Write your About section in first person, front-load the first three lines — that's all that shows before 'see more' — and structure it as: who you are professionally, the two or three things you're best at with evidence, and what you're looking for. Keep every claim consistent with your resume; recruiters read both and mismatches read as embellishment.
LinkedIn truncates the About section after roughly three lines behind a "see more" link, and most readers never click it. Whatever matters most must live in those first lines: your professional identity and your strongest claim. "I've spent six years turning messy operational data into decisions — most recently building the reporting layer a 200-person logistics company runs on" earns the click. "Results-driven professional with a passion for excellence" ends the read.
Write like you'd introduce yourself to a smart colleague, in first person. Third-person self-description reads as odd on a personal profile, and buzzword strings read as evasion. Plain, specific, confident.
Four short paragraphs. One: identity and hook — what you do and the single most impressive true thing about your work. Two: your two or three core strengths, each with a concrete example or number attached, drawn from the same achievements your resume leads with. Three: texture — the kind of problems you enjoy, the environments you do your best work in. Four: what you're looking for and how to reach you.
Recruiters also search About-section text, so the keywords for your target role belong here naturally — the tools, methods, and domain terms a recruiter would type. Weave them into real sentences; a bare keyword dump in the About section convinces the index and repels the human.
A recruiter who likes your profile requests your resume next, and reads them side by side. Different titles for the same job, numbers that don't match, or a claimed specialty the resume doesn't evidence — each one plants doubt, and doubt is the cheapest reason to pass on a candidate with plenty of alternatives.
The two documents should differ in voice, not facts: LinkedIn is first-person and slightly warmer; the resume is compressed and formal. Same jobs, same dates, same numbers, same story. When you update one, update the other in the same sitting — drift between them is how honest people end up looking dishonest.
First person. It's your own profile; third person reads as though a publicist wrote it. First person also makes specific claims feel owned — 'I built' carries more weight than a detached description of what some professional somewhere accomplished.
Three or four short paragraphs is plenty. The first three lines do most of the work since everything after sits behind 'see more.' Long enough to evidence your two or three core strengths, short enough that a clicking reader finishes it.
It can add warmth, motivation, and texture — but no new facts. Titles, dates, numbers, and claimed skills must match the resume, because recruiters read both together and treat any factual drift as embellishment. Voice differs; the record shouldn't.
Write the About section from your resume's strongest bullets — and if those bullets aren't strong yet, run the resume through the free scorer first.
