The Dialed-In LinkedIn Profile

This is the one-sheet version of how I build a LinkedIn profile, in three moves.

1. Start with your North Star. Pick two or three topics you could genuinely post about every week. Talk through your experience, your fascinations, and the people you admire, pour it into an AI, and shape it into three or four sentences. That short paragraph is your North Star, the guide for everything you publish.

2. Dial in the first screen. Banner: Premium members can run a carousel of two or three, so visitors learn several things before they scroll. Headline: 220 characters that follow you everywhere; skip the job title and nail the first 55 characters. Headshot: close up, face filling the frame, a background color that pops. Calls to action: add custom buttons to your website, because your site is the only place online you own. About: use all 2,600 characters to expand your North Star and get personal. Skills can be taught; personality and work ethic cannot.

3. Tell the whole story. Experience: do not mirror your resume. Resumes say what, where, and when; LinkedIn is where you tell the story behind the bullets: how, why, and why it mattered. Skills: add up to 100 and let endorsements build credibility on one of the most authoritative domains online. Featured: make it your highlight reel. Recommendations: third-party mentions matter more than ever, because LLMs prefer citing people with a verified presence. Write one for someone before you ask for one.