The About section rewrite: from job history to origin story.

The About section is the most-skipped, highest-leverage real estate on your LinkedIn profile. Most professionals treat it as a resume summary — a third-person recap of jobs the reader can already see two inches lower on the page. That's a wasted 2,600 characters. The About section has one job the rest of your profile can't do: make the reader feel like they know you before they've met you.

Why "results-driven professional" is costing you

Open with a phrase like "Results-driven professional with 15+ years of experience" and you've told the reader exactly one thing: that you write like everyone else. Openers earn attention or lose it in the first line — LinkedIn truncates your About to roughly two lines behind a "see more" link. If those two lines are boilerplate, nobody clicks. Your best material dies unread.

The four-paragraph framework

Write it in first person. Always. Third person reads as either corporate or self-important — first person reads as a human talking. Then build four paragraphs:

1. The hook — start in the middle of the story. One or two lines that earn the "see more" click. Open with the moment, the belief, or the tension that defines you. "I got my first restaurant job at 15 because we needed the money. I stayed because I fell in love with the floor." Nobody skips that to read a summary of duties.
2. The origin — how the throughline formed. Two to four lines connecting where you started to what you understand now that others don't. This is where career-changers and ground-up leaders have an unfair advantage: your unconventional path isn't a liability to explain, it's the most differentiated asset you own. Frame it as accumulation, not detour.
3. The proof — receipts, compressed. Three or four lines of your strongest evidence with numbers attached. Not a list of jobs — a list of outcomes. "Built the pipeline system that took a 12-rep team past quota nine straight quarters" beats a paragraph of responsibilities.
4. The invitation — what happens next. Close with who should reach out and why. "If you're building X and need Y, my inbox is open." An About section without a next step is a story without an ending.

Before and after

The mistakes that flatten good stories

• Writing for everyone. An About aimed at "anyone hiring" moves no one. Write to the one decision-maker you most want reading it.
• Humility that hides the point. "I've been fortunate to work with great teams" — the reader learns nothing about you. Credit your teams AND claim your part.
• No paragraph breaks. A wall of text on mobile is an unread wall of text. Four short paragraphs, white space between.
• Ending flat. If the last line isn't an invitation, the reader finishes and does nothing — which is exactly what most About sections achieve.

Your About section and your headline should be two lengths of the same story: the headline is the claim, the About is the case. When both are working, a stranger finishes reading and thinks the five words that change careers: "I want to talk to them."