How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile to Get Job Offers

An optimized LinkedIn profile is your personal page with every section filled out with information about who you are and what you specialize in. It’s a LinkedIn profile that’s polished to perfection so it can appear attractive to other users and rank higher in search results.

20 Tips on How to Optimize a LinkedIn Profile in 2024

Here’s a handy collection of 20 ideas on LinkedIn optimization. Some are quick and easy—you can get these steps done in just a few mins. Others require much more effort on your part. But the good thing is, you don’t have to do it all at once. Optimizing your LinkedIn page is an ongoing process. The important thing is that you start now.

1. Start with a Professional Profile Picture

No, you don’t need perfect features to succeed in your chosen career. But humans can’t help but judge others based on their looks. And judging others goes beyond just looks. In fact, your profile photo can reveal a lot about your personality, so recruiters might try to guess your traits based on it.

First, the technicalities of a professional profile picture on LinkedIn:

• The best size for a LinkedIn photo is 400×400 pixels. You can also upload bigger ones, but they can’t exceed 8 MB.
• Your face should cover around 60% of the photo.
• The image should be sharp and well-lit. Make sure it’s recent and that you’re easily recognizable.

Now comes the tricky part: Your photo should show who you are professionally. This varies depending on your job. For example, a fashion model’s photo will be different from a CEO’s. So, unless you like breaking rules, choose a photo that fits what people expect in your field. Try to look serious or smile confidently. If you don’t have a suitable photo, consider getting a professional one. It might cost a bit, but it’s worth it for more job opportunities.

2. Add a Background Photo to Grab Attention

The background image on your LinkedIn page is free real estate that you can use to advertise your business persona. 

Sure, if you prefer to use a photo of your favorite mountain view, that’s fine. But I suggest using it on other social media platforms. For LinkedIn, it’s better to optimize the background image to keep recruiters interested in your profile for longer.

Here’s how to make an attention-grabbing background for your page:

• Find a photo that represents your work: it can be an actual photo of you working, but it might also show your office, the services you offer, the city you live in, or something connected to your industry. If you’re not good at taking shots, you can use an attribution-free image from websites such as Pexels or Pixabay.
• Make a banner highlighting your personal brand: Instead of just uploading a photo, you can use it to make a banner with text. You could mention your biggest career achievement, add a quote you like, list the services you’re good at, or show your contact info. It’s like a bigger business card. You can use online tools like Canva to make your image.
• Comply with technical requirements: your optimized LinkedIn profile image should be in a JPG or PNG file. The perfect dimensions are 1584×396 pixels, and it can’t exceed 8 MB.

Once you upload your new image, always check if it displays properly on a computer and a smartphone screen. If it’s blurry or has visible pixels, try a different image.

3. Create a Headline That Says It All

Your LinkedIn page headline can fit up to 220 characters. Use them wisely—don’t waste this space saying: Hi, my name is Lisa, and I work in PR. Just like a catchy resume headline, this short introduction should include relevant keywords to highlight your strengths, qualifications, and proudest achievements.

Here’s what to include in your LinkedIn headline: 

• Your current job title & company
• What you can offer to an employer
• Career achievements
• Education level
• Names of valuable certifications
• Industry you work for
• Professional skills
• Lifelong passions

LinkedIn Optimization: Example Headlines:

Software Engineer | Java | Full-Stack Developer
Bachelor of Business Administration graduating in June 2023 | Seeking an entry-level opportunity
Technical Writer | Guest Author at TechCrunch | I Write Content That Converts
Head of Digital PR at WhiskMO | SEO Content Strategy Expert

4. Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile URL

If you haven’t edited your profile URL yet, then you probably need to.. Does it include random numbers or letters? Then, you need to optimize your LinkedIn URL to make sure it shows your full name or brand name.

Here’s how to do it:

• View your profile page and click “Edit public profile & URL” in the top right corner.
• On the new page, look at the section in the top right corner called “Edit your custom URL.”
• Click on the icon of a pencil next to the URL.
• Fill it with your desired text—you can use up to 100 letters or numbers

5. Use the LinkedIn Profile Summary to Introduce Yourself

If you’ve ever written a resume summary, you’ll know how to tackle this one. And if you haven’t, then it’s a chance to learn. A LinkedIn profile is more than just a summary of your qualifications—it can also express your vision, goals, and passions.

A good (and optimized) LinkedIn summary should consist of 3–5 sentences that describe your professional experience, say what you specialize in, what businesses or organizations you worked for, and what makes you unique. It needs to fit 2,600 characters or around 370 words.

6. Show Career Highlights in the Experience Section

One of the core sections of your LinkedIn page is dedicated to professional experience—very similar to the work experience section of a resume. You can fill it with your current and previous positions and provide information about your work duties. However, adding details about all your past jobs and responsibilities might take a lot of effort, so it’s better to approach this strategically.

Here’s how to optimize your LinkedIn profile’s Experience section:

• Add positions that are relevant to your current career goals: for example, if you’re a registered nurse with 10 years of experience, there’s no need to mention the part-time babysitting job you had while in high school.
• Demonstrate achievements straight away: if you add several jobs, your Experience section will show only 1–2 lines for each job, unless the reader clicks ‘…see more’. Include major accomplishments in the first line to make recruiters read everything.
• Use action words and accomplishment statements: Add around 3–6 sentences describing your responsibilities in each job, and use facts & figures to show how great you performed in your roles.
• Throw in industry keywords: if you want to get specific job offers, make sure you use relevant keywords in your Experience section. I will also talk more about keywords in the next section of this guide.
• Use bullet points and special characters: you can copy and paste special characters, such as bullet points or arrows, and even add emojis to your Experience description. They can help separate the lines of text as well as make information easier to read. Of course, don’t 🌺 go 🧁 overboard 🍏 with 😍 your 🎨 favorite 🦊 emojis!

1. 7. Use Keywords to Make Your Page More Visible
2. 8. Pick the Right Skills to Represent You
3. 9. Avoid LinkedIn Profile Clichés
4. 10. Add More People to Your Network
5. 11. Promote Yourself Using Posts
6. 12. Fill Out the Services Section
7. 13. Add More Sections to Make Up for No Work Experience
8. 14. Try Skills Assessment Tests
9. 15. Ask for Endorsement from Others
10. 16. Ask for Recommendations
11. 17. Find Like-Minded Influencers
12. 18. Interact With Your Network
13. 19. Write & Publish Longer Posts
14. 20. Show Off Continuous Learning Efforts

Here’s a summary of the main points from this article:

• LinkedIn profile optimization is essential to making your page attractive to prospective employers or business partners.
• You can optimize a LinkedIn profile by using keywords in all sections and writing effective descriptions for your headline, summary, and experience sections.
• LinkedIn optimization activities must go hand-in-hand with growing your connections and interacting with other users on the platform.

That’s all!

Thank you for reading my LinkedIn optimization ideas. Do you have other suggestions that aren’t included on the list? Would you like to share your thoughts on LinkedIn optimization with other readers? Feel free to comment below!