Writing A LinkedIn Headline: Make A Better Effort Than ‘Looking For A Challenge’

It doesn’t say anything

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

This might be a rant.

Too often I come across profiles with a headline stating ‘Looking for a new challenge’ or ‘Starter looking for a new challenge’ or something in this direction. The problem is that this is too vague and doesn’t say anything at all👻. If I were a recruiter, I’d be scanning profiles, looking for a candidate which matches the function I need to fill, without having to wonder, ‘hmm, what does this person actually do? No idea, next.’🤷🏻‍♀️

I certainly wouldn’t want to waste my time digging into your profile to put the pieces of the puzzle together myself.

Let’s avoid this.

You’re a starter in what? You’re looking for a challenge in what?❌ Be specific. Tell me what skills you have. If you don’t have skills, tell me what drives you and what you like to learn about. What have you been good at? What can you do? If you’re not good at things, what do you want to get good at? Sometimes we change direction in our professional lives and start from the bottom. This is fine. But: vocalise your desires. Otherwise, no one will know about them.

Tell me what value you plan to add🏆. Give me some intel about YOU🍿.

If I were a recruiter, I would be interested in your character too. How gritty are you? Will you push through if we get you hired, even though you lack specific skills? I wouldn’t mind you lacking skills, but I’d want you, my young grasshopper, to be eager to learn. Be hungry, like a lion🦁.

If that’s the thing, then practice. Until you found clarity: what do you do and for who?

Entice me to click on your profile. Seduce me. ‘Starter looking for a new challenge’ says nothing more than ‘I didn’t take the effort to be creative and/or properly think about how I want to sell myself on this platform’. My eyes start to ache when I read that🙈. I don’t have the perfect headline either, but make it about you. What can you offer? Or is it just about any job that you want? If that is your aim, then this headline would be sufficient.

If you lack space to write in the headline, you will have the summary section to elaborate. Tailor it to what you want to get out of the platform, whether this is building a network, finding a new job, or helping others out🧑🏾‍🤝‍🧑🏻.

I am not a recruiter, this is just my personal opinion. What do recruiters think?

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