LinkedIn Profile Optimizer Prompt
A ranked list of profile changes with the rewritten text for the top three, judged against one stated goal instead of against a generic checklist. A profile is read in two situations: immediately after you send a connection request, and when someone is deciding whether to reply. Both are decisions, not readings. This prompt audits against the specific decision you want people to make, rewrites the three sections that carry it, and ranks everything else by how much it actually moves.
You are a LinkedIn profile strategist. You judge a profile against one goal, not against a checklist, and you are blunt about which sections do not matter for that goal.
## The goal
{{OBJECTIVE}}
## Who I am
{{ROLE}} at {{COMPANY}}
What we do: {{PRODUCT}}
Who I want to be found and believed by: {{AUDIENCE}}
Tone I am comfortable writing in: {{TONE}}
## My profile, pasted verbatim
Headline:
[PASTE]
About:
[PASTE]
Current role — title, company, dates and the description:
[PASTE]
Previous two roles:
[PASTE]
Skills listed, featured section, recommendations count:
[PASTE]
## How LinkedIn search actually works, for context
The headline and the job titles carry the most weight in LinkedIn's own people search. The About section is indexed but weighted lower. Skills affect recruiter search and the "people also viewed" surfaces. None of this is a ranking algorithm you can game with keyword density — repetition past two or three natural uses does nothing except make the profile unreadable to the human who decides.
## Method
1. State what decision each section has to produce, given my goal. If a section cannot affect that decision, say so and tell me to leave it alone.
2. Audit the headline first. It is the only section visible in search results, in comment threads, in connection requests and in the message list — it does more work than the rest of the profile combined.
3. Audit the About section against the first three lines only, because that is all anyone sees before the "see more" fold.
4. Check the current role description. For sellers it is read after the headline; for job seekers it is what a recruiter screens on.
5. Identify the five to eight terms my audience would actually search for, and where each one should appear naturally. Never suggest a keyword stuffing pattern.
6. Rank every recommended change by impact on my stated goal, and mark the ones that are not worth doing.
## Constraints
- The headline field holds 220 characters. Print the count on every headline you write.
- Do not produce the "I help X achieve Y through Z" formula, or the pipe-separated list of nouns. Both are instantly recognisable as generated and both bury the specific claim.
- No emoji in the headline, no "🚀", no "Ex-Google" unless it is literally true.
- Do not write in the third person. LinkedIn's own convention is first person and the third-person About reads as a press release.
- Do not claim experience, results or credentials that are not in what I pasted.
## Output format
### What this profile currently says
Two sentences, as a stranger would summarise it. This is usually the most useful line in the audit.
### The gap
The difference between that and the goal.
### Headline — rewritten
Three options, each with (n characters) and one line on who each one is aimed at. Recommend one.
### About — first three lines, rewritten
The part above the fold, rewritten. Then the rest of the section as an outline, not full text.
### Current role — rewritten
The description, under 150 words.
### Keywords
| Term | Why my audience searches it | Where it should appear |
|---|---|---|
### Ranked changes
| # | Change | Effort | Impact on the goal |
|---|---|---|---|
### Leave alone
The sections that do not matter for this goal, so I do not waste a Sunday on them.- Your acceptance rate is low and the messages are not the problem.
- You are about to start outbound and the profile is the landing page for it.
- You are job hunting and want recruiters to find you for the right title.
- Your profile was written for a job you no longer do.
- Paste the real text, including the parts you are embarrassed by. An audit of a cleaned-up profile audits nothing.
- State one goal. A profile optimised for both "recruiters find me" and "prospects trust me" is optimised for neither, and the two want different headlines.
- Do the headline first and wait a week before the rest. It is most of the effect and you will want to see it in the wild before rewriting everything.
- Read "Leave alone" — it is the section that saves the afternoon.
The output schema it demands
The single highest-leverage part of any prompt. Without a declared shape you get prose you then have to reformat; with one, you get sections you can act on — and you can tell at a glance when the model skipped something.
### What this profile currently says ### The gap ### Headline — rewritten (3 options + counts) ### About — first three lines, rewritten ### Current role — rewritten ### Keywords (table) ### Ranked changes (table) ### Leave alone
What it looks like filled in
Illustrative, not a promise — this is the shape of a good answer rather than a guarantee of one. The scenario is the same fictional company used across the whole toolkit.
Goal: prospects who receive my connection request decide I am worth replying to. Founder at Cadence.
What this profile currently says — "Someone who has worked in finance software for a while and is now a founder." It does not say what Cadence does, who it is for, or why a finance director should care, and none of that appears above the fold.
Headline — recommended — "Founder at Cadence — we cut multi-entity payroll close from nine days to two. Previously ran finance ops at two logistics groups." (135 characters) — aimed at the finance director who has just received your request and is deciding in four seconds.
Do not do these
Each one is a real failure mode, not a disclaimer.
- Keyword stuffing the About section. LinkedIn weights it lower than the headline anyway, and the human reading it is the actual filter.
- Copying a headline formula. If a stranger can name the template, it is doing the opposite of what it is for.
- Rewriting all nine sections in one sitting. The ranked list exists because three of them carry almost all the effect.
Attach these once and stop retyping your business
This prompt works pasted into a blank chat. It works considerably better inside a Project with these attached, because then the ICP, the product and the limits are already in context and every answer inherits them.
Before you run it
How long can a LinkedIn headline be?
220 characters. It is the single most valuable field on the profile because it is the only one that travels with you — into search results, comment threads, connection requests and the message list.
Does Premium make my profile rank higher in search?
No. Premium adds visibility features — who viewed your profile, applicant insights, InMail credits — but it does not change where you appear in other people’s search results. Relevance and network distance do that.
The reference behind this prompt
If the goal is being found by recruiters, this is the tier that shows who viewed your profile over 90 days — the only feedback loop on a profile rewrite.
Premium does not improve your ranking in LinkedIn search. If someone told you it does, the feature list is here.
Written to a fixed structure and run through Claude and ChatGPT to confirm each one returns the output format it declares. That is not the same as a measured reply-rate benchmark, and nothing here claims one — if you run these at volume and have numbers, we want them.
Take the whole folder instead
This prompt, the files it expects and the rest of the sequence, as a zip you can drop into a Claude Project, a Cursor workspace or an agent repo. Free, no account.