How to See What My LinkedIn Profile Looks Like

Your LinkedIn profile is your digital handshake, but have you ever stopped to wonder what others actually see when they view it? You spend hours perfecting your headline, detailing work experience, and gathering endorsements, but that effort is only effective if your profile presents a clear, professional, and complete picture to the right audience. This guide provides a straightforward tutorial on how to see your profile from different perspectives - the public, a search engine, and a recruiter - so you can fine-tune what everyone sees and make the best first impression.

Why Does It Matter How Others See Your Profile?

You wouldn't walk into a job interview without knowing what you're wearing, and the same principle applies to your LinkedIn profile. It's often the very first interaction a potential employer, client, or business partner has with your professional identity. Viewing your profile from an external perspective helps you take control of your professional brand for a few simple reasons:

• First Impressions Count: For recruiters and hiring managers who look at hundreds of profiles, a polished, complete profile immediately stands out. You have just a few seconds to communicate your value, and seeing what they see helps you optimize those critical first few sections.
• Control Your Narrative: Your profile tells your career story. Does it tell the right one? Seeing your "About" section and experience from a fresh angle helps you spot gaps, find opportunities to add quantifiable achievements, and build a more compelling narrative.
• Manage Your Privacy: It's also about what you don't want people to see. Are you accidentally sharing personal details or every single 'like' with the entire internet? Taking an outside look reveals what information is publicly available so you can adjust your privacy settings accordingly.
• Optimize for Opportunity: Your LinkedIn profile is a landing page for your career. Viewing it as an outsider lets you test whether it's effectively "selling" your skills and encouraging people to connect, reach out, or consider you for a role.

The Cleanest Method: Viewing Your Public Profile

LinkedIn gives you a direct tool to see exactly what your profile looks like to people who are either not logged into LinkedIn or are not part of your network. This is the single most important view to check, as it's your public-facing persona on the web.

Step-by-Step Guide to Seeing Your Public Profile:

1. Navigate to Your Profile: Log in to LinkedIn. Click the "Me" icon in the top right corner of the navigation bar, then select "View Profile" from the dropdown menu.
2. Find the Settings Link: On your main profile page, look to the right-hand column. You'll see a link that says "Edit public profile & URL". Click it.
3. See Your Preview: This will open a new page where you can manage your public visibility. The center-left of the page will show your profile as it appears to the public. Scroll through it carefully. What's missing? What stands out?

What to Do On This Page: Your Public Visibility Toggles

To the right of the public profile preview, you'll find a section called "Edit your public profile's visibility". This is where you have granular control. You'll see a primary toggle to turn your entire public profile on or off. Assuming you want to be discovered, keep this on and focus on the settings below it.

Here's what you can control, and some friendly advice on what to set:

• Your Public Profile's Photo: You should absolutely make this visible to "All LinkedIn Members" or even "Public". A profile without a photo gets significantly less engagement and can appear less trustworthy.
• Profile Sections: You can decide to show or hide nearly every section - Background (your banner image), Headline, 'About' section, Articles & Activity, and details for your Experience, Education, and Volunteer Experience.
• Recommended Settings:
  • Headline, About, Experience details, and Education details: Keep these on. This is your core professional information and what people come to your profile to find.
  • Articles & Activity: This one is your call. If you are actively building your brand by sharing industry posts, writing helpful comments, and engaging with content relevant to your field, turning this on is a huge plus. If your activity is mostly personal or unrelated, you might prefer to keep it hidden from public view to maintain a more focused professional image.

How to See What Google and the World See: The Incognito Check

The public profile settings page gives you LinkedIn's version of the public view. For an even more realistic perspective of what someone searching for you on Google might find, the incognito method is perfect.

Step-by-Step Guide:

1. Copy Your Profile URL: Go back to the "Edit public profile & URL" page. In the top right corner, under "Edit your custom URL," you'll find your personal LinkedIn web address (e.g., linkedin.com/in/yourname). Copy it.
2. Open an Incognito Window: In your web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari), open a new Private or Incognito window. This action logs you out of all your accounts and lets you browse the web as if you were a first-time visitor.
3. Paste and Go: Paste your LinkedIn URL into the incognito browser's address bar and press Enter.

What loads is the truest public version of your profile - exactly what a client, future boss, or stranger will see when they look you up. Use this view to do a final quality check. Is your headline compelling? Does your profile photo look sharp? Does the 'About' summary immediately convey who you are and what you do? This minimal view is your most powerful asset for attracting cold traffic and making a strong first impression.

Simulating a Recruiter's View: The Unofficial Method

Here's something many people want to know: "How can I see what a recruiter sees?" There isn't a simple button for this, as many recruiters use a premium product called LinkedIn Recruiter that gives them advanced search filters and a more detailed layout. However, you can optimize your profile for their view by focusing on what they're trained to look for.

While recruiters see essentially the same core information as your first-degree connections (your full profile), their platform highlights specific things to make screening candidates easier. Here's how to think like a recruiter and review your own profile:

1. Check if Your Profile is "Complete"

LinkedIn's algorithms, especially within the Recruiter platform, tend to favor profiles that are "All-Star" or fully complete. Review your profile for the following:

• A current position with a description.
• Two or more past positions.
• Your education information filled out.
• At least 5 skills listed.
• A professional profile photo and 'About' summary.
• At least 50 connections.

2. Analyze Your Keywords

Recruiters don't browse, they search. They use keywords related to job titles, skills, technologies, and industries to find candidates. Read through your own headline, 'About' section, and job descriptions. Are the keywords for the jobs you want represented clearly and frequently? For example, if you're a project manager aiming for roles in the SaaS industry, a headline like "Project Manager | PMP Certified | Scrum Master | Driving SaaS Product Launches" is far more powerful in a search than just "Project Manager."

3. Review Your 'Open to work' Setting

The 'Open to work' feature directly changes what recruiters see. When you enable it, you have two choices:

• Visible to everyone (publicly): This adds the green #OpenToWork frame to your profile picture. Everyone can see that you're looking for new opportunities.
• Visible to recruiters only: This signals your interest privately within the LinkedIn Recruiter tool. Recruiters will see an 'Open to work' badge on your profile that other members cannot.

If you have this setting on, you can be confident that recruiters on the platform can see that you are actively looking. Just make sure the job titles, locations, and workplace types you've selected are accurate and reflect your goals.

Final Quality Check: A Quick Checklist for Your Profile

Now that you've seen your profile from every angle, run through this quick checklist to catch common mistakes and make easy improvements.

✨ Your Top "Fold" (Headline, Photo, Banner)

• Profile Picture: Is it a clear, high-quality headshot where you look friendly and professional? No party pics, no blurry images.
• Banner Image: Is it the default blue one? Change it. A custom banner that reflects your brand, company, or industry instantly makes your profile look more complete.
• Headline: Does it transcend your job title to explain your value? Think about what you do, for whom, and what makes you unique.

✨ Your "About" Section

• Is it written in the first person? This sounds more approachable and authentic.
• Does the first sentence hook the reader? Grab their attention right away.
• Does it include specific skills keywords and maybe a call-to-action (e.g., "Feel free to message me to talk about...")?

✨ Your Experience

• Did you use 3-5 bullet points for each role? Paragraphs are hard to skim.
• Do your bullet points use action verbs and include metrics? "Increased sales by 25%" is far better than "Responsible for managing sales."
• Have you attached any media (like projects or articles) to your experience entries?

Final Thoughts

Regularly reviewing your LinkedIn profile from these different perspectives shifts it from a passive resume into an active tool for your career growth. By ensuring your public view is professional, your content is optimized for recruiters, and your overall story is compelling, you take control of your professional identity and open the door to new opportunities.

Maintaining a sharp and consistent professional profile on LinkedIn is one of the most effective ways to build your personal brand. As your brand grows, however, that work often expands across other platforms - from Instagram and TikTok to X. That's where we wanted to build a better tool. At Postbase, we created a social media management platform that simplifies all that chaos, allowing you to plan, schedule, and analyze your content across all your channels from one clean, collaborative space without the headaches of legacy tools.