LinkedIn About Section: How to Write One That Opens Doors

Most LinkedIn About sections read like a job description. Third person. Passive voice. A list of traits like "results-driven professional with 10+ years of experience" that describe half the people on the platform.

The visitor reads the first two lines. Then leaves.

The problem isn't that your background is unimpressive. It's that your About section doesn't make anyone want to keep reading. Here's how to write one that does, plus five copy-paste templates so you don't have to start from a blank page.

What Is the LinkedIn About Section?

The About section is a 2,600-character text block on your LinkedIn profile, sitting below your headline and featured section. It's the most visited part of your profile after your name and headline, and the only place where you tell your professional story in full sentences instead of bullet points.

The catch: LinkedIn only shows the first ~220 characters before cutting off with a "...see more" link. Which means your first two lines carry all the weight.

Recruiters, potential clients, collaborators: they read your About section before they reach out. If it doesn't hold their attention past the first sentence, they're gone.

What to Include in Your LinkedIn About Section

A strong About section answers four questions in sequence.

Who do you help, or what do you actually do?
Open with context, not credentials. Not "I am a senior marketing manager" but "I help SaaS companies turn cold outreach into warm pipeline." One sentence that tells the reader exactly where you fit in their world.

What's your professional background?
The short version. Two or three sentences covering what you've done and for whom. Not a timeline, but a thread that explains how you arrived where you are. See our guide on building a cohesive professional narrative.

What's your proof?
One or two wins with specific numbers. "Grew LinkedIn follower count from 800 to 14K in 18 months" lands harder than "passionate about brand building." Specificity is credibility.

What should they do next?
A clear call-to-action at the end. Connect with you. Email you. Visit your website. Follow you. Pick one, and make it easy to act on. If you genuinely serve two different audiences, you can include two separate CTAs, like AuthoredUp co-founder Ivana Todorović does: ending her About section with "Want to chat?" for general conversations and "Want to try AuthoredUp?" for potential users, each pointing to a different action without competing with the other.

What to leave out:

Skills lists that belong in the Skills section
Third-person writing ("John is a thought leader who...")
Buzzwords that tell the reader nothing ("passionate," "innovative," "results-driven")
Your full work history (that's what the Experience section is for)

How Long Should Your LinkedIn About Section Be?

The character limit is 2,600. That doesn't mean use all of it.

The sweet spot is 200–400 words, long enough to build credibility and include a CTA, short enough that someone on mobile doesn't give up halfway through.

What matters most is the first two lines. On desktop, that's roughly the first 200–220 characters visible before "see more." On mobile, even less.

Write your first sentence like it needs to stand alone. Because sometimes, it does.

How to Format Your LinkedIn About Section

LinkedIn's editor doesn't support rich text in the About section. No bold button. No bullets. What you type is what you get, unless you use a workaround.

Line breaks: Press Enter twice between paragraphs. This single change turns a wall of text into something readable. Free and takes thirty seconds.

Bold and italic text: LinkedIn doesn't natively support bold in the About section, but Unicode bold characters render correctly everywhere: desktop, mobile, app. Copy-paste them directly into LinkedIn and they display as bold. The easiest way: use AuthoredUp's free LinkedIn text formatter, type your text, select Bold, copy, paste into your About section.

Emojis: Used sparingly, they work as visual anchors, a small symbol before a key line to break up the text. Used heavily, they look like spam. One or two max.

White space: The most underused formatting tool on LinkedIn. Blank lines between short paragraphs are the difference between a profile people read and one they skim past.

Section headers: If your About section is long (400+ words), consider using short all-caps headers to break it into named sections (WHO I AM, WHAT I DO, WHY WORK WITH ME, THE RESULT). LinkedIn expert Richard van der Blom uses this approach to make a dense, detailed About section instantly scannable. It's a technique that works precisely because almost nobody else uses it.

unfomated-vs-formatted-linkedin-about-section

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How to Add Bold Text in Your LinkedIn About Section

LinkedIn's native editor has no bold button, not for the About section, headline, or experience descriptions. The workaround is Unicode bold characters: a parallel character set that looks identical to standard text but renders bold in any browser or app.

Step-by-step with AuthoredUp's text formatter:

Go to the free LinkedIn text formatter
Type or paste the text you want bolded
Select the Bold style
Copy the output
Paste directly into your LinkedIn About section field

The formatting stays when you save. Looks native on every device. The same technique works in your headline and experience descriptions, anywhere LinkedIn accepts plain text. The same approach works for post formatting too.

Try It: Write and Preview Your LinkedIn About Section

Before you paste your About section into LinkedIn, use AuthoredUp's free About Me Writer to draft and preview it, including how it looks on both desktop and mobile, and how it's formatted before you copy it in.

LinkedIn About Section Templates

Five templates, one for each major profile type. Replace the bracketed sections with your specifics. These are starting points, not scripts.

Template 1: Job seeker

I'm a [job title] with [X years] in [industry], specializing in [2–3 core skills].
Most recently at [Company], I [specific achievement with a number]. Before that, [one-line previous role context that shows trajectory].
What I'm looking for: [type of role, industry, or company stage], ideally somewhere [one cultural or mission-fit detail].
Open to [full-time / contract / remote]. Best way to reach me: [email or "DM me here"].

Template 2: Freelancer / consultant

I help [specific client type] with [specific problem or outcome].
In [X years] of [work type], I've worked with [range of clients]. My focus is [specific service or methodology].
Recent work: [one-line project or result 1]. [One-line project or result 2].
If you're dealing with [problem], let's talk. [CTA: email, booking link, or DM].

Template 3: Founder / entrepreneur

I started [Company] because [the problem it solves, stated simply].
We [what the company does] for [customer type]. [One result or traction metric].
Before this: [one-line background, what gave you the credibility to build it].
Building in public here on LinkedIn. If you're working on [adjacent space], follow along.

Template 4: Corporate professional

[Job title] at [Company]. My work centers on [2–3 specific outcomes, not job duties].
[One accomplishment with a number, framed as a story rather than a bullet point.]
Outside the job title: [one dimension that makes you human, a community, a topic you write about, a problem you're obsessed with].
Open to conversations about [topic area]. [Email or connect CTA].

Template 5: Career changer

For [X years], I worked in [previous field]. I built [a specific skill set or outcome].
Then [what changed: a project, a moment, a realization].
For the past [X months/years], I've been [what you've done to bridge the gap: courses, projects, freelance work].
Now I'm looking for [new direction] where I can bring [what's transferable]. My background in [previous field] is an asset here because [specific reason, don't leave this vague].
If you're in this space, I'd like to connect.

LinkedIn About Section Examples

Three real profiles. Three different approaches. All worth studying.

Example 1: Marvin Sanginés, the transformation opener

Marvin runs notus, a personal branding agency that works with founders and executives across DACH and the US. His About section opens with a single line, "Turn your story into your competitive advantage," that speaks directly to the outcome the reader wants, before saying a word about what he actually does or where he's based.

The bullet-pointed offer (build an audience, save time, attract talent, make more sales) makes his value immediately scannable. Instead of writing a paragraph describing his services, he formats the outcomes as a short list, which takes five seconds to read and stays in your memory longer than a block of text would.

Example 2: Richard van der Blom, the structured authority

Richard's About section is one of the longest you'll see on LinkedIn. It works because of structure, not despite length. He uses clear all-caps headers (WHO I AM, WHY WORK WITH ME, WHAT I OFFER, THE RESULT) that turn a 500+ word About section into something you can scan in ten seconds and read in depth if you're genuinely interested.

The opener leads with three questions that mirror the reader's exact frustration ("Spending hours on LinkedIn but not seeing clients? Your content getting lost in the algorithm?") before he says anything about himself. That's a deliberate choice: it signals he understands your problem before he offers the solution.

Example 3: Ivana Todorović, the honest founder story

Ivana is the co-founder of AuthoredUp. Her About section opens with "Not your typical startup story 🚀" which works precisely because it doesn't follow the usual founder playbook of listing milestones and press mentions. What follows is a genuinely honest account of bootstrapping: 10,000 hours before seeing a dime, adopting a no-cookie policy despite being called "insane," and stumbling into building AuthoredUp by accident while trying to launch something else entirely.

Two things stand out structurally. She uses a "---" divider to signal a shift in tone between the company story and her personal background, a simple formatting trick that prevents a long About section from feeling like one continuous wall of text. And she ends with two separate CTAs ("Want to chat?" and "Want to try AuthoredUp?") that serve two different reader intentions without competing with each other.

LinkedIn About Section Mistakes to Avoid

Starting with "I am a..."
The most common opener on LinkedIn, which makes it the fastest way to be forgettable. Lead with what you do for others, or what makes your path unusual. LinkedIn already shows your job title above the About section.

Listing job duties instead of outcomes
"Responsible for managing a team of 12 and overseeing quarterly reporting" describes a job posting. "Turned a team of 12 into the highest-retention unit in the region for three years running" describes a result. Always prefer the latter.

No call-to-action
Your About section should end with a direction. Not every visitor will act, but if you don't tell them what to do, none will. One specific CTA beats three vague ones.

No formatting
A single block of text sends people to the back button. Line breaks and white space are free. Use the text formatter for bold text; press Enter twice for spacing. Two minutes of formatting work.

Buzzword overload
"Results-driven, passionate, innovative thought leader" tells the reader nothing. A specific claim with a number tells them everything. Pick specificity over adjectives.

Third-person writing
"Sarah is a seasoned professional who..." reads like a speaker bio. LinkedIn is a first-person platform. Write as yourself.

Outdated information
If your About section still mentions a previous company or a service you no longer offer, fix it now. It signals inattention. Set a reminder to review it every six to twelve months.

How to Update Your LinkedIn About Section

On desktop: Go to your profile, click the pencil icon next to About (or "Add about" if blank), edit, save.

On mobile: Tap your profile photo, scroll to About, tap the pencil icon.

Once you have your text ready, run it through AuthoredUp's free text formatter to add bold text and clean spacing, then paste directly into LinkedIn. One pass, ready to publish.

Optimize Your Full LinkedIn Profile

The About section is one piece of a larger profile. Once yours is solid, the next highest-impact areas are your headline and your featured section.