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Last week at 1:30 a.m., I realized my LinkedIn profile looked like a half-finished group project: no one knew what it was about, and everyone wanted to leave. Then it hit me: recruiters scroll through this chaos every day, and they are not guessing games fans.

TL;DR: Recruiters want to know 5 things fast: who you are, what you do, what you have achieved, whether you fit the role, and whether you seem reliable and not fake. Your profile needs a clear headline, a focused About section, proof of impact in your experience, a clean skills/recommendations section, and strong signals of activity and professionalism.

What recruiters are actually doing on LinkedIn

We like to imagine recruiters studying our profile like a thesis. They do not. Most are speed-reading like students skimming slides before an exam.

From conversations with recruiters and watching some of them search in real time, this is what usually happens:

• They start with a search (by role, skills, location, or university).
• They scan the tiny search result preview: photo, name, headline, location.
• They click a few profiles that match key terms.
• They skim the top fold: headline, About, first job or project, education.
• They decide in 15-30 seconds whether to read more or move on.

Your LinkedIn profile is not your life story. It is a fast, structured answer to one question: “Should I talk to this person for this role?”

So when we say “5 things recruiters look for,” we are really talking about 5 questions their brain tries to answer in that first short scan.

Here is the map:

Recruiter Question	Profile Areas That Answer It
1. Who are you professionally?	Photo, headline, location, open to work settings
2. What do you actually do?	Headline, About, top experience, featured projects
3. Are you any good at it?	Experience bullets, numbers, portfolios, projects
4. Do you fit this specific role?	Keywords, skills, course projects, tools, tech stack
5. Are you reliable and real?	Consistency, recommendations, activity, writing quality

1. A clear, honest professional identity at the very top

In lecture I once wrote this in the margin of my notebook: “Your LinkedIn top section is like a name tag at a conference: if it is vague, people will not start talking to you.”

Recruiters look at the top card first: photo, name, headline, location, and education. They want to quickly file you in their mind.

Your photo: not glamour, just clarity

Recruiters are not looking for the most photogenic person. They want someone who looks like they exist in real life and could walk into an office or log into a call tomorrow without confusion.

Think of your LinkedIn photo as a clear, friendly ID badge, not an art project.

Aim for:

• Face clearly visible, no heavy filters, no sunglasses.
• Neutral or simple background (a wall, campus, library corner is fine).
• Clothes that you would wear to a student pitch day or internship fair.
• Framed from shoulders up, not a full-body shot from far away.

For students and early-career:

• Ask a friend to take a picture with your phone in daylight.
• Avoid huge group photos cropped awkwardly around your face.
• Avoid party pictures, even if you cut out the red cup.

The headline: not “Student” but “Student of what, aiming for what?”

The headline is that one line under your name. If it just says “Student” or “Looking for opportunities,” you are making the recruiter’s job harder.

They search by role and skills. Your headline should help you show up in those searches.

Good student headline: “Computer Science student | Interested in backend development, Python, and databases.”

This sort of headline does three things in one shot:

• States your current context: “Computer Science student”.
• Hints at your direction: “backend development”.
• Adds keywords: “Python, databases”.

Bad examples:

• “Aspiring leader passionate about technology.” (Too vague, no useful keywords.)
• “Open to opportunities.” (Everyone is. It does not help search.)
• “Future CEO.” (Recruiters are not hiring for that.)

Better examples by niche:

Area	Headline Example
Product / startups	“Business student focused on product management | Built 3 campus projects | SQL, Figma, user research”
Software	“CS student & backend developer | Java, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL | Looking for SDE internships”
Design	“UX & visual design student | Figma, user flows, prototyping | Campus app and hackathon projects”
Data	“Math & stats student | Data analysis with Python | Pandas, SQL, dashboards”

Location and “Open to work” signals

Recruiters filter by location a lot. If you have the wrong city, or no city, you miss out.

• Set your location to where you study or where you are willing to work.
• If you are open to remote roles, you can still set a main city and then add remote in the “Open to work” settings.

In the “Open to work” section, be precise:

• Select the exact job titles you are targeting (e.g. “Software Engineer Intern,” “Growth Intern,” “Product Design Intern”).
• Pick locations you can actually move to or work from.

Do not overthink the “Open to work” banner. If you are a student or recent graduate, it usually helps more than it hurts.

2. A focused About section that sounds like an actual person

The About section is where recruiters think: “Can this person explain who they are clearly, or is their brain a group chat with no admin?”

They are checking:

• Can you summarize yourself?
• Do you know your direction, even in a rough way?
• Do your words match the roles they are hiring for?

Think of your About section as a 6-10 line personal pitch, not a motivational speech.

Structure for a strong student About section

You can use a simple three-part structure:

• 1. Who you are (context)
  “I am a third-year Mechanical Engineering student at X University, interested in product design and hardware startups.”
• 2. What you do / have done (evidence)
  “I have worked on two prototype projects in our campus maker lab: a low-cost 3D printer modification and a smart hydroponics system. In both, I handled CAD design and basic microcontroller programming.”
• 3. Where you are going (aim + what you want)
  “I enjoy taking ideas from rough sketches to working prototypes and I am now looking for internships in product design, hardware prototyping, or manufacturing, where I can contribute to hands-on builds and iterate with a team.”

You can add a short bullet-style section inside About if you like:

• Interests: hardware startups, rapid prototyping, CAD, IoT.
• Tools: SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Arduino, basic Python.
• Projects: smart hydroponic rig, 3D printer mods, electric bike conversion.

Make sure it reads like you, not like a corporate brochure. For example:

Bad:

“I am a results-oriented, highly motivated, detail-focused team player with a proven track record of success in various projects.”

Better:

“I like taking fuzzy ideas and forcing them into Figma boards, prototypes, or SQL queries until they start behaving like real products.”

Keywords without keyword stuffing

Recruiters search by keywords. Applicant tracking systems do it too. That does not mean you should write: “Marketing, marketing, digital marketing, social media marketing.”

Good practice:

• Include the job title you are aiming for (“product manager,” “data analyst intern”).
• Mention 4-7 tools or technologies you actually use.
• Repeat important terms naturally in About and Experience (e.g. “user research,” “Python”).

Bad practice:

• Long keyword lists separated by commas that read like tags, not sentences.
• Claiming tools you have never touched just to appear in searches.

3. Experience and projects that show impact, not just tasks

In class we get graded on assignments. On LinkedIn, you are graded on impact. Recruiters are not only asking “What did you do?” but “Did it change anything?”

For students, “experience” often means:

• Internships and part-time jobs.
• Campus projects and clubs.
• Hackathons and competitions.
• Startup attempts, even if they failed.

If your project helped someone, saved time, or produced a result, it belongs in Experience or Projects.

How recruiters scan your experience section

They usually:

• Look at your most recent role or project.
• Check if the company/club name is real or at least Googleable.
• Read the first 2-3 bullets for each entry.
• Look for numbers, tools, and outcomes.

So your bullets should not be diary entries like “I learned a lot.” They should be proof.

Here is a simple formula:

Action verb + what you did + how you did it + result (with numbers if possible).

Examples:

Weak bullet	Stronger bullet
“Worked on a mobile app for campus food delivery.”	“Built backend for a campus food delivery app using Node.js and MongoDB, handling 300+ test orders during beta with under 1% error rate.”
“Helped with social media marketing for a student startup.”	“Created and scheduled weekly Instagram and LinkedIn posts for a student fintech startup, growing follower count from 150 to 650 in 3 months.”
“Participated in a hackathon.”	“Led a 4-person team at XYZ Hackathon to prototype a mental health check-in app; placed in the top 10 out of 60 teams.”

Where to put campus projects and startup attempts

If a project is meaningful and relevant to your target roles, treat it like experience.

Options:

• Experience entry under “Student Founder,” “Project Lead,” or “Software Developer (Project).” This works well for long projects (one semester or more).
• Projects section (LinkedIn has this under “Add profile section” > “Recommended” > “Add projects”). Good for shorter builds and hackathons.

In both cases, include:

• What the project does in 1 sentence.
• Your role (backend, design, growth, etc.).
• Tools and stack.
• Outcome: users, demo day, competition rank, or learning gain.
• Links: GitHub repo, live demo, Notion doc with screenshots, or portfolio.

If a recruiter can click something and see your work in action, your profile jumps in credibility immediately.

Handling part-time jobs that are not related

Not everyone has a tidy path. Maybe you worked retail, food service, or tutoring.

Recruiters still care about this because it shows:

• Reliability and basic responsibility.
• Communication skills.
• Work ethic while studying.

You can frame those experiences with transferable skills.

Example:

“Barista, Campus Cafe”

• Served 80-100 customers per shift while keeping average wait times under 4 minutes.
• Trained 3 new staff members on cash system and closing procedures.
• Handled cash and card payments with daily cash drawer mismatches under 0.5%.

Later, a recruiter for an operations or customer support role will actually care about that.

4. Skills, endorsements, and recommendations that pass the “is this real?” test

Skills sections on LinkedIn can look like someone dumped a whole textbook into a tag cloud. Recruiters know this, so they do not trust a long, random list.

They are checking:

• Do your top skills match the roles you say you want?
• Are they backed up by your experience, projects, or recommendations?

Your skills section is not a wish list. It should be a reflection of what shows up elsewhere on your profile.

Choosing the right skills

Pick 10-20 skills that you can justify in conversation or code.

For each target area:

Software / engineering

• Languages and frameworks: Python, Java, C++, React, Node.js, etc.
• Concepts: data structures, algorithms, object-oriented programming.
• Tools: Git, Docker, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, etc.

Product / startup roles

• Product management, user research, wireframing, analytics.
• Tools: Figma, Notion, JIRA (if you have actually used them).

Design

• UI design, UX research, prototyping, design systems.
• Tools: Figma, Adobe XD, Illustrator, etc.

Business / growth

• Market research, content strategy, email marketing, sales.
• Tools: Excel/Sheets, Google Analytics, HubSpot (if true).

Arrange your top 3 skills to match your target role. LinkedIn lets you pin three.

Endorsements: nice, but not magic

Endorsements are those one-click “approve” actions from others. Recruiters do not treat them as solid proof, but they can notice patterns.

Good approach:

• Have at least a few endorsements on your top skills.
• Ask classmates or teammates who have actually worked with you to endorse you for 1-3 skills.

Bad approach:

• Trading random endorsements with strangers.
• Begging every contact to endorse everything.

If your experience sounds real and your projects are clear, endorsements are just an extra positive signal.

Recommendations: strong signal of reliability

This is where recruiters slow down a bit. A well-written recommendation from a teaching assistant, professor, or manager communicates two things:

• Someone trusted you enough to put their name next to yours.
• They saw you actually doing work, not just talking.

A single good recommendation can weigh more than 20 endorsements.

How to request a recommendation without making it awkward:

• Pick people who have overseen your work directly: project supervisors, internship managers, club presidents, startup cofounders.
• Send a short, specific message: who you are, what you worked on together, what you are aiming for.

Example message:

“Hi [Name], I hope you are doing well. I am updating my LinkedIn as I start applying for [product/design/data] internships. Working with you on [project or course] taught me a lot about [brief point]. Would you be open to writing a short LinkedIn recommendation describing how we worked together, especially around [a couple of strengths you want highlighted, like ‘taking ownership of tasks’ or ‘communicating clearly in the team’]? Totally understand if you are busy.”

You can also offer to share a short bullet list of projects and contributions to make it easier for them.

5. Signs of activity, curiosity, and basic professionalism

There is a weird moment when you open someone’s profile and it feels like a museum: no posts, no comments, no updates for years. Recruiters notice that too.

They are not expecting you to be an influencer. They just want to see that:

• You exist online in a consistent, reasonable way.
• You care enough about your field to interact with it.

You do not need to post daily. A handful of thoughtful signs of life across a few months can already set you apart.

What “active and curious” looks like for a student

Simple actions that help:

• Share a short post after a hackathon or project demo describing what you built and what you learned.
• Comment on posts from people in your target field with one or two concrete thoughts.
• Repost an article about your field with a brief reaction in your own words.
• Add new projects to your profile when you finish them.

Examples of low-effort but strong posts:

• “Just wrapped up a weekend hackathon with our campus team. We built a simple web app to help students find quiet study spaces. I focused on the backend in Django and learned a lot about organizing APIs quickly. Next step: add authentication and search filters.”
• “We shipped the first working version of our student startup’s landing page. I handled the copy and basic analytics setup. Early insight: half our visitors come from mobile, so our next sprint is all about improving the mobile layout.”

Notice that these posts:

• Describe real actions.
• Show tools and roles.
• Show reflection, not bragging.

Professionalism basics that recruiters do notice

There are small details that create a quiet positive impression:

• Consistent names: Use the same name form as on your resume and email.
• Clean URL: Edit your LinkedIn URL to something simple like “linkedin.com/in/firstname-lastname”.
• Grammar and spelling: Errors in the About section or headlines can be red flags for writing-heavy roles.
• Message tone: When you contact recruiters or hiring managers, be clear and respectful, not overly casual.

Bad outreach example:

“Hey, can you refer me to some roles? I really need a job.”

Better outreach example:

“Hi [Name], I am a final-year CS student interested in backend roles. I noticed you work at [Company] on [team/area]. I have built [short description of a relevant project] using [tech stack]. If your team ever looks for interns or juniors, I would appreciate any advice on positioning my experience for those roles. Thank you for your time.”

Recruiters will sometimes click through to your profile from that message. If they see a clear headline, structured About, real projects, and signs of life, your odds improve.

How to run a 60-minute LinkedIn makeover session

It is easy to read all this and then do nothing. Here is a practical, time-boxed way to act on it. Think of it as a sprint, not a lifetime project.

Minute 0-10: Fix the top card

• Upload a clear photo or take one against a plain wall.
• Update your headline to “Student of X | Aiming at Y | Skills: A, B, C”.
• Set your location and “Open to work” with specific titles and cities.

Minute 10-25: Rewrite your About

Use the three-part structure:

• Who you are (1-2 sentences).
• What you have done (3-5 sentences or short bullets).
• Where you are going and what you want (1-2 sentences).

Check:

• Do you mention your target role by name?
• Do your tools and skills show up in natural language?

Minute 25-45: Clean up Experience and Projects

• For each role or project, write 2-4 bullets using the formula (action + what + how + result).
• Add links where possible (GitHub, Figma, a simple one-page case study).
• Move your most relevant experience to the top (LinkedIn allows reordering in some sections).

If you are missing experience:

• Add a “Projects” section listing course projects, personal builds, or club work with clear descriptions.

Minute 45-55: Curate skills and ask for one recommendation

• Remove random or outdated skills that you cannot defend.
• Pin your top 3 skills to match your target role.
• Send 1 focused recommendation request to someone who has seen your work.

Minute 55-60: Add one visible sign of life

• Write a short post about a recent project, class project, club activity, or something you are learning.
• Comment thoughtfully on a post from someone in your field.

A one-hour focused pass will put you ahead of many students who leave their profile stuck at “Second-year student at X.”

What recruiters quietly filter out (and how not to be in that group)

From recruiter conversations, there are a few patterns that often get filtered out early.

Profiles that say everything and nothing

These profiles are full of phrases like:

• “Highly motivated, passionate, hardworking individual.”
• “Passionate about technology, business, and design.”

The problem: nothing in those lines helps match you to a role. Passion is great, but it is not searchable.

Fix:

• Replace generic traits with concrete interests, tools, and outcomes.
• Show your motivation through projects, not adjectives.

Profiles that overclaim and underprove

Examples:

• “Growth hacker” with zero numbers.
• “AI expert” whose projects are basic tutorials.
• “Serial founder” whose startups have no links, demos, or detail.

Recruiters are used to big titles. They skip them if there is nothing underneath.

Fix:

• Use grounded titles: “Student founder,” “Project lead,” “Intern,” “Volunteer developer.”
• Make your proof heavier than your claim. Show code, slides, designs, docs, or metrics.

Profiles that look abandoned or copy-pasted

Copying someone else’s About section or leaving entire areas half-filled signals low effort.

Fix:

• Write in your own voice. Short and honest beats long and generic.
• Update your profile every time you complete a new meaningful project or internship.

Recruiters are not looking for perfection. They are looking for clarity, evidence, and a hint that you are serious about your path.

When you treat your LinkedIn profile like a living record of what you are building, instead of a digital CV you made once for a workshop, you make the recruiter’s job easier. And the people who make jobs easier tend to get more callbacks.