Your online profile
Set up a profile that recruiters can find and trust: a clear headline, a short about section, proof of your work, and a tidy public footprint.
WORKS WHILE YOU SLEEP
Your profile gets searched
A CV only goes where you send it. A profile on LinkedIn or on a job site can be found: recruiters search these sites for skills and job titles, and many look you up after reading your CV. A clear profile brings you messages you never applied for, and it backs up everything your CV says.
Kian never applied to a logistics company in Tabriz. Their recruiter searched 'supply chain analyst Excel' on a job site, found his profile and messaged him.
The parts that matter most
- Photo: clear face, plain background, looking like you do at work. No group shots or filters.
- Headline: the line under your name, and the one people see in search results.
- About: a few short paragraphs in your own voice.
- Experience and skills: the same facts as your CV, with your best achievements.
Two headlines
Weak
'Student at Tehran University' or 'Looking for opportunities'. Says where you are, not what you do, and matches no one's search.
Strong
'Junior Data Analyst | SQL, Excel, Power BI | Retail and e-commerce'. Role, key skills, field: the words a recruiter would type.
Check yourself
Ramin wants recruiters to find him for backend developer jobs. Which headline helps most?
- Computer engineering graduate, passionate about technology and always eager to learn new things
- Open to work
- Backend Developer | Go, PostgreSQL, REST APIs
- Future tech leader
Show the answer
Backend Developer | Go, PostgreSQL, REST APIs
Right. It names the role and the skills recruiters search for. 'Passionate' and 'future leader' are adjectives nobody types into a search box.
ABOUT YOU
An about section people finish
Write in the first person, in three short parts. What you do and for whom. Your proof: one or two achievements with results. What you're looking for next. Keep it to a few short paragraphs; the reader should know within a few lines whether to keep reading.
'I help small online shops understand their sales data. At my last job I built a weekly dashboard that helped the team cut unsold stock. I'm now looking for a junior analyst role in e-commerce, in Tehran or remote.'
Check yourself
Shirin's CV says she left her last job in March 2024; her LinkedIn profile still lists her as working there. Since recruiters usually only read one of the two, this small difference doesn't matter.
Show the answer
False
False. Many recruiters check both, often side by side. A mismatch in dates looks careless at best, and at worst like she's hiding a gap. It takes two minutes to fix, so fix it.
SHOW, DON'T TELL
A small portfolio
For many roles, a link to real work is the strongest proof you can give: code on GitHub, designs on Behance or a personal page, writing samples, a short case study of a project. Two or three finished pieces, each with a few lines on the problem, what you did and the result, beat twenty unexplained ones.
Sahar, a new graduate, had no design job yet. She redesigned the booking flow of a local clinic's website as a practice project and wrote up why she changed each screen. That one case study came up in every interview.
Check yourself
Strong portfolio piece, or weak one?
- A finished app with a short note on the problem it solves
- Twenty half-done tutorial projects with no description
- A case study showing before, after and why
- A client's confidential report, shared without permission
- Three writing samples in the style of the target job
- A link that leads to a private or broken page
Show the answer
Strong: A finished app with a short note on the problem it solves, A case study showing before, after and why, Three writing samples in the style of the target job
Weak: Twenty half-done tutorial projects with no description, A client's confidential report, shared without permission, A link that leads to a private or broken page
Tidy your footprint
- Search your own name, in English and Persian. See what an employer would see.
- Make personal accounts private if you'd rather employers didn't read them.
- Use a plain email address based on your name for job hunting.
- Never put your national ID number, full home address or ID photos on a public profile.
Check yourself
Match each place to what it's best for
Show the answer
- LinkedIn → A professional profile and network, visible to employers abroad
- An Iranian job site profile → A searchable CV for employers in Iran
- GitHub → Showing code you've written
- Behance → Showing visual design work
Check yourself
Yasaman has one free hour this week for her online presence. Her profile headline says 'Student' and her about section is empty. What's the best use of the hour?
- Rewrite her headline and about section around her target role
- Post something every day this week so her profile looks busy and active
- Send connection requests to 200 strangers at random
- Redesign her profile banner image
Show the answer
Rewrite her headline and about section around her target role
Yes. Headline and about decide whether she shows up in searches and whether people read on. Everything else builds on them, so they come first.
Lesson recap
- Profiles get searched: a headline with role and key skills makes you findable.
- Write a short about section: what you do, your proof, what you want next.
- Keep titles and dates identical to your CV.
- Two or three explained work samples beat a pile of unexplained ones; keep your public footprint tidy.