Here’s something I’ve come to believe after looking at thousands of LinkedIn profiles:
People aren’t weird enough.
Or — to be more precise — people refuse to admit they’re weird on LinkedIn. They show up in the most sanitized, professionally palatable version of themselves possible, and then wonder why nobody remembers them.
The headline is where this is most painful to watch.
You get 220 characters. TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY. And the average professional uses them to say something like “Senior Marketing Manager | Strategic Storyteller | Brand Builder | Open to Work.”
Cool. Very helpful. Thanks. Yawn.
That’s a headline LinkedIn’s AI might find. But no human is going to stop and click. Because there’s nothing there to click on. It’s a list of nouns wearing a blazer.
Add the weird fact
Here’s the move: at the end of your headline, add one specific, slightly weird, very human thing about yourself.
Not a tagline. Not a value statement. Not “passionate about driving results.” A FACT. Preferably one that makes someone pause for half a second and go “wait, what?”
A few real ones I’ve seen on actual client and connection profiles:
Trained Circus Aerialist. Imagine scrolling past a marketing director and the last thing in their headline is “Trained Circus Aerialist.” You stop. You have to. Your brain cannot file that away as “another marketing person.”
Proven Resilience (82 Days in the Wild). You read this and immediately want the story. Was it Survivor? A personal thing? Why 82? You can’t help yourself.
Expert Motivator (with Swear Words). This one was mine for a stretch and is going back up soon. People commented on it constantly. And then we’d get on a call and they’d start swearing like sailors. It was awesome. The headline gave them permission to drop the corporate voice. The ones who didn’t want to be on a call with someone who curses kept scrolling. The rest showed up ready to have a real conversation.
My Jokes Are Hilarious (According to Me). Got comments within minutes of the profile going live. Because it’s a tiny joke that lands in real time. You read it, you laugh, you’ve already engaged with this person before you’ve read a single line of their actual experience.
Loves 3-Legged Stools. Pure curiosity gap. Is it furniture? A metaphor? A framework? You don’t know. You have to find out.
Terrible Cook. Comes out of nowhere after a serious headline and makes me laugh every single time.
Every one of these works because it’s specific, true, and slightly off-protocol for a LinkedIn headline. They break the pattern.
Why your brain refuses to do this
Because you’ve been trained to think your LinkedIn headline is a job-search artifact. A subtitle on your professional documentary. Serious. Sanitized. Searchable.
So you write the kind of headline that makes you blend in with every other person doing your job. Literally.
Stepford wife, much?
And then you wonder why your profile views are flat. Why nobody’s reaching out. Why the recruiter who looked at your page for 12 seconds didn’t reach out for the role you’re objectively qualified for.
A few seconds. That’s what you get. If you’re lucky.
What’s going to make someone use those few seconds reading the rest of your profile? It’s not “Strategic Storyteller.” It’s the part of you that doesn’t fit on a corporate org chart.
What counts as “weird”
Anything specific. Anything true. Anything that gives me, as a stranger, something to file away.
The six above are good examples. The pattern: short, specific, and slightly unexpected. The parenthetical version (“according to me,” “with swear words,” “82 days in the wild”) is especially powerful because the aside does double duty. It gives you the fact AND the voice in one move.
What doesn’t work:
- “Passionate about innovation”
- “Lifelong learner”
- “Strategic visionary”
- “Coffee enthusiast” (this is the white bread of weird facts — everyone likes coffee)
The difference is specificity. “Lifelong learner” tells me nothing. “Weekend Fossil Hunter” tells me you have a personality.
The objection I always hear
“But Natalie, what does my hobby have to do with my professional role?”
That’s the wrong question.
The right question is: what is going to make a person remember me when they scroll past 40 profiles in a row that all look the same?
Your job title doesn’t differentiate you. Your years of experience don’t differentiate you. Your skills don’t differentiate you.
Half the people with your job have the same skills listed. Word for word.
The thing that differentiates you is the thing that’s you. The aerialist part. The 82-days part. The bad jokes. The weird affection for three-legged stools. The fact that you cannot cook.
You don’t have to lead with it. You don’t have to make it the whole headline. You just have to let one specific, true, slightly weird thing live in your headline so the human reading it has a reason to stay.
One more thing
Stop hiding behind your job title. Stop pretending you’re just like everyone else doing your work. The whole point of LinkedIn — the entire reason it works when it works — is the network effect of people finding people.
Be findable as a person.
(And if you don’t know what your weird fact is, ask someone who likes you. They’ll know immediately. Or steal my line and ask: what’s something few people know about you?)