LinkedIn is not an online CV
Most people treat it like one, which is the first mistake.
A CV is a document you send when you choose to. LinkedIn is a database that recruiters actively search, often before a job is even posted. When a role opens up, a lot of hiring teams go to LinkedIn first to see who's out there before they write a job description.
If your profile doesn't show up in those searches, or doesn't get clicked when it does, you're invisible to a big part of the job market without knowing it.
These are the seven mistakes I see most often on profiles that don't get found.
Mistake 1: A headline that's just your job title
Your headline is the most important part of your profile. It shows up in search results, connection requests, and messages. Most people waste it by writing their current job title.
"Senior Product Manager at FinanceCo" is not a headline. It's a data entry.
A good headline answers: what do you do, for who, and what's the result?
Compare these two: Before: Senior Product Manager at FinanceCo After: B2B SaaS Product Manager, Fintech, 0 to 1 and Scaling
The second one will show up in more searches and get more clicks.
Mistake 2: Missing keywords in the About section
LinkedIn's search algorithm puts a lot of weight on the About section. If you're a data engineer and the terms "Spark, Databricks, ETL pipeline" don't appear in your About section, you'll rank below someone with similar experience who included them.
This isn't about stuffing keywords in awkwardly. It's about writing naturally about what you do and making sure the language a recruiter would search for actually appears in your text.
A quick way to check: read five job descriptions for roles you'd actually want. Notice which terms appear in most of them. Then check whether those terms appear on your profile.
Mistake 3: An About section that says nothing
"Results-driven professional with a passion for delivering value" is a placeholder, not a description. Most people wrote something like this years ago and never came back to it.
Your About section should do three things. Tell someone who you are professionally in a sentence or two. Describe the kind of work you do and the context you do it in. Give a signal about what you're looking for next, without making it sound desperate.
Three short paragraphs. First person. No buzzwords. It should sound like you.
Mistake 4: Experience entries with no results
"Responsible for managing the marketing team and executing campaigns" is a missed opportunity every single time.
Recruiters aren't looking for a list of responsibilities. They're looking for evidence that you're good at the job. That means results.
The difference: Before: Managed a team of 8 marketing executives After: Led a team of 8 to generate a 2.4 million pipeline contribution in Q3, beating target by 31 percent
If you have numbers, use them. If you don't have exact figures, honest ranges work fine: "grew the email list from around 12,000 to 45,000 subscribers over 14 months."
Mistake 5: A bad or missing profile photo
A blurry photo, a cropped group photo, or no photo at all creates a poor first impression before anyone reads a single word.
Profiles with a photo get significantly more views and messages than profiles without one. You don't need to hire a photographer. A clear photo, decent light, neutral background, taken on a phone is completely fine.
Mistake 6: Not using Open to Work
LinkedIn has a setting that signals to recruiters that you're open to opportunities. Most people either don't know about it or feel awkward using it.
The key detail is the "visible to recruiters only" option. It doesn't put the green frame on your photo. It just flags your profile in recruiter searches for people open to a move. Recruiters filter for this. If you're open to something new and not using it, you're missing inbound interest without realising it.
Mistake 7: A profile frozen in time
Profiles decay. Job titles change, skills shift, what you want next evolves. The profile you put together during your last job search probably doesn't reflect where you are now.
A 30-minute update every six months is enough. Refresh the headline, update the About section, add a recent achievement or two. The people who do this are the ones who get messages from recruiters out of nowhere. The ones who don't are the ones who wonder why their search is taking longer than expected.
How Career Playbook can help
Career Playbook's LinkedIn Optimiser reviews all seven of these areas and generates rewrites for your headline, About section, and experience entries, calibrated to the types of roles you're going after. Available on the Pro plan.