The LinkedIn rebuild

Why your LinkedIn is broken

I've audited maybe a hundred LinkedIn profiles for friends going through redundancy. Around ninety of them had the same three problems. Headline that's a job title. About section that reads like a third-person bio written by a marketing agency. No featured content. Activity feed full of "I'm humbled to announce" posts from 2019.

If your LinkedIn is set up like that, it's working against you. Recruiters search by keywords and skim by signals. A title-only headline tells them what you used to be. It doesn't tell them what you can do.

The mental model

LinkedIn is a search engine and a credibility check, in that order.

The search engine part: recruiters type in skills, locations, seniority levels, industries. If your profile doesn't match the words they type, you don't appear in the result list. Doesn't matter how good you are. You aren't on the page.

The credibility check part: once you're in the result list, the recruiter clicks through and decides in about ten seconds whether to add you to the shortlist. They are scanning for signals, not reading paragraphs.

Build for both jobs.

The headline

This is the most under-used real estate on the platform. It shows up in search results, in DMs, in comments, everywhere. Most people fill it with their current job title. Wasted.

A working pattern:

[What you do for whom] | [Specific edge] | [Outcome]

Examples that work:

• "Helping mid-market retailers ship faster on Salesforce | 12+ years, ex-Accenture | Most recently led the AU practice at [X]"
• "CFO for scale-ups | Series B to acquisition | $40m to $200m revenue, 3 exits"
• "Engineering leader (50-300 person teams) | Marketplace and fintech | Sydney/remote"

Notice what these don't say: "highly motivated", "results-driven", "thought leader". Those are filler. Recruiters skim past them.

The About section

First person. Specific. Three to five short paragraphs. No corporate-speak.

Open with a single sentence about what you do and who you do it for. Then a paragraph on the kind of work you've done (named companies, named outcomes, real numbers). Then a paragraph on what you're looking for next (be specific about role, company stage, location).

Close with a contact line. Email, mobile if you're game, or "DMs open".

The version I've used:

I help Salesforce customers actually ship the AI features they bought.

Background: 14 years across consulting and partner-side delivery, most recently leading a 30-person team at [company]. Verticals: financial services, professional services, retail. I've shipped Einstein and Agentforce work end-to-end, including the unsexy bits (data model, governance, change management).

What I'm looking for: senior practice or director-level role at a Salesforce partner or end-customer in Australia. Open to permanent or contract. Sydney-based, willing to travel.

If that lines up, my email is in the contact section. DMs open.

That's it. No filler.

The Experience section

The temptation is to copy your CV bullet points. Don't. Your CV is for the hiring manager after they've already decided to interview you. Your LinkedIn experience section is for the recruiter doing the first scan.

Per role:

• One sentence on the company (size, what they do) if it's not obvious
• Two to four bullet points on what you actually delivered
• Each bullet should have a number in it (revenue, headcount, percentage, time, count)

Skip the early-career roles or compress them. Anyone scrolling past 2010 is just there to see if you were CEO of Microsoft.

Skills, endorsements, recommendations

Skills: pin the three to five that recruiters actually search for. Drop the random ones from 2014 ("Microsoft Office", "Teamwork").

Endorsements: nice to have, not load-bearing. Don't chase them.

Recommendations: get three. From a former boss, a peer, a direct report. Specific ones, not "great to work with" ones. Ask people directly: "Would you write me a short recommendation focusing on [the specific thing they saw you do]?"

Activity and content

This is the bit most over-40s skip. It's the bit that compounds.

Once a week, post something. Not a humble-brag, not an inspirational quote, not a re-share of someone else's article. A short observation from your actual work. Two to four hundred words, conversational, specific.

The aim isn't virality. The aim is that when a recruiter or hiring manager checks your activity tab, they see a steady drip of substance from someone who clearly knows the patch. Three months of that is worth more than a perfect About section.

The Open To Work badge

Controversial. The green ring around the photo broadcasts to everyone that you're looking. Some recruiters love it (easy filter). Some hiring managers read it as desperate (rightly or wrongly).

The compromise: turn on "Recruiters only" in the Open To Work settings. Visible to recruiters who run paid searches, invisible to your network. Best of both.

The announcement post

If you want to write the "I've been made redundant, here's what I'm looking for" post, wait two weeks minimum. Write it when the shake is gone from your hands. Make it specific (role, location, salary band, timeline). Tag nobody. Pin it to your profile.

The good versions of this post get traction because they're useful to read. The bad ones are veiled grief disguised as a job ask. Wait until you can write the useful version.

What to remove

Things that age you or distract:

• The 2003 graduation year (leave the degree, drop the date)
• "Open to opportunities" in the headline (use the badge instead)
• Job titles older than 15 years in any detail
• The third-person bio
• "Strongly motivated by" anywhere
• Stock-photo banner (use a clean, brand-aligned banner or the default)

How long this takes

A proper LinkedIn rebuild is a half-day job done well. Not a weekend project. Block four hours, write the headline and About first, then work backwards through experience. Don't try to ship it perfect. Ship it good, then refine over the next month based on which recruiters reach out and what they cite.

Make it specific. Make it scannable. Make it yours.