Controversial opinion: nobody reads your About section first.
Which is ironic, given that it’s at the top of your profile.
And it’s also ironic, given how much we all tend to lament over it.
(No shade! I promise I’ve spent more hours writing mine than you have yours. Those are hours I will never get back. Heavy sigh.)
What do people do instead?
They scan your banner. They read your headline. They skim your Experience. They check your Featured section. Sometimes, they’ll even read your Recommendations first.
And THEN — if you’ve done your job everywhere else — they go back and read your About section.
Why nobody reads your LinkedIn About section first
Quite simply: no one has time to read your boring, third-person dissertation on…you.
First of all, we know it’s you. It’s YOUR profile. Cut the ish with the third person. It’s weird, and not in a good way.
And second, that means the rest of your profile will do the heavy lifting before someone gets to your About section.
It’s why I call it your closing argument.
Your LinkedIn About section is a closing argument, not an introduction
By the time someone finally gets around to reading your About section, they’ve already checked out quite a bit of your profile. Which means they’ve already formed an opinion.
Your About section is where you confirm it. Or change it.
That’s the whole problem with writing it like an introduction. You’re introducing yourself to someone who already decided what they think of you four sections ago.
(Awkward.)
It’s not your resume summary. Not a long list of every award you’ve received. Not your “here’s how to book a call with me” section.
Your CLOSING argument.
What should your LinkedIn About section actually say?
Most people write it like a cover letter. Or a bio. Or they trail off mid-thought like they got a phone call and never came back.
(I’ve seen this more times than I can count. The profile equivalent of a sentence that just—)
This is the one place on your entire profile where you get to connect the dots. Where you make your Red Thread obvious. (The through-line connecting where you’ve been to where you’re going. You have one. I promise.) Where you say — in actual human language — here’s what makes me different, here’s what I’ve done, here’s why you’d be out of your mind not to reach out.
(Speaking of which: you’d be out of your mind not to reach out to ME. But I digress.)
In your Experience section, you’ve outlined the tasks and accomplishments of your last job. But you know what you couldn’t add there? That you’re the go-to person your company sent anytime they needed someone to diplomatically solve an issue with a client.
THAT gets added to your About section. Because that’s part of both your Red Thread and what makes you different than your peers.
Here’s the test. Your About section should make the right person stop and think: “This is exactly who I’ve been looking for.”
The right person. The one you actually want.
What to avoid in your LinkedIn About section
The list is long, but I’ll share a few of my least favorite pet peeves.
- Adding a link. It’s literally one of the few sections on your profile that doesn’t give you media, and I promise you that no one is doing a copy-paste of your link. Add that link to your Featured section. Or the media of your Experience entry, if you own a business.
- Starting anything with your job title. Anytime I see “As a small business Marketing Coordinator, I blah blah blah,” my eyes roll up so hard that I see my gray matter. Yes, we know you’re a marketing coordinator. It’s in your headline, suggested in your banner, and your experience entries. Wait…what kind of coordinator are you?
- Treating it like a resume. Your Experience entry has this covered. Just…don’t.
How do you write an About section that closes?
Understand your audience and talk to them. Lead with the human, not the job title. Make the Red Thread obvious. Cut anything that sounds like a cover letter. End on the line that makes the right person lean in.
One entrepreneur I know used it to write a “letter” to her ideal client, and she used the language and cadence that resonated with them.
Another used that section to talk about the most common pain points of their ideal client and how their company solves them.
A recent grad told a funny story about how explosions in the back yard resulted in his approach to problem solving, and ended with the assurance that he was now certified in safety protocols. Which was really helpful because the job he got required safety certification.
An executive-level career professional used it to identify the top three things that make him stand out from his peers (like the problem-solver example above).
What each of these does is keep their audience in mind and engage them where they need to be engaged. Their About sections CLOSED their deals, whether that was finding new clients or finding a job. Everything else on your profile gets them to where they want to read your About section.
One last hint: write your About section last
I always tell my clients to start from the bottom of their profile and work their way up. I mean that literally. This means their About section is one of the LAST sections to get done.
So before you spend an embarrassing number of hours trying to craft your About section, work on the rest of your profile. When you find your Red Thread and your differentiators, writing your About section will be so much easier.