There are now more than 1.2 billion members on LinkedIn, standing out requires more than just pasting your resume into an online profile.

• Over 90% of recruiters actively use LinkedIn to source or vet talent
• 75% of professionals who recently changed jobs used LinkedIn to research and discover new career opportunities

Simply having a dormant account isn't enough. Recruiters use strict filters and keyword matching to build candidate pools; if your profile isn't calibrated around the exact roles, companies and niches you want, you remain invisible.

Here is your 20-step checklist to optimize your LinkedIn profile, rank in recruiter searches and convert impressions into interviews.

Phase 1: First Impressions & Core Profile

1) Achieve LinkedIn's "All-Star" Rating

LinkedIn’s profile strength meter rewards completeness and achieving “All-Star” status significantly improves your baseline algorithmic discoverability.

2) Upload a Professional, Current Headshot

When we see a new face, our brains decide whether a person is attractive and trustworthy within a tenth of a second. Your headshot should look like you in real life with good lighting and a background that doesn't distract from you.

3) Design a Branded Cover Photo

LinkedIn reports accounts with profile photos receive up to 21x more profile views, up to 36x more messages and up to 9x more connection requests compared to those without. Your cover photo is additional real estate that should not be ignored and you should test how it displays on both desktop AND mobile.

4) Claim Your Custom Public URL

Strip out the random default numbers to create a clean URL (e.g. [linkedin.com/in/firstnamelastname]). Reserve this same professional handle across your other platforms for consistent search presence.

5) Record Your Name Pronunciation

Do people sometimes struggle to pronounce your name? Using the LinkedIn mobile app, you can record a 10-second audio clip pronouncing your name. When hiring managers are interviewing candidates all day, it can be easy to forget how to pronounce certain names, so this clears up any embarrassment on their part and will make it that much easier to reach back out to you.

Phase 2: Search Optimization & Storytelling

6) Target Keywords in Your Headline

Don't just default to your current internal title. Pair what you do with the exact keywords recruiters search for when sourcing talent:

• Example: Director of Sponsorship at San Francisco 49ers | Business Development | Partnership Marketing
• Tip: Scan 10-20 job postings you want to land, extract repeating skills / phrases, and integrate the top terms naturally.

Some people like to add the following as well: Helping companies achieve x, y, z at the intersection of .... and ..... OR Sharing insights on x, y, z.

7) Make Your ‘About’ Section Work Harder

• While formal speaker bios use the third person ('Alex is an executive...'), writing in the first person ('I help companies...') is standard on LinkedIn. Whichever you choose, avoid repeating 'I' at the start of every sentence by varying your sentence structure - lead with:
• The core problem you solve
• Your proudest career highlights with data
• A short bulleted list of your core technical skills and specialties
• Optional 1-2 sentence at the end with your personal interests / fun facts

If you're having trouble writing your ‘About’ section, you can ask AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to write one for you or improve your existing one.

8) Turn Your Profile into a Portfolio via the ‘Featured’ Section

Use the Featured section to pin high-impact work directly below your ‘About’ section:

• Published articles and media interviews
• Viral or high-engagement LinkedIn posts
• Links to your website or portfolio
• Case studies, pitch decks and presentations

9) Anchor Your ‘Experience’ to Official Company Pages

Ensure your roles link directly to official LinkedIn company pages so the company logo populates. This anchors your profile to their employee / alumni index and validates your employment history. If you weren't able to fit all your experience in your resume, LinkedIn is a great place to add it as having more relevant keywords will help you show up in search results.

10) Fill Out Ancillary Profile Sections

Complete your Licenses & Certifications, Honors & Awards, Projects, Relevant Languages, Volunteer Experience and Relevant Courses (Applicable Only For Early Career).

11) Curate and Reorder Your Skills Section

• According to LinkedIn, members with 5 or more skills listed are contacted (messaged) up to 33x more by recruiters and other LinkedIn members and receive up to 17x more profile views.
• LinkedIn allows up to 100 skills and we would recommend listing as many relevant skills as possible while including variations (e.g., Partnership Sales, Business Development, Sponsorship Activation, Partnership Marketing etc.).
• You can also customize the order in which your skills are displayed to show the ones that are most important to you at the top. In addition, it’s best practice to genuinely endorse others in your network for their skills to increase the chances of them reciprocating. 

12) Earn Minimum 2-3 Professional Recommendations

Recommendations serve as social proof of how you actually operate. Sometimes you have to give in order to receive and if that doesn't work and you believe you truly deserve a recommendation from someone, you should ask for it (especially when it's most fresh and relevant right after you leave a company as you start your next endeavor).

Phase 3: Inbound Settings & Strategic Outreach

13) Follow the Right Ecosystem Hubs

Follow your target companies, industry publications, executive voices and specialized affinity groups (e.g. Sports Business Journal, WISE - Women In Sports Events, alumni network of your University etc.) This feeds relevant industry insights and unlisted job leads directly into your stream.

14) Calibrate Your "Open to Work" Visibility

Recruiters Only: Shares your intent exclusively with LinkedIn Recruiter subscribers while taking steps to hide it from your current employer (though LinkedIn does not guarantee 100% privacy).

Public (#OpenToWork Banner): Ideal if you are younger in your career, actively unemployed and want your broader network to help surface opportunities.

15) Use the "I'm Interested" Signal for Target Employers

Navigate to your top companies' LinkedIn pages and click I'm interested (available on eligible company / job pages - assuming they opted in to this setting). This privately flags your profile to internal recruiters sourcing talent before roles are ever posted publicly. Members who share that they’re interested in a company may be 2x as likely to get a message from a recruiter than those who don’t.

16) Verify Your Profile

Verified profiles average 60% more views and 50% more engagement. LinkedIn currently supports verification for:

Identity | Workplace | Educational Institution

Availability and eligibility vary depending on the verification type and organization. To bypass sharing your personal information, opt for workplace or educational verification. Verification isn't mandatory, but when available to you, it can add another layer of authenticity to your profile.

17) Unfollow Noise Without Removing Connections

A clean feed helps you spot relevant industry moves. If specific connections share content irrelevant to your trajectory, navigate to their profile, select More, and click Unfollow. You remain connected without cluttering your feed.

18) Set Up Strategic, High-Intent Job Alerts

LinkedIn allows up to 20 active job alerts. Set notification cadence to daily so you can apply within the first 24 hours of a listing going live. You can also control what feed notifications you receive from the companies and groups you're following and the cadence as well (all new posts, top posts, no new posts).

19) Toggle On "Signal Interest to Recruiters"

Under Settings & Privacy ➝ Data Privacy ➝ Job Seeking Preferences, toggle on Signal your interest to recruiters at companies you've created job alerts for. This informs recruiters that you actively monitor their brand. As with other job-search privacy settings, consider your circumstances carefully if you're currently employed.

20) Engage With Decision Makers Strategically

Strategically and genuinely like / comment on the posts of those you would like to do business with or work for. But don't like and comment on everything just to get noticed. Add something thoughtful. Share a relevant perspective. Congratulate someone on an achievement. Contribute to the conversation. Over time, genuine engagement can help you build familiarity and stronger professional relationships. When you help lift other people up, they're more likely to remember you.

Bonus: Master the Unspoken Rules of the Job Search –> Optimizing your profile is only one part of the equation.

You also need to understand how recruiters actually search for candidates, how to identify your target companies, how to leverage referrals, how to use AI throughout the job-search process and how to position yourself so you're not relying solely on online applications. That's exactly what we break down inside the Sports Entertainment Accelerator, along with a much more comprehensive framework for optimizing your LinkedIn profile and job search👇🏽