What do I put in the About section on LinkedIn?

Your About section is not about you. The About section is where a buyer goes once your headline has made them curious, and they arrive with one question: what does this person do for people like me?

I say this on sales calls when we look at someone's profile together. You've spent twenty years earning a reputation. Surely the About section is where you get to tell the story? You do get to tell it. Just not first, and not most of it. Your two cats and your weekend cycling can wait. First the buyer needs to know they're in the right place, and that job starts with a headline that attracts clients.

Why does your About section read like a CV?

Because it was written for a different reader. A lot of About sections were drafted years ago for recruiters, or copied from a speaker bio, or written by a colleague in the third person. "A results-driven leader with over two decades of experience across multiple sectors." Every word is true and none of it helps a buyer decide anything.

I learned how much a profile does from a client with 26,000 followers. He pitched for a large contract. The buyers looked at his LinkedIn profile and said, "You've got the deal." He fell off his chair. Now flip it. If buyers make up their minds on your profile before you say a word, a weak one costs you work you never even hear about. Nobody phones to say they read your CV-style About section and went elsewhere. That's the lesson I keep coming back to: the profile pre-sells you before the first conversation, or it sells against you without a sound.

And the reader has less patience than ever. The Noise Machine, the bots, the spam DMs and the people selling impressions, has trained every buyer to scan a stranger's profile looking for a reason to say no. An About section that opens with your career history gives them one in the first line.

What should you put in a LinkedIn About section?

Put five things in the About section, in this order: your buyer's problem, who you help and who you don't, proof, how you work, and one next step. Roughly three quarters is about them and a quarter is about you. The About section is the free-text summary on your profile, with room for 2,600 characters, according to Contentin.

1. Their problem, in the first two lines. Only the first two or three lines show before the "see more" link, according to Contentin's guide to the About section (checked October 2026). So those lines carry the whole section. Name the buyer's symptom the way they'd say it to a friend.
2. Who you help, and who you don't. Name the buyer so they recognise themselves. A line that disqualifies makes the right person feel picked. "If you're happy with a pipeline that runs on referrals alone, this isn't for you."
3. Proof. One client story with a number in it beats a list of logos. Blue-chip names help if you're allowed to use them.
4. How you work, and a little about you. One or two sentences on what you do and how it feels on the other side. This is where your method's name can live, once the reader cares, and where your story, your background and even the cats get a line or two, because people buy from people.
5. One next step. One. A newsletter, a message, a scorecard. Three links and two invitations is a menu, and menus make people leave.

At a “braai” (barbecue), when someone asks what you do, you don't recite your CV. You say who you help and what changes for them, then you ask about their week. Write yours the same way.

You don't need a long About section. Clear and short wins. Plain sentences in your buyer's words are also what AI assistants have to work with when someone asks them for an adviser like you, which I cover in how AI assistants read your profile.

What does a good LinkedIn About section look like next to a bad one?

A good About section talks to the buyer about their problem until the last line and ends with one step. A bad one opens on job titles and years served, and ends with a menu of links. Here is a made-up operations consultant, written both ways. She isn't a real client, and Brightline isn't a real firm.

Same person. Same facts. The good version is about the reader until the last line, and it ends with one thing to do.

How long should a LinkedIn About section be?

A LinkedIn About section can hold up to 2,600 characters, according to Contentin, but you don't have to use them all. Somewhere between 150 and 300 words is plenty for a business owner: long enough for the problem, the proof and one next step, short enough that a busy buyer reads to the end.

The first two or three lines matter more than the length. That's all LinkedIn shows before the see more link, so a reader decides on those lines whether to open the rest. Write them first, then write only as much underneath as it takes to answer the buyer's next question. If a paragraph doesn't help them decide, it goes.

A quick test. Paste your draft into a document and look at the word count. If it's over 400 words, you're probably telling your career story. If it's under 80, you've probably skipped the proof.

Should you write your LinkedIn About in the first person?

Yes. Write your LinkedIn About in the first person, the way you'd talk to a buyer across a table. "I help owners of family manufacturing firms find the margin they're losing" reads like a person. "Jane is a results-driven consultant" reads like a press release somebody else wrote about you.

Third person feels safer because it sounds official. It also puts a pane of glass between you and the reader. On LinkedIn, people connect with people, and this is the one place on your profile where you get to sound like yourself for more than a line. Keep the I sentences to about a quarter, as above, and the first person will feel warm rather than self-absorbed.

How do you rewrite your own LinkedIn About section this week?

Rewrite it in one sitting of about an hour. Collect your best clients' words, write the first two lines first, cut the I sentences to a quarter, add one story and one disqualifier, then match it to your headline. Put the kettle on and keep your three best clients in mind.

1. Collect their words. Read the recommendations and emails from your favourite clients. Copy out every phrase they used to describe the problem before you arrived. Stop when you have ten. If you need help choosing which words matter, read which profile keywords help clients find a consultant or coach.
2. Write the first two lines first. Use their phrases, not yours. If a stranger reads only those two lines, they should know whether you're for them.
3. Do the I count. Count the sentences that start with I, me or my. If they're more than a quarter of the section, rewrite until they aren't.
4. Add one story and one disqualifier. A real result with a number, and one line on who you're not for. Then read the whole thing out loud. Any line you stumble over, cut.
5. Make it match. Your headline should promise what the About section delivers. Then check the rest of the page against how to turn your LinkedIn profile into a landing page.
6. Get verified while you're there. A badge next to your name tells the reader a real, checked person wrote all this. I explain why in should you verify your LinkedIn profile.

What goes in the Featured section under your LinkedIn About?

The Featured section on LinkedIn sits just under your About and shows posts, links or files as cards. Use it to back up the one next step your About asks for. One newsletter link, one strong post and one client story is plenty. More than that and it turns back into a menu.

Pick items a buyer would be glad to click. A post where you answer a question your clients ask on every first call. A sign-up page for your newsletter. A case study with a number in it. Leave out the conference photo and the award badge unless your buyer genuinely cares about them.

Then check it from a phone. Featured cards are big on the LinkedIn app, so the first card is often what a stranger sees after your About. Put your best one first.

How often should you update your LinkedIn About section?

Update your LinkedIn About section when your buyer, your offer or your best proof changes, and look at it properly once a quarter. In between, leave it alone. Rewriting it every few weeks means no version lives long enough for you to learn whether it works.

What tells you it's working? The messages you get after someone reads it. When a new LinkedIn connection replies with "that's exactly our problem", your About is doing its job. When people accept, look and say nothing, read the first two lines again.

Why does the About section matter more once people start accepting your requests?

Because accepted requests send strangers to it. When someone accepts a connection request from a person they don't know, a good number click through to see who just turned up. That visit is when they decide whether to reply, and the About section is what they read.

Across 40,525 requests our operators sent by hand on client accounts between April and July 2026, 31.4% were accepted. Every one of those people had the chance to read it before they replied to anything. A section written for recruiters wastes that moment. A section written for the buyer turns it into the start of a conversation.

That's also why a growing network and a good About section belong together. One brings the right people to the page. The other tells them they're in the right place. I cover the first half in how to grow your LinkedIn network with the right people.

What does it look like when our team does it?

We rewrite your headline and About section from your best clients' own words, you approve every line, and then our operators send connection requests by hand so the right people land on the page. Setup takes about 14 days, with first conversations expected the week after.

When a client joins, we ask for links to five of their best clients and their recommendations, and we read those for the language buyers use. Nothing goes live until the client has approved it. Our operators send the requests through the client's own Sales Navigator, so the people landing on the page are the ones it was written for. You can see the full process on how we work.

Who is this advice not for?

This advice is not for job seekers. If you're looking for a job, write the About section for recruiters, with your titles, skills and career story up front, because recruiters are the ones reading. It also matters less if you sell to the public, or if referrals pour in and you never want a stranger to find you.

Open on their problem, prove you can fix it, say who it's not for, and finish with one next step. Everything else on the page is there to back that up. Your About section is the one place a buyer goes to ask what you do for people like them, so answer that first.