What is the LinkedIn About section?
The About section is the short piece of writing near the top of your profile, under your introduction. LinkedIn's help page on editing the About section describes it as the place to share your mission, motivation and skills with people who view your profile. It sits apart from your headline, the one line under your name.
To edit it on a computer, click the Me icon, choose View Profile, scroll to About and click the Edit icon. On the mobile app, open your profile, scroll to About and tap Edit. If the section is missing, LinkedIn's help page on adding profile sections lists About as a core section you can add.
How long should your About section be?
Short enough to read in under a minute. LinkedIn's guide to creating a good profile suggests explaining your mission, motivation and skills ideally in one or two paragraphs. The hard limit is 2,600 characters, according to the Talent Blog, which is far more room than most people need.
The Talent Blog's guide to profile summaries, dated April 30, 2024, adds two points about form. It says to break up text with short paragraphs or lists so readers can skim. It also says to make your first sentence count instead of opening with a greeting.
What structure works for an About section?
Four short parts work for most people: what you do, who you do it for, proof, and what you want next. Each part can be one or two sentences. Write in the first person, as the Talent Blog recommends, and read the draft aloud before you save it to catch anything stiff.
| Part | What to write | Example line |
|---|---|---|
| What you do | Your role in plain words | I run payroll for companies with staff in Canada and the US. |
| Who you do it for | The team, customers or industry you serve | Most of my work has been for manufacturers with 200 to 800 employees. |
| Proof | One or two results with numbers you can back up | I moved a 450-person payroll from spreadsheets to Dayforce with no missed pay runs. |
| What you want next | The role you are after, or how to reach you | I'm looking for a payroll lead role in the Greater Toronto Area. |
After those four parts, you can add a short line of specialties or tools. The Talent Blog suggests a Specialties list as one place to put keywords for your top skills.
What does an About section example look like for an experienced professional?
It leads with the job and backs it with results. The example below is for a mid-career analyst, and every detail in it is invented for this page. Replace each number with one from your own work that you could explain in an interview, and drop any line you can't support.
I'm a financial analyst who builds the forecasts that operations teams actually use. For the last six years I've supported plant managers at a Canadian food manufacturer, turning weekly production data into budgets they can act on. In my current role I rebuilt our monthly forecast in Power BI, which cut the close from eight days to five. I also wrote the cost model behind our 2025 capital plan. I'm looking for a senior FP&A role in Toronto or remote. Specialties: forecasting, variance analysis, Power BI, Excel, SAP.
A second example, for a US nurse:
I'm a registered nurse with seven years in cardiac step-down care, most recently at a 400-bed hospital in Ohio. I precept new graduates and helped write our unit's fall prevention checklist. I'm moving to Phoenix in March and looking for a step-down or telemetry role. BLS and ACLS certified.
What About section examples work for career changers?
Career changers should name the new field first and then show the bridge. The Talent Blog's summary guide calls this framing your past: connect the dots in your history and present the change as a strength. Keep every claim tied to work you did, since your Experience section will show your real titles.
I spent nine years teaching high school science in Calgary, and the part I liked most was designing the course. I'm now moving into instructional design. Since 2025 I've built three e-learning modules in Articulate Storyline for a local nonprofit, and I finished a certificate in adult learning. I write clear objectives, short lessons and assessments that test the right thing. I'm looking for an instructional designer role in Alberta or remote.
The guide to a career change resume shows how to make the same case on paper, with the same facts.
What About section examples work for graduates and students?
Graduates and students should lead with what they studied and what they built. Projects, co-op terms, part-time jobs and clubs all count as proof when they show a skill an employer wants. Keep it short, since a long About section with little experience behind it reads as padding.
I'm a recent computer science graduate from the University of Waterloo. In two co-op terms I wrote Python data pipelines for a logistics startup and fixed bugs in a React dashboard used by 40 dispatchers. I'm looking for a junior data engineering role in Toronto or Waterloo, starting in January. Skills: Python, SQL, Airflow, React.
What should an About section say after a layoff?
It should say what you do and what you want next, and the layoff needs one line at most. Keep the focus on your skills, since the reason a role ended needs no detail here. Mention the layoff plainly if you want to, without detail, then move straight to your results and target role.
I'm a logistics coordinator with eight years in freight and customs, most recently at a distributor in Mississauga. My role was eliminated in a restructuring in October 2026. I managed customs paperwork for about 60 cross-border shipments a week and cut clearance delays by setting up a pre-filing checklist. I'm looking for a coordinator or team lead role in the GTA.
The page on how to explain a layoff in an interview has scripts for saying the same thing out loud.
Which mistakes should you avoid?
The biggest mistakes are keyword lists, vague claims and anything you can't prove. LinkedIn's help page on people search relevance says adding more keywords doesn't automatically improve your appearance in search results. It warns that profiles that look overly optimized may be affected by spam detection.
LinkedIn's Professional Community Policies also say not to post misleading or deceptive information about your qualifications, work experience or achievements. The Talent Blog adds three style points: cut the jargon, write how you speak, and skip special characters and emojis. A short list of what to remove:
- A first line that only says hello or welcome to my profile
- Words like passionate, dynamic or results-driven with nothing behind them
- Numbers you can't explain or source
- A wall of text with no paragraph breaks
Should you use AI to write your About section?
Use it for a first draft, then rewrite it in your own words. LinkedIn's help page on its AI-powered writing assistant says it can suggest text for your About section. The page says it is available only to a select group of Premium subscribers, and you can edit suggestions before saving.
Check every claim in an AI draft against your resume. A draft that adds results you never had is a problem when a recruiter asks about them on a call. The LinkedIn headline examples page gives the same advice for the line under your name.
How does the About section connect to the rest of your profile?
Recruiter tools read it for skills. LinkedIn's help page on the Skills Match filter says implicit skills are extracted from the summary, position descriptions, title and headline. So the tools you name in your About section can count as evidence alongside the Skills section.
Make sure the skills you name in About also appear in the LinkedIn skills section and in your job descriptions. The LinkedIn profile optimization checklist covers the other fields. When the profile is done, the free interview question generator helps you prepare for the calls it brings, and Prept's LinkedIn optimizer drafts an About section only from facts you confirmed.