Have you ever noticed what parts of a LinkedIn profile are visible on your feed, alongside their posts?
Profile Picture, Name, and Headline.
In this guide we’re going to walk you through how to write a compelling headline for your own LinkedIn profile. One that will set the right tone and make it clear what you’re looking for.
Your LinkedIn headline is always visible—in connection requests, comments, job applications, recommendations, and search results. It speaks for you even before your educational qualifications, work experience, summary section, and certifications.
What Is a LinkedIn Headline?
Simply put, a headline is a section of your LinkedIn profile that briefly describes your professional journey in 220 characters or less. In a poll conducted on LinkedIn, out of 1,189 people who voted, 46% of people had chosen ‘LinkedIn headline’ as the most significant part of a profile over the ‘About section’ and ‘Experience section’.
Fact: If you don't write a headline for your profile, LinkedIn will automatically use your job title and company name as a headline. This can be a real missed opportunity to showcase your personality and experience.
Why LinkedIn Headlines Can Be a Game-Changer for Your Career
Here are the reasons why you should take the time to write a custom headline on your LinkedIn profile.
1. To boost your search 🔍ranking
When someone searches on LinkedIn, the site checks your whole profile, including your headline, to see if you're a good match. Even though almost a billion people use LinkedIn, only 10 get on the first page of search results.
If your headline and the rest of your profile are well optimized, you'll show up at the top when people search for what you do. Recruiters use a LinkedIn Recruiter with lots of filters, so they can search by skills, jobs, and location. That's why having a headline that's good for that search functionality is super important.
2. To increase the chances of your connection request getting accepted
Suppose you receive two connection requests on LinkedIn with the following headlines:
"Certified frontend developer | Built 5 ReactJS web apps | 4-stars on CodeChef | Tech blogger"
"Student at X University | interested in computer science | actively looking for a job"
Whose request are you more likely to accept?
Of course, the first one. Right?
Although the first headline is not extraordinary (like Harvard graduate or Research Scientist at Google) it still stands out because it mentions the exact skills and interests of the person.
The conclusion is, that even if you don’t have exceptional achievements, you can still write a LinkedIn headline that can set you apart from the crowd. And this brings us to our third point.
3. To improve your profile’s first impression
Your LinkedIn headline also gives you an opportunity to be more personable. Giving people an indication of who you are, not just what you’ve done professionally.
Although your professional experience is key in landing a job, personality is also an important element that gets overlooked. Someone who comes across as being approachable in their profile can be a more appealing prospect to reach out to.
Now that you know why you should write a compelling LinkedIn headline on your profile, let's find out how you can write one that will make an everlasting impression on hiring managers and potential connections.
How To Write an Eye-Catching Linkedin Headline
Of course, there is no fixed formula for the perfect headline. However, here are some rules that you can follow while drafting a headline for your LinkedIn profile.
1. Use Our AI LinkedIn Headline Generator to Give You a Head Start
Careerflow’s AI LinkedIn Headline Generator quickly provides you with several strong headline options in seconds. As part of our premium toolkit, this tool can save you hours of research and rewriting. While you’ll want to add your personal touch, it’s an excellent starting point to help you refine your profile efficiently.
2. Research Research Research🕵️♀️.
Before you dive into the actual process of writing headlines, do your research.
- Check LinkedIn headlines of people who are working in the same industry as you to get inspiration and new ideas.
- If you are actively looking for a job, jot down all the job titles that you wish to get hired for. And use these titles in your headline (without feeling spammy).
- Find out the keywords that recruiters and hiring managers are using while searching for candidates in your industry. This will give you an edge over your competition.
Bonus Tip 🔉: Use job search websites like Indeed, Glassdoor, AngelList, and LinkedIn jobs to understand the employer's perspective. Also, check the keywords they are using while posting the job openings.
3. Include Your Current Role or Profession
Craft a compelling LinkedIn headline that instantly showcases your professional identity. Begin by clearly stating your current role or profession, ideally using your exact company title for optimal clarity with potential employers and colleagues.
This strategic inclusion boosts your visibility in job searches and unlocks richer networking opportunities.
4. Discuss Your Value Proposition
A good LinkedIn headline lies in the interaction of a person's skills, education, experience, and achievements. In short, it describes how much value you can add to a company. You can describe your experience, education, and achievements briefly in your headline.
Expertise: Mention your core skills as job titles.
Example: Web developer, content writer, business analyst, technical recruiter, software engineer, and so on.
Experience: Adding proof of industry experience to the headline enhances your credibility.
Example: SDE-2 at Amazon, Management Consultant at Deloitte, Product manager at Walmart.
Achievements: Highlight your achievements in the headline.
Example: Microsoft Fixathon 2.0 winner, Harvard WECode’22 winner, Generation Google Scholar’21.
Interests: You can use this part of your headline to share your side hustle or passion project.
Example: DSA instructor, Technical content writer, blogger, tutor, and club leader.
Final Result: Software Developer at Microsoft (SDE-2) | Gold Medalist- X University | Educator at CodeChef
As you see, the right combination of skills, work experiences, achievements, and interests can do wonders for your LinkedIn profile.
5. It should be the right balance of facts and creativity
We must strike a balance between "facts-only" headlines and "overly creative" headlines. It doesn’t matter how creative your headline is if it doesn’t appear in search results.
On the other hand, only including your title and professional achievements can come across as cold and uninviting.
6. Add any standout achievements
Supercharge your LinkedIn headline by showcasing a quantifiable achievement that demonstrates the real-world impact of your work. A concrete, measurable result is a powerful magnet for recruiters and employers, instantly validating your expertise and capturing their attention.
Think specific outcomes: "Elevated Customer Satisfaction Scores by 30%" or "Generated $1.5M in Revenue Growth in FY2024" are compelling examples.
7. Seek feedback
Gaining an objective perspective on your LinkedIn profile can be challenging. Ask for candid feedback from a diverse group of trusted colleagues—peers, managers, hiring professionals—across various levels and roles.
This view will provide invaluable insights, enabling you to refine your profile for maximum impact.
8. Put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes
Did you know that 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find skilled employees?
One search query from a hiring manager and recruiter results in thousands of profiles in their result feed. And they are most likely to click on a certain profile based on the headline. It’s part of your profile section that has the potential to grab a recruiter's attention.
Bonus tip🔉 : Join the FAANGPath discord server and connect with industry experts and people working in your industry to get feedback.
Try This LinkedIn Experiment.
Here are a few search recommendations that we suggest you try on your LinkedIn profile, along with the results we got at the time of writing this guide.
Keyword: Unemployed
Keyword: Open to work
As you can see there are plenty of people on LinkedIn who have added "unemployed" or "open to work" in their headlines.
Do you think employers are going to search for these keywords?
Absolutely not!
This brings us to the more important topic - “how you should not write a LinkedIn headline?”
Common Linkedin Headline Mistakes
1. Offensive language
It’s an obvious one but one we couldn’t leave out. Make sure that you don't end up saying something in your headline that can upset your potential employer.
2. Using too many titles
"Business Analyst | Digital Marketing Manager | Content creator | Educator"
Headlines like these can lead to confusion. Even if the recruiter wants to reach out to you for a particular role, he/she will not be able to find out your core competencies and interests.
Diluting your LinkedIn headline with an excessive list of titles weakens your credibility. Authentic expertise is rarely spread across numerous, disparate fields. Focus on showcasing your core strengths and areas of genuine accomplishment
3. Spelling and grammar mistakes
In today's digital age, there are countless free resources available to help you avoid grammatical errors and misspellings on your LinkedIn profile. Such basic mistakes can undermine your credibility more quickly than you might expect.
For instance, consider a C-suite executive with a profile full of typos – this creates a striking disconnect and leaves a poor first impression. It's essential to present yourself professionally, so take the time to refine and perfect your profile.
Bonus Tip 🔉: Use tools like Grammarly to write an error-free headline.
4. Keyword stuffing
While strategically incorporating relevant keywords into your LinkedIn headline is essential for discoverability, prioritize readability above all else. Stuffing your profile with keywords at the expense of clear, natural language creates a negative first impression.
Craft a compelling headline that resonates with human readers first, then subtly weave in keywords where they logically fit.
5. Saying "Looking for a Job"
Vague terms like "advertising" or "tech" are too broad. Instead of "looking for a dev job," try "Aspiring Backend Developer specializing in Python and Java." This shows direction, ambition, and specific skills. The more specific you are, the more likely you are to attract relevant opportunities.
While it's understandable to want to signal your availability, these vague "looking for a job" headlines actually hurt your chances. They come across as unmotivated and unfocused, giving the impression that you're just looking for any job, rather than pursuing a specific career path. Imagine a recruiter seeing hundreds of profiles with the same generic phrase – how will you stand out?
The key to a powerful LinkedIn headline is to showcase your value proposition. Focus on what you bring to the table, not what you're looking to get. Instead of "Looking for a job in advertising," consider something like "Marketing Professional | Content Strategist | Driving Brand Engagement." This immediately tells viewers your area of expertise and what you can do for an organization.
Even if you're actively seeking new opportunities, avoid explicitly stating it in your headline. LinkedIn offers a much more effective tool for this: the "Open to Work" feature. This discreetly signals your availability to recruiters without cluttering your profile with generic job search language.
6. Using empty, stereotypical phrases
Avoid tired, overused phrases like "hard worker" and "team player" that have lost all impact. Your LinkedIn headline has a limit of 220 characters – make use of all that space!. Instead of resorting to these meaningless clichés, use that valuable space to craft a compelling and memorable statement about your professional identity.
Bonus Tip 🔉: Avoid abbreviations and technical jargon. Often, the technical people you’ll work with won’t be the ones making the first round of decisions in the hiring process. It’s recruiters, hiring managers and/or HR that you have to appeal to first!
Examples of Some of the Best LinkedIn Headlines
Here are some great examples of LinkedIn headlines. Take inspiration from these and craft your own.
LinkedIn headlines of Careerflow's mentors
Some of the Best LinkedIn Headline Examples for Job-Seekers
Formula: Title at a current company or target job role | Specialization or key skills | Industry-related keywords | Accomplishments | Passion project or side hustle.
For tech background:
- "Software developer | MERN stack | System Design and Development | Passionate Teacher."
- "Software Design engineer | Software Architecture | JavaScript, Typescript, AngularJS | Facebook HackerCup (~8k rank)"
- "Technical Consulting engineer @X | Former cyber security intern @Y | CCNA | DevNet Associate"
- "Java backend engineer @X company | System design (HLD and LLD) | 500+ problems on DSA"
- "Technical Product Manager (TPM)| Agile Product management | Fintech | Digital banking | E-commerce"
- "Android developer | Kotlin and Java | worked on 10+ Android apps | 100+ blog posts on example.com"
Examples of the Best LinkedIn Headlines for Students
Formula: Aspiring or certified "title name" or seeking "target role" | Skill set | Achievements.
Of course, this formula is designed to give you a solid base to work from. From there, go ahead and experiment with it to make it your unique LinkedIn headline.
- "Seeking Backend developer role | Node.js, MySQL | Finalist at American Express Codestreet '20 Hackathon."
- "Frontend developer intern at X company| Google Scholar | AWS Student Cloud Ambassador"
- “FreeCodeCamp certified backend developer | Coding- C++ and Java | Coding Mentor at ‘college name’ "
- "Summer intern at Amazon | Competitive coder | 5 ⭐ @Codechef | DSA instructor"
- "Ex-intern @Amazon | Advance certification in Cloud Computing and DevOps | Teaching Assistant @X"
- "SDE intern @Uber | Competitive Programmers | DSA mentor | Ex Android developer intern at @X"
- "Frontend Developer- React.js, Next.js, Bootstrap | GSoC'22 @INCF | 3 ⭐ @Codechef"
How To Update a LinkedIn Headline
Here are a few simple steps you can follow to update your LinkedIn headline;
Step 1: Open your LinkedIn profile.
Step 2: Click the pencil-like “edit” icon.
Step 3: Scroll down through the “edit-intro” page. Find the “headline” field and write your original headline.
Step 4: Click the "Save" button, and a "Save was successful" message will appear.
Bonus tip 🔉: In case you are facing any issues updating your headline, check LinkedIn's official guide.
Finally, you are done updating your headline!
But now what?
It is time to check if your profile headline is doing the right thing for you or not.
Check if Your LinkedIn Headline is Boosting Your Visibility on the Platform
A well-written LinkedIn headline is a simple yet effective way of increasing your visibility on the platform. A notable indicator of a successful LinkedIn headline is the number of search results your profile appears in each week.
But how can you determine whether recruiters can see your profile in search results?
The answer is LinkedIn's weekly search report. Using these LinkedIn statistics, you can find out
- How often your profile appeared in search results last week
- The main keywords you showed up for
- What brands those searches came from
- The job titles of the people searching for you
Experimenting and then evolving according to requirements is the most effective strategy. You may not get it right in one go but at the end of the loop, you will end up with a powerful headline for your LinkedIn profile.
Conclusion
In simple words, your LinkedIn headline forms the majority of your profile’s first impression. It’s your chance to convince employers to go through your entire profile and see if you’re the ideal candidate for their company.
Crafting an impactful headline can be a tiring process, but the long-term benefits of a strong one far outweigh the initial tiresome process.
Some key takeaways before you start working on your own headline::
- Use the 220 characters of LinkedIn headlines wisely to convey your professional journey.
- Read before you write. Explore options, search for people who are working in the same domain as you, and find out - who recruiters are searching for.
- Write for humans rather than the search algorithm, making sure your spelling and grammar are in check.
- Make use of our AI Linked Headline Generator to help you nail it without as much of the time investment.
Good luck 👍!
