How to Build a LinkedIn Profile That Supports Your CV

A section-by-section guide to a LinkedIn profile that matches your CV: headline, About, experience, skills, photo, custom URL and Open to Work.

Your CV and your LinkedIn profile describe the same career, often to the same people. Recruiters search LinkedIn for candidates, and LinkedIn says its Open to Work setting helps your profile appear in those searches. Some job applications also ask for your profile link directly. When the profile and the CV tell the same story, with the same job titles, dates and achievements, each makes the other more credible. When they disagree, the difference is what stands out.

This guide goes through each part of the profile, from photo and headline to skills, custom URL and Open to Work settings, with advice grounded in LinkedIn’s own Help Center. It is advice only: Tabhar does not connect to LinkedIn or change your profile.

Start from your CV, not from a blank profile

Treat your CV as the master record of your career, and your LinkedIn profile as a public, slightly more conversational version of it. LinkedIn is clear about accuracy. Its Help Center says that representing yourself truthfully is crucial to building productive relationships on the platform and asks members to update their profile each time they change jobs. It also warns that untruthful information violates its User Agreement and could lead other members to flag your profile, which could result in restrictions on your account.

Before you edit anything, check these points against your CV:

The simplest rule: LinkedIn can add detail to your CV, but it should never contradict it.

Photo: recognisable and professional

LinkedIn’s profile photo guidelines say that a photo helps current and potential connections recognise you and that it must reflect your likeness; images of other people, including stock photos, may be removed. Its photo help page adds that a profile photo increases your profile’s credibility, and that you can change the photo’s visibility to decide who can see it.

For the picture itself, MIT’s LinkedIn advice recommends a good-quality head shot against a neutral, well-lit background, and notes that most smartphones will do. If you would rather not show your photo to everyone, adjust its visibility instead of leaving the space empty.

Headline: what you do and what you offer

Your headline is the text below your name. LinkedIn explains that it appears in search results, that it can differ from your current job title, and that it is usually created when you add your current position. Because it travels with your name across the site, it is worth writing yourself.

A strong headline combines the role you do or want, your specialism, and a key skill or credential. MIT advises using the words recruiters are likely to search for.

Examples (hypothetical):

• Before: “Accountant at a trading company”
• After: “Accountant | IFRS reporting and month-end close | English and Arabic”
• Before: “Student”
• After: “Computer science graduate | Python and data analysis | Open to junior data roles”

Use only titles, qualifications and skills you can support. Your headline is one of the first things an interviewer may ask about.

About section: your summary, in your own voice

LinkedIn describes the About section as the place to express your mission, motivation and skills to people who view your profile. MIT suggests that it should complement your CV rather than repeat it, that the first person usually reads more naturally, and that a few short paragraphs strike the right balance.

A simple structure:

1. Who you are professionally: your role, level of experience and field.
2. What you are good at: two or three strengths, each backed by one piece of evidence from your CV.
3. What you are looking for or working on: the kind of role, sector or problem that interests you.
4. How to reach you: if you want recruiters to get in touch.

Example opening (hypothetical): “I’m a supply chain analyst with five years in retail logistics. I like turning untidy shipment data into decisions: in my current role, I rebuilt our weekly stock report so store managers could spot shortages earlier.”

Every number in your About section should also appear in your CV, and be one you can explain in an interview.

Experience: the same jobs, with more room

Your Experience entries should list the same jobs, titles and dates as your CV. LinkedIn’s Experience section guidance asks that each association with an organisation be accurately labelled and reflect real professional experience, such as employment, contract work, an official internship or volunteering. You can also add skills to each position.

• Copy titles and dates from your CV exactly.
• Start from your CV bullets. MIT recommends describing experience as you would on a CV, with action verbs and specific details rather than a bare list of titles and dates.
• Use the extra space for context, such as the size of the team or the scope of a project, but add no new claims.
• Show evidence where you can. LinkedIn’s Featured section lets you showcase samples of your work, such as documents, presentations or links, which LinkedIn describes as a way to provide evidence of your skills and experience.
• Keep confidential details out. Describe results without revealing information your employer would not want public.

Skills: pick them from the jobs you want

LinkedIn lets you add up to 100 skills and says a relevant list helps others understand your strengths and match you with the right opportunities.

• Start with skills that appear both in your CV and in the job adverts you are targeting.
• Link each skill to the position where you used it, so the claim has context.
• Keep the list honest: every skill should be one you could discuss in an interview.

Custom URL: make your profile easy to share

LinkedIn assigns a public profile URL automatically, and you can customise its ending. LinkedIn recommends a variation of your name or professional brand, allows 3 to 100 characters with no spaces, symbols, special characters or the word LinkedIn, and notes that some job applications ask for your profile URL. It also warns that changing your custom URL several times may make you harder to find.

Once you have a clean URL, such as linkedin.com/in/firstname-lastname, add it to the contact line of your CV so the two documents point to each other. Open it in a private browser window to check that it works.

Open to Work: decide who sees it

The Open to Work setting lets you tell recruiters you are looking. LinkedIn says that if you specify the types of job you want and your preferred location, it will help your profile show up when recruiters search for suitable candidates. You choose who sees it:

Note the limit: LinkedIn says it takes steps to stop recruiters who work at your current company from seeing your status, but it cannot guarantee complete privacy. If your search must stay confidential, factor that in.

English and Arabic profiles

If you apply in English and Arabic, LinkedIn lets you create your profile in another language alongside your main one. According to LinkedIn Help:

• Profiles in more than one language make it easier for members and recruiters to find you.
• The feature is not available in the mobile app, so set it up on a computer.
• Nothing is translated for you: you add or translate the content yourself.
• Changes to positions in your main profile do not carry over automatically to your second-language profile.
• Visitors see your profile in the language they use LinkedIn in, if you have created a profile in that language.

Treat each language profile like a separate CV: your English profile should match your English CV, and your Arabic profile your Arabic CV. When you update one, update the other the same day.

A final consistency check before you apply

1. Your name is spelled the same way on your CV, your profile and the application form.
2. Job titles, employers and dates are identical.
3. Qualifications and certifications are identical.
4. Your headline and About section support the job you are applying for.
5. Every number on your profile also appears in your CV, and you can explain it.
6. The custom URL on your CV opens your profile.
7. Open to Work visibility is set the way you intend.
8. If you have both, your English and Arabic profiles were updated together.

Where Tabhar fits

Tabhar does not connect to LinkedIn or edit your profile, so everything above happens on LinkedIn itself. What Tabhar can do is keep your source accurate. Build and update your CV in the CV builder, then copy the same titles, dates and achievements into your profile. On paid plans, you can also share the CV itself through a read-only link that shows it in its template; turning sharing off ends the link for good, and shared CVs are not indexed by search engines.

If your LinkedIn profile is currently more complete than your CV, you can work in the other direction: on paid plans, Tabhar’s import accepts your LinkedIn profile text, pasted in (not a profile URL), as a starting point for you to check and edit. Each CV on Tabhar is in one language, so you can keep an English CV and a separate Arabic CV to mirror your two profiles. See English and Arabic CVs and the plans.

Related reading

• How to write a CV summary, with examples
• Which skills to put on a CV, and how to prove them
• Writing your CV in English when Arabic is your first language

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