater emphasis on ideas, authority and the professional identity they want to build.
The story can still sound like you. Your Why determines which parts of that story deserve the greatest emphasis and what you want the reader to do afterwards. Explore the Why Are You Really on LinkedIn®? framework →
The Purpose of the About Section
- Personal Branding: It’s where you can express your professional identity beyond job titles and skills.
- Engagement: A well-crafted About section draws readers into your profile, encouraging them to explore more.
- Connection: This section can make your profile more relatable, building a stronger connection with your audience by sharing your motivations, interests, and professional philosophy.
Expert Tip
Your About section should develop alongside the rest of your profile. After you refine your Skills and Experience sections, come back to your About section and make sure the positioning, evidence and language still match the profile you have built.
Crafting Your About Section
- Start with a Hook: Begin with an engaging opening that captures attention. Start with something relevant enough to earn the reader’s attention. A clear statement of who you are, what matters in your work, or why someone should keep reading is usually stronger than forcing a hook. If you’re really happy with your LinkedIn® Headline covered in the previous course, you can consider starting with that.
- Tell Your Story: Share your professional journey, significant achievements, and lessons learned. Highlight experiences that demonstrate your skills and values.
- Professional Philosophy and Aspirations: Briefly touch on your professional ethos, what drives you, and where you aim to go in your career.
- Skills and Expertise: While you’ve listed skills elsewhere, here you can contextualize them within your career narrative, explaining how they’ve been critical to your success.
- Personal Touch: Add a sentence or two about your interests outside of work to provide a glimpse into who you are as a person.
- Call To Action: Conclude with a prompt for the reader to connect with you, whether they’re potential employers, colleagues, or collaborators.
Best Practices for the About Section
- Keep It Concise: You have a whopping 2600 characters to play with, but you don’t have to use them all. Ultimately aim for four to six short paragraphs. You want to be thorough yet succinct. But don’t worry if it’s ten paragraphs if your story is amazing.
- Keep It Positive: Celebrate your past and current profession achievements and journey.
- Use the First Person: Write in the first person to keep your summary personal and relatable. Use words like I and We.
- Optimize with Keywords: Use relevant professional terminology naturally so people and LinkedIn® can understand your expertise and relevance. Your public profile may also appear in search engines, but search visibility depends on your public-profile settings and external search-engine indexing.
- Break Up the Text: No one enjoys reading a wall of text. Use spacing and bullet points to make the section easy to scan.
CONCLUSION
Your About section is more than just a summary of your professional life; it’s the heart of your LinkedIn® profile. It’s where you can truly engage with your audience, share your story, and articulate your professional vision. Invest the time to make it compelling, and it will enhance every other section of your profile.
Action
Review and possibly rewrite your About section. Does it capture your professional essence and make a memorable impression? Ensure it aligns with your overall LinkedIn® strategy, adding depth and personality to your profile.
Update Your About Section
- Go to your LinkedIn® profile.
- Scroll to the ‘About’ section and click on the pencil icon to edit.
- Craft your narrative, focusing on making it engaging and reflective of your professional journey.
- Save your changes once you’re satisfied with your entry.
