LinkedIn Summary: learn how to create a good LinkedIn Summary with examples

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Learn how to write a good LinkedIn summary to stand out from your competitors. Get summary examples and tips.

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LinkedIn Summary: learn how to create a good LinkedIn Summary with examples

50% of hiring managers look for skills posted on LinkedIn to fill job positions.

It’s not enough to make an impact with your profile picture, banner, and headline. You need to fill out all the blanks in your LinkedIn summary because hiring managers will go to that first to see if you are a potential fit for the role.

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to write a LinkedIn summary effectively with examples.

What is a LinkedIn summary?

Essentially, your LinkedIn summary is a short description of your skills, abilities, personality, etc.

You can find it in the About section of a LinkedIn profile, under the profile photo.

In this summary, you have 2,600 characters (roughly 370) to describe yourself in a way that will attract potential clients or employers.

You can write an overview of who you are or your previous roles and achievements. And if you're a company page, you can tell your viewers more about how you can help them.

Your summary should also, in a way, reflect what you are looking for.

Some burning questions to answer if you want to know how to build a personal brand on LinkedIn using your summary are the following:

What are my interests, experiences, and accomplishments?

What positions and roles am I open to?

What are my hard and soft skills?

Meanwhile, company pages can attract more job seekers if they incorporate the answers to the following into their LinkedIn summary:

How long have I been in the industry?

What are the products and services that I offer?

What makes me stand out from my competitors?

Essentially, a strong LinkedIn summary should summarize your background, personality, skills, experiences, or achievements.

Why is a LinkedIn summary so important?

Many people skip writing a LinkedIn summary or put 0 effort into writing it because they may think it is irrelevant or impossible to efficiently describe aaaaaall of your qualities in such a short text.

But the truth is, perspective clients and hiring managers are way too busy to contact you and ask an endless barrage of questions. Typically, they tend to look for certain pieces of information before making contact.

Let’s look into more reasons why your LinkedIn summary is so important.

1. Introduce yourself as you are

Having a LinkedIn summary will let you create a lasting first impression on other professionals.

This is going to give you the perfect opportunity to attract clients and employers who have the same personality and mindset you have.

For example, if you’re a fun and outgoing person, you probably won’t feel comfortable around people who are extremely serious and can’t take a joke.

In addition, you can introduce your previous roles, accomplishments, and expertise concisely.

You’ll be able to define exactly what you do in your industry, instead of having to turn people away with uncomfortable “no, sorry, I don’t do that” messages.

2. Professionals can know about your cultural fit

Whether you're using a personal or company page, a LinkedIn summary will show other individuals what they can expect from you.

It can be a basis for your adaptability in the workplace. It can also give a glimpse of the work culture and environment.

By including your previous jobs and experiences in your summary, professionals will know if you could be a good fit for their company and their style.

3. Your page can rank higher on LinkedIn.

Besides your headline and title, optimizing your LinkedIn summary is one of the best practices and tips for a great LinkedIn profile.

However, it interferes with the platform's algorithm and can affect your ranking. Thus, strong keywords can make your page more visible in your search results.

This gives you a great chance to attract people who are interested in the same things you are.

For example, if you’re interested in digital marketing, you could include SEO, email marketing, digital media, PPC.

But don’t stop there. To stand out, you can also include fun facts about yourself.

Take as an example what Tal did. ⬇️

4. It opens you to more opportunities for success.

Your LinkedIn summary brings you closer to potential clients and career opportunities.

In addition, it can set you apart from more than 1 billion users on the platform.

As we mentioned earlier, by describing exactly who you are and what you do, your leads won’t have to be wondering if you’re the right fit or not. They’ll know!

How to write a good LinkedIn summary?

A LinkedIn summary isn't about filling up the character limit.

It's also not about dumping all your achievements and experiences in one place.

These mistakes will only make your write-up bland and generic.

You want to craft your summary thoughtfully and carefully to make sure that people actually want to read it!

Step 1 - Make an outline

A plain LinkedIn summary will bore your readers. Similarly, disconnected sentences may only leave them confused.

So using a proven and effective structure can go a long way.

Your outline could be something like this ⬇️

Hook

A hook grabs the attention of your readers.

Mission

Your mission tells your readers why you're doing what you do.

Experiences

In this part, you can tell your readers about your past experiences.

Skills/Products/Services

On top of your experiences, enumerating your outstanding skills or services can help your readers understand you better.

Achievements

Giving concrete results and accomplishments will show readers what you can deliver.

Call To Action

Finally, a solid call to action at the end will help readers know what you want to gain from them.

While personal and company LinkedIn pages follow this general outline, company pages focus more on their products and services.

Step 2 - Write an interesting hook

A typical LinkedIn summary will have around 370 words in total. But in reality, your profile viewers will only see the first three lines of your About section. After that, they'd have to click "See More."

Because of this limitation, the most crucial step in writing your LinkedIn summary is to make an interesting hook. Your first three lines must grab your readers' attention and make them want to read more.

Take for example what G did:

A warm and friendly hello, a really big accomplishment, and the introduction of his book.

To give you an idea of what to put in your hook, you can mix any of the following questions:

What sets you apart?

What's your story?

What results can you deliver?

Your answers to these questions will pique your readers' interests. They'll want to know how you delivered your results or how you can be a game-changer.

Step 3 - Describe your mission

Remember that creating a powerful LinkedIn summary entails telling a story.

So after writing your hook, mention your career mission.

As a rule of thumb, sticking with the generic "What do I do?" may not be the wisest thing to say. So instead, tell your readers, "Why do I do what I do."

For example, Rox is telling you she’s saving hours of research and she’s going to be giving valuable tips. She has described the “what” and “why” in two short sentences.

By answering the "why" to the usual generic questions, you get to connect with your readers. You become more relatable.

Hiring managers will also see how well you can adapt to different corporate cultures.

Step 4 - State your experiences

Don't treat your LinkedIn summary as your entire autobiography. Doing this will only bore your readers to death.

Keep it short and sweet.

The key here is to create a sentence or two that would encapsulate your entire professional background. For example, for company pages, focus on your company's position in the industry.

If you have multiple roles and responsibilities, highlight your most current job. Otherwise, nothing outstanding will stick with your potential customers.

Step 5 - Write about your skills/products/services

Tell your readers your relevant skills and talents. They must be aligned with your target position, company, or industry.

But more than that, this part will likely contain the keywords that will rank your LinkedIn profile. You can personalize this by telling your readers how these skills helped you deliver results.

For company pages, discuss how your products and services are game-changers in the industry. Make them readable and engaging.

Step 6 - Mention your greatest accomplishment

Besides skills relevant to your job or services for your industry, you can also mention your achievements. But the key here is not to bombard your readers with all your accomplishments.

Instead, highlight the one that's most relevant to your job. You can also incorporate your skills and strengths here to show readers how you can help them.

Additionally, add some numbers, data, or statistics to your accomplishments. Doing this makes your achievements more concrete and realized.

Step 7 - Make a strong call to action

Finally, the last step in how to write a LinkedIn summary is writing a call to action. Here, encourage your readers to reach out to you.

You can add your contact information—contact number, website, and email address. With this part in your summary, you'll get more connections on LinkedIn.

Pro tips for your LinkedIn summary

Here are four tips to make your LinkedIn summary that much more effective.

Tip 1 - Use a conversational tone

The only way to stand out from competitors is to write your summary in the first person. It also has to sound like you're telling a story to a friend rather than a generic academic essay.

Instead, focus on creating an interesting About section. Stay away from the detailed and wordy work history. That won't grab your reader's attention at a glance.

Tip 2 - Write concisely

Professionals don't have the time to read long paragraphs.

Instead, they want a straight-to-the-point summary.

Bear in mind that most people skim, rather than read with detail. So you want short sentences with keywords that will stand out. Nothing too strenuous!