Writing an Effective LinkedIn Profile Summary: Examples and Best Practices

Your LinkedIn profile can make or break your professional brand. It’s your main chance to make an outstanding first impression on your prospects in the first shot and make them loyal followers. 

So, how do you stand out on the platform with roughly 134.5 million active users pining for the attention of their prospects and target audience? 

A critical piece of the puzzle is to create a strong LinkedIn profile that shows your personality and highlights your professional journey efficiently. 

So in this article, we’ll explain how to write your “summary” section on LinkedIn to sound authoritative and share some examples too. 

Let’s dive in!

Why Is an Effective “Summary” Section Important?

Your LinkedIn profile summary is like an online portfolio where you can showcase everything eventful you’ve done in your career to impress your prospects. 

Here are the multiple ways it can benefit you in building your professional brand on LinkedIn:

• It allows you to showcase your unique skills and expertise to your audience or potential connections.
• You can tell your story in a professional and concise manner, highlighting your key achievements and career progression.
• By including relevant keywords and industry-specific terms in your summary, you can make your profile more searchable to potential recruiters or customers. 
• A well-written profile summary can open doors to many opportunities for you and help you connect with like-minded professionals that share the same passion as you.
• By showcasing your professional journey in a succinct and cohesive manner, you can build trust and authority with your audience and within your industry. It sure makes you stand out among the sea of generic profile summaries.

Instead of using the default profile summary LinkedIn generates for you, present your best self in your profile summary, and the sky will only be the limit for you!

Difference Between a LinkedIn Summary and a Resume

A resume only serves one purpose—to get you a job. On the other hand, a LinkedIn summary is more of your informal introduction written on the platform that helps you impress your potential employers or audience. 

Here are some other differences between a LinkedIn summary and a resume:

• Your resume comes in a format that sounds very professional and jargon-y. However, you can be as conversational and fun as you want to be in your LinkedIn Summary—it doesn’t really have a specific format. You do as you please, as long as it summarizes your professional journey in a nutshell. 
• Your resume is only visible to a specific set of recruiters who hire for a specific role, whereas your LinkedIn profile summary is visible to anyone that visits your profile—recruiters, founders, peers, mentees, mentors, customers, etc.
• Your LinkedIn profile is searchable—-people can simply enter the relevant keywords to find you. However, your resume only reaches the people you send them to.
• Your resume is highly specific to the job you’re applying to, but with your LinkedIn profile summary, you can target multiple audiences and add all the skills you possess—who knows what might impress a prospect! 

How to Write an Effective LinkedIn Summary

1. Prepare an Outline

Any piece of writing, irrespective of the length, turns out beautifully when you have a clear structure in your mind and know what you’re going to write about. 

• List down the things you want to share with your visitors and the instances you want to highlight in your professional journey. This will help you avoid rambling in your summary and make it crisp and interesting. 
• Here’s what a summary outline would usually look like:
  - A hook that invites the reader in and makes them click the “see more” button.
  - An introduction about what you do and whom you help.
  - Your list of experiences or your professional roadmap at a glance.
  - A social proof that proves the claim you made—numbers and percentages look best.
  - A call to action that allows your visitors to contact you in case they want to hire you or share a proposal.

2. Share Your “Why”

Your “why” is the reason you do what you do, and it reflects the passion you have for your work. Why is it important?

It helps your audience to connect with you more and find a relatable element they can bond over. It doesn’t have to be paragraph after paragraph; a small paragraph would do. 

Here’s what to include:

• Share a personal anecdote that showcases the experiences that shaped your professional journey. 
• Talk about your values and core interests that make you love your work.
• Mention the pivotal moments that played a significant role in your career.
• Discuss your thought process behind delivering a memorable result in your career and how it impacted your company or employers. 

3. Showcase Examples, Results, and Achievements

When sharing your professional journey on LinkedIn, it’s always a good idea to keep the data handy. It instantly adds more value to your summary and makes you look trustworthy and authoritative. 

• Write a small 2 or 3-liner case study that quickly explains what you achieved in your work and the impact it had.
• Share links to your work or portfolio.
• Talk about the words of appreciation your employers and clients have written about you.

4. Mention Skills

Always clearly mention what you can help your audience with—including both hard and soft skills. 

Hard skills are those that are relevant to your work in your industry, for example- Java, Recruitment, Writing, etc. 

Your soft skills are those that help you build connections in your industry and meet people that you can someday work with. These include mentoring, strong communication skills, problem-solving, etc. 

5. Show Your Personal Side, Too

Don’t make your summary section too boring with generic information. Bring out your personality into it and try to connect with your audience at a more personal level. 

• Use a conversational tone that makes you sound friendly and approachable. 
• Use examples or quotes from your favorite movie or book that shows the kinds of stuff you’re into. 
• Share your personal interests and hobbies in a paragraph—give them an opportunity to know you up close.

6. End with a CTA with Contact Information

This has to be one of the most ignored aspects of a LinkedIn profile summary. If your visitors don’t know where to contact you, they’ll probably end up leaving your page for good. 

Include your email id and website to make it easier for them to get in touch. Moreover, make it clear about what you have to offer—are you offering a service, a product, a mentorship, or simply want to connect with peers? 

Based on your goal, determine the CTA—if you’re looking to connect with peers, you can simply ask them to hit you up on your DMs. 

LinkedIn Summary Examples

LinkedIn Summary Example for Students

While Komal has already been doing a great job creating content on LinkedIn and sharing her journey of pursuing a master's in London, her profile summary showcases her career in a gist without overwhelming the reader. 

Here’s what I love about her profile:

• The way she has structured the entire write-up—neat with short paragraphs.
• Her expertise in content writing is reflected in her journey. She has named some big brands she has worked with, which is more than enough to lure a prospect her way for writing assignments. 
• She starts off by sharing her personality with the reader, which helps me instantly connect with her as a person—I mean, hey, I love cooking up random recipes! :D

Even when you’re not looking for a job as a student, it’s always a good practice to create a LinkedIn profile, write a good summary and create content about your learnings and experiences. It’ll help you get the right exposure in the industry you want to get into and make the job-searching process much easier for you!

LinkedIn Summary Examples for Job Seekers

Simply applying the “looking for work” filter on your profile won’t suffice—you need to make sure your profile convinces your recruiters of your competencies. 

Take a look at Brady’s profile. He has talked about his work experiences and the kind of responsibilities he handles in his current job in his short yet on-point profile summary. 

Here’s why I love his LinkedIn profile:

• He mentions whom he works with, which makes it clear for potential recruiters to understand the kind of responsibilities he can take on.
• He clearly lists down all the skills he possesses and uses in his current role and what he’s best at.
• He showcases authority by mentioning he handles the most critical component of his organization.
• By the last paragraph, one can assume Brady’s got social skills and knows how to network the right way.

LinkedIn Summary Examples for Marketers

Talk about bringing your personality to your LinkedIn Summary! This AI marketing specialist has hit just the right spot with her fun profile summary. 

Here are all the things we love about Ruth:

• Her passion reflects in her profile. One can clearly tell how much she enjoys her job, which would never fail to impress a potential recruiter, peer, or admirer. 
• She has clearly mentioned her skills and the responsibilities she takes on in her current role.
• Her personal interests and love for dogs made me like her at first instant! On top of that, she sounds like a fun and approachable person who would be up for an interesting conversation anytime.

LinkedIn Summary Examples for Freelancers

I love reading profile summaries that are conversational, and Kat’s summary is the perfect example of it. It gives the “perfectionist” vibe and tells her story in a very engaging way. 

What I love the most about this profile:

• The hook is so interesting and relatable that even a person who doesn’t associate with this industry would be keen to learn more about her. 
• I’m constantly in awe of her storytelling skills—it makes me want to hire her right away!
• She clearly mentions her skills and the big clients she has worked with, which instantly creates trust.
• She adds that she’s also open to mentoring other freelancers, which means she isn’t here just to make clients.

LinkedIn Summary Examples for Entrepreneurs

For founders, it’s important to showcase their authority as an expert on LinkedIn and leverage that experience to build their professional brand (and get more sales). This is why I love how Ira has used storytelling to share his journey from a startup enthusiast to helping founders translate their voices into compelling content. 

Here’s what I love about his profile:

• He starts his story from where it all started, which makes it an excellent hook to grab the reader’s attention.
• He pays special tributes to the founders/ investors that helped him get his breakthrough, which is pretty thrilling to read.
• He shares his values and morals in his summary—a true sign of a leader and a capable entrepreneur.
• He has made his CTA very clear. He’s looking to build an audience of founders who want to learn from him and use this knowledge to create good content.

LinkedIn Summary Examples for Personal Brands

Personal brands are somewhat similar to entrepreneurs who want to build and establish their presence on LinkedIn. However, personal brands could be anyone—a freelancer, a coach, an author, an entrepreneur, or even a student. Basically, persona brands enjoy creating content about things they’re passionate about and building a like-minded audience. 

Here’s why I love Abha’s profile:

• She talks about her role in his company in a succinct manner.
• She explains her love for creating content and how it all started, which keeps me hooked to read her entire summary. 
• She showcases social proof in the form of numbers to demonstrate the kind of results her work has brought to her company. 
• Her CTA has a calendar link which makes it easy for anyone to set up a meeting with her if they’re looking to hire her. 

Showcase Your Professional Identity in Your LinkedIn Summary

Your LinkedIn profile summary is an essential part of your online presence. It helps capture the attention of your target audience or customer and demonstrate the impact you’ve made with your work.

Make it concise, engaging, and tailored to your audience’s needs. More importantly, incorporate industry-related keywords to make your profile searchable.

And don’t forget to showcase your personality and passion to make a lasting impression on your profile visitors! You’ll soon be able to make many valuable connections on LinkedIn and use it effectively to reach your career goals. 

And if you need help monitoring your stats and making your LinkedIn content even better, come say hi to us at Inlytics!