Career

How to Write LinkedIn About Section with AI

Craft a compelling LinkedIn About section that tells your professional story and gets you noticed by the right people.

The LinkedIn About section is one of the most read yet worst written sections of most professionals' profiles. AI can help you write a first-person narrative that opens with a hook, communicates your unique professional value, tells a coherent career story, and closes with a clear invitation for the connections you actually want.

Why most LinkedIn About sections are invisible

LinkedIn's About section is capped at 2,600 characters, but most readers decide whether to expand it within the first 200 — the portion visible before the 'see more' cut-off. Most professionals fill that space with their job title ('Experienced Marketing Professional with 10+ years'), a summary of their resume ('I have worked at companies including...'), or mission-speak ('I am passionate about driving growth'). None of these give a reader a reason to continue. The About section is competing with dozens of other profiles in the same 30-second scan. The ones that generate profile visits and connection requests open with something concrete — a result, a specific challenge they solve, or a counterintuitive perspective on their field — not a statement of experience that the experience section already covers.

The structure of a section that gets responses

An About section that consistently generates recruiter reaches and inbound connection requests follows a rough structure: hook (first 200 characters that earn the 'see more' click), value statement (what you specifically do or solve and for whom), career narrative (how you got here in 2 to 3 sentences that make the trajectory legible), proof point (one specific achievement with a result), and CTA (a single sentence naming the conversations you are open to — roles, collaborations, speaking, consulting). The total runs 200 to 300 words. The CTA is consistently under-used: most profiles leave readers with no signal about what to do next, which means curious readers bounce rather than message. Even 'Open to senior product leadership roles in climate tech — feel free to connect' doubles inbound messages from relevant parties.

How AI finds your narrative hook

The hardest part of writing your own About section is identifying what is interesting about your background to someone who does not already know you. This is precisely where AI is useful. Paste a detailed description of your career — roles, transitions, side projects, the work you find genuinely energizing — and ask: 'What makes this professional journey unusual? What would someone in my field find surprising or interesting about how I got here?' AI consistently identifies angles that the person themselves is too close to see: the career pivot that required an unusual skill set, the combination of domains that is rare, the early-career experience that explains everything since. That identified hook becomes the opening line of a section that finally earns the 'see more' click.

Step-by-step guide

Define your professional identity

Describe your current role, career path, core expertise, and the type of opportunities you are seeking.

Identify your unique angle

Ask AI what makes your background unusual or valuable based on your experience to find the narrative hook.

Draft in first person

Ask for a conversational first-person draft under 300 words that reads like a human wrote it, not a CV.

Close with a clear CTA

End with a specific sentence about what kind of conversations you are open to: hiring, partnerships, speaking, etc.

Ready-to-use prompts

Full About section from career summary

Act as a LinkedIn profile copywriter. Write a LinkedIn About section for [NAME], a [CURRENT ROLE] at [COMPANY TYPE]. Career background: [DESCRIBE CAREER PATH IN 3-4 SENTENCES]. Signature achievement: [ONE SPECIFIC RESULT WITH METRIC]. What makes their background unusual or the combination of skills rare: [UNIQUE ANGLE]. Open to: [TYPES OF CONVERSATIONS — ROLES, COLLABORATIONS, ETC.]. Constraints: under 280 words, first person, no phrases like 'results-driven', 'passionate about', or 'strategic leader', open with a hook that earns the 'see more' click, end with a specific CTA. Tone: [PROFESSIONAL/CONVERSATIONAL/ACADEMIC — PICK ONE].

Why it works

Forcing the 'unusual angle' input before writing produces a hook that is specific to this person's actual story — not a generic opener that reads like every other profile in the same field.

Identify the hook from raw career notes

I want to write my LinkedIn About section but I do not know what angle to lead with. Here is my raw career history: [PASTE CAREER NOTES — ROLES, TRANSITIONS, SIDE PROJECTS, WHAT YOU FIND INTERESTING ABOUT YOUR WORK]. Read this and answer: (1) What is the most unusual or surprising thing about how this career has developed? (2) What is the combination of skills or experiences that would be rare in my field? (3) What would a recruiter or peer in my field find most interesting to read about me? Then write 3 possible opening lines for my About section, each leading with a different angle you identified.

Why it works

Asking the model to identify the narrative angle before writing externalises the hardest part of the task — seeing your own story as an outsider would — and gives you three tested hooks to choose from.

Practical tips

✦The first 200 characters must earn the 'see more' click — test your opening on someone who does not know you and ask if they would click to read more.
✦Include one specific, quantified achievement in the body — a single number ('grew the team from 4 to 19', 'reduced churn by 34%') provides more credibility than two paragraphs of description.
✦Name the types of conversations you want explicitly in the last line — 'Open to senior IC engineering roles at climate-tech companies' generates more relevant messages than leaving readers to guess.
✦Write the section once, then ask AI to produce a version that is 20% shorter — the compressed version often reveals which sentences were actually essential and which were filler.
✦Update your About section every time your professional goals shift, not just when you change jobs — a section targeting roles you no longer want actively repels the conversations you do want.