How to Write a LinkedIn Summary from Your Resume (with Examples)

Your resume and LinkedIn summary use the same raw material — your experience, skills, and accomplishments. But they serve different purposes and follow completely different rules. This guide shows you how to transform your resume into a LinkedIn summary that attracts recruiters and ranks in LinkedIn search.

LinkedIn Summary vs. Resume Summary: Key Differences

Before you start writing, understand the critical differences between the two formats.

Step 1: Extract Your Key Material from Your Resume

Pull the following from your resume to use as building blocks:

From your resume summary:

• Your professional identity statement
• Your most impressive credential or achievement
• Your career focus

From your work experience:

• 2–3 most impressive quantified achievements
• Industries or company types you have worked in
• Team sizes or scope of responsibility

From your skills section:

• Top 5–8 technical skills
• Key soft skills or leadership qualities

Step 2: Write a Hook (First 300 Characters)

LinkedIn shows only the first 300 characters before truncating with "see more." Your hook must stop people from scrolling.

Strong hook formulas:

• Achievement hook: "In 7 years as a software engineer, I've shipped products used by 10M+ people at Google and two Series B startups."
• Identity hook: "I help FinTech companies build the compliance infrastructure they need to scale."
• Story hook: "I got my first engineering job at 19 by building a tool that saved my dad's business 10 hours per week."

Weak hook (avoid): "Results-driven professional with 7+ years of experience in software development."

Step 3: Expand with Your Top Achievements

After the hook, add 2–3 paragraphs drawn from your resume's work experience:

• Translate resume bullets into full sentences
• Maintain specific numbers and metrics
• Add context that would not fit on a resume

Resume bullet: "Led migration of 3 legacy systems to AWS, reducing infrastructure costs by 40%"

LinkedIn version: "At [Company], I led a team of 6 engineers to migrate three legacy monolithic systems to AWS microservices — cutting infrastructure costs by 40% and reducing deployment time from 2 weeks to 1 day."

Step 4: Add LinkedIn-Specific Keywords

Unlike resumes, your LinkedIn summary is indexed by LinkedIn's search engine. Include:

• Your exact job title (multiple variations if appropriate)
• Top skills listed in the job postings you are targeting
• Industry terms recruiters use in searches
• Tools and technologies by name

Keyword-rich paragraph example: "My core stack includes Python, Go, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, and AWS (certified Solutions Architect). I've led teams building high-throughput data pipelines, distributed systems, and developer tooling."

Step 5: End with a Call to Action

Tell people what you want. Profiles with a clear CTA receive significantly more InMail messages.

CTA examples:

• "Open to Staff Engineer roles at companies scaling 0→1."
• "Connect if you're building in FinTech compliance."
• "Reach me at [email] for consulting inquiries."

5 LinkedIn Summary Examples by Role

Software Engineer

"At Google, I shipped features to 50M users. At two Series B startups, I built systems from scratch. In 7 years as a backend engineer, I've learned that the difference between good code and great code is whether it's still maintainable three years later. Currently leading infrastructure at [Company]. Stack: Go, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, AWS. Open to Staff+ IC roles."

Product Manager

"I've shipped 0-to-1 products at two startups and scaled existing products at a Fortune 500. The pattern I keep coming back to: the best product decisions come from talking to 10 customers, not 1 stakeholder. Currently PM at [Company] working on payments infrastructure. Open to Senior PM roles in FinTech."

Marketing Manager

"I've grown email lists from 0 to 200K, managed $2M+ in paid social spend, and built the content engine that took [Company] from 0 to 50K organic monthly visits. I believe great marketing is just clear communication at scale. Open to Director of Marketing roles at Series A/B companies."

Data Scientist

"I build ML systems that make decisions at scale — fraud detection, pricing algorithms, recommendation engines. 6 years, 4 industries. Python, TensorFlow, SQL, dbt, Databricks. Currently at [Company] where our models process 10M+ events per day. Looking for senior DS or ML Engineering roles."

Recent Graduate

"CS graduate from [University], May 2025. During my 2 internships, I shipped features used by 500K+ users and built an internal tool that saved the engineering team 5 hours per week. I'm best at backend systems and love working close to the product. Looking for Software Engineering roles in SF, NYC, or remote."