How to Update Your LinkedIn Profile With AI (Prompts)

Ellie at Willa, Editorial lead, Willa · Published September 17, 2026 · Updated September 17, 2026

Most people tailor their resume for every application, then leave their LinkedIn profile untouched for years. That is backwards. Recruiters find you on LinkedIn before they ever see your resume, and they find you by running keyword searches, not by browsing. If your profile still describes the job you had two roles ago, you are invisible in the exact searches you want to appear in.

The good news: updating a stale profile is a two-hour project with AI, not a weekend one. The better news: done right, the result sounds like you, ranks for the searches that matter, and keeps working while you sleep. Here is the full workflow, with the prompts to copy.

Can AI write a good LinkedIn profile?

Yes, with one condition: you have to feed it real material. An AI given nothing but "write me a LinkedIn headline for a marketing manager" will return the same headline it gives every other marketing manager who asked. An AI given your actual wins, your target roles, and the words recruiters in your field search for will produce drafts worth editing.

This is now a mainstream move, not a hack. LinkedIn itself has offered AI writing suggestions for headlines and About sections since 2023. The differentiator is no longer whether you used AI. It is whether you gave it anything true and specific to work with, and whether you edited the output into your own voice. That second part gets its own section below, because it is where most profiles fall apart.

What should I give the AI before it writes anything?

Set up one conversation with ChatGPT or Claude and load it with three things before you ask for a single draft:

1. Your current resume, pasted in full, plus your current LinkedIn headline and About section so the AI can see the before state.
2. Two or three job postings for roles you want next, even if you are not actively applying. These carry the exact vocabulary recruiters in your target market use.
3. A brag list: five to ten specific things you are proud of, with numbers where you have them. Shipped a product, grew a metric, fixed a broken process, mentored someone who got promoted. Bullet points are fine. This is raw material, not writing.

Then run this keyword-mining prompt before anything else:

"Based on these job postings and my resume, list the 15 terms a recruiter would most likely type into LinkedIn search to find candidates for these roles. Mark which ones already appear in my current profile and which are missing."

Keep that list open. Every section you rewrite should pick up missing terms where they are true of you. Recruiter search is literal, so a profile that says "led paid acquisition" will not surface for a recruiter searching "performance marketing" even if they mean the same thing.

How do I write a LinkedIn headline with AI?

Your headline gets 220 characters, but only the first 60 or so show up next to your name in search results, comments, and connection requests. So the headline has two jobs: the first few words have to say what you are, and the rest can say what makes you different.

Skip the default job-title-only headline and skip the cryptic mission statement. Aim for: role or specialty, then proof or focus, then the thing that makes someone curious. Use this prompt:

"Write 10 LinkedIn headline options for me, each under 220 characters. Requirements: the first 60 characters must clearly state my role and specialty using terms from the keyword list. No buzzwords, no 'passionate', no 'results-driven'. At least three options should mention a specific number or outcome from my brag list."

Pick the one you would be comfortable saying out loud at a dinner party. If none qualify, tell the AI which halves of which options you like and have it recombine.

What prompts should I use for my About section?

The About section allows 2,600 characters, but readers see roughly the first 300 before the "see more" cutoff. That first line is the whole game. If it opens with "Experienced professional with a proven track record," nobody clicks see more, and honestly they are right not to.

Structure that works: a first line that states plainly who you help and what changes because of your work, a short middle that tells the story behind your brag list, and a closing line that says what you want next (open to X, building Y, talking about Z). Prompt:

"Draft my About section in first person, under 1,500 characters, in plain spoken English. The first sentence must work as a standalone hook under 300 characters and must not contain the words 'passionate', 'proven', 'experienced', or 'driven'. Build the middle from items 2, 4, and 5 of my brag list. End with one line about what I am looking for next. Then give me a second version that is 30% shorter."

Write your own first line if the AI's version feels off. A slightly awkward sentence that sounds like a person beats a polished one that sounds like everyone.

How do I rewrite my experience section with AI?

Each role gets up to 2,000 characters. You do not need anywhere near that. Three to five bullets per recent role, one or two for older ones, each starting with a verb and ending with an outcome.

Work one role at a time:

"Rewrite my experience entry for [role] as 4 bullets. Each bullet: starts with a strong verb, includes a concrete outcome or number from my brag list, stays under 200 characters, and uses at least one missing keyword from the list where it is accurate. Flag any bullet where you had to guess at a fact, because I will only publish what is true."

That last clause matters. AI will happily invent a percentage to make a bullet land. Your profile is a public document that future employers, and sometimes lawyers, will read next to your resume. The two must match. This is the same discipline as getting your resume past AI screening: keywords where they are true, nothing where they are not.

How do I make an AI-written profile sound like me?

Once every section is drafted, run one final pass, and make it adversarial:

"Review my full profile draft. Flag every phrase that commonly appears in AI-generated writing or corporate bios: 'results-driven', 'proven track record', 'passionate about', 'dynamic', 'synergy', and anything a hiring manager has read a thousand times. Suggest a plainer replacement for each, and show me anywhere two sentences have the same rhythm and length back to back."

Then close the laptop test: read the whole profile out loud. Any sentence you would never say to a colleague gets rewritten in the words you would actually use, even if they are less impressive. We wrote a whole guide on making AI write like you if your drafts keep coming back sounding like a press release.

Key takeaways

• Load the AI with your resume, two or three target job postings, and a brag list before asking for any drafts. Generic input produces generic profiles.
• Mine the job postings for the exact terms recruiters search, then work the true ones into every section. LinkedIn search is literal.
• Front-load everything: the first 60 characters of your 220-character headline and the first 300 characters of your About section are all most people ever see.
• Never publish a number or claim the AI invented. Your profile and resume must tell the same story.
• Finish with an adversarial voice pass, then read the profile out loud and rewrite anything you would not say to a colleague.

Updating your profile is easier with other people in the room, partly for accountability and partly because someone who knows your work will spot the wins you forgot to list. Willa members do exactly this at our live events, trading profile reviews and honest feedback with women who are figuring out AI-era careers together. If that sounds useful, come join us. Bring your draft headline; we will tell you if we would click on it.

• LinkedIn
• AI prompts
• job search
• personal branding
• careers

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