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A LinkedIn profile that gets you found, in one hour

6 minute read · Updated 2026-09-01

A recruiter searching LinkedIn types a job title and a place, then filters. That is the whole mechanism. Almost everything else you read about the platform is aimed at people building an audience, which is a different activity from being findable when somebody needs your trade in your town.

The five fields that decide whether you appear

  1. Headline. Not "Aspiring professional seeking new opportunities". Put the job title you want and your main ticket: HGV Class 1 Driver · ADR · Birmingham. Searches match against this heavily.
  2. Location. Set it to the nearest large town, not a village nobody filters by.
  3. Current and past job titles. Use the title the industry uses, not the internal one. "Warehouse Operative" is searched thousands of times a day; "Logistics Colleague Level 2" is not.
  4. Skills. Add the ten that matter and let them be endorsed. Recruiters filter on these.
  5. Open to work. Switch it on. You can make it visible to recruiters only, which does not show a green frame to your current employer.

The About section, in four lines

Write it in the first person, plainly, and put the searchable words in it:

"Class 1 driver, 11 years, tramping and trunking. ADR and Driver CPC current. Clean licence. Based in Birmingham, happy anywhere in the Midlands. Looking for a permanent role with a firm that runs decent kit and pays weekly."

Four sentences beat four paragraphs. The word you are tempted to use is "passionate", and it does not do any work.

The photograph, which is the opposite of a CV

Here a photograph helps, because the profile is a professional presence rather than an application. It does not have to be taken by a photographer. A plain background, daylight, shoulders up, wearing what you would wear to an interview. A picture in your work gear is fine and often better in the trades.

What to do once a week, for ten minutes

  • Connect with recruiters who cover your trade in your area. Add one line: "I drive Class 1 in the Midlands, do get in touch if something suitable comes up."
  • Follow ten local employers you would work for. Their vacancies then reach you directly.
  • Comment usefully on one post. Not for the algorithm, but because a recruiter who has seen your name twice opens your message.

You do not need to post articles, build a personal brand or do anything that makes you cringe. Being findable and being reachable is the whole job.

One caution

Your profile is public, so treat it as public. Do not put your address, your date of birth or your licence number on it. If your current employer does not know you are looking, use the recruiters-only setting and do not announce it, because "open to work" plus a public post is how people get found out.

Then use both routes: be findable there, and apply directly here, where your CV goes to the employer and nowhere else.