LinkedIn Profile vs. Resume: What to Keep, Rewrite, and Remove

Your LinkedIn profile can cover several kinds of work. A resume for one application has less room and a specific audience. Keep the career facts consistent, then select the experience that helps explain your fit for that role.

Sort the imported material

Profile element	What to do on the resume	What to check
Name and contact details	Keep the details you want an employer to use	Accuracy and readability
Job titles, employers, and dates	Preserve the facts	Explain a translated or clarified title rather than inflating it
Education and certifications	Include relevant qualifications	Correct degree, institution, issuer, and dates
Headline	Rewrite for the application	Don’t present a target role as a title you’ve already held
About section	Select a short summary	Current work, relevant experience, and a useful detail
Role descriptions	Edit into concise bullets	Your activities and supported results
Skills	Select for this posting	Keep the terms that match experience you have
Older or unrelated roles	Shorten where detail adds little	Keep context needed to understand the career history
Recommendations and endorsements	Usually leave on LinkedIn	Consider a requested reference separately
Posts and featured content	Link only to relevant work	A portfolio piece may be useful evidence
Volunteering	Include when relevant	Skills, leadership, or context it adds
Photo	Decide for the application and market	Follow the employer’s instructions

An older role can still matter if it contains the experience a posting asks for. Age alone is not a reason to discard its useful details.

One fictional profile, before and after

This candidate is applying for a content marketing role. The source below contains all the facts used in the resume version.

Headline: Marketing professional | Content & Brand | Passionate about storytelling

About: I have 6+ years of experience across B2B and B2C. I started in journalism and now lead a content team of four at Nordwind. I manage our editorial calendar, blog, newsletter, and social channels. Outside work I cycle and volunteer at a reading charity. Always happy to connect!

Content Lead — Nordwind Software · Mar 2022 – Present · Berlin

• Responsible for content marketing strategy
• Managing the editorial calendar and company blog
• Working with designers and the product team
• Managing the newsletter and social channels

Marketing Specialist — Halden Retail · Jan 2020 – Feb 2022 · Berlin

• Ran social media and email campaigns
• Supported the loyalty program launch

Staff Writer — Kanal Weekly · Sep 2018 – Dec 2019 · Hamburg

• Wrote features and news pieces

Barista — Café Selim · Jun 2017 – Aug 2018 · Hamburg

Skills: Content Marketing, SEO, Copywriting, Storytelling, Social Media, Team Leadership, Communication, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Teamwork, Time Management, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Journalism, Newsletters, Public Speaking

Volunteering: Reading tutor, Lesefreunde e.V., 2021 – Present

What to keep and cut

Use the current title in the heading. “Content Lead” is already specific. The summary can explain the content marketing work without changing the experience title.

Keep relevant facts from About. The experience span, B2B and B2C work, and team size belong in the resume summary. The cycling and invitation to connect can stay on LinkedIn.

Combine overlapping Nordwind bullets. The calendar, blog, newsletter, and social channels can share one bullet. Put team leadership and strategy in another. Keep the design and product collaboration as a short line until the candidate can describe a specific project.

Compress Halden and Kanal Weekly. Campaign work remains relevant. Journalism also explains the writing background, but this version doesn’t need a full list of old assignments.

Leave out the café role for this application. It precedes the relevant career history and doesn’t supply a requirement for this posting. It can remain in the candidate’s full record.

Reduce the skills list. For this content role, keep the named marketing tools and disciplines. Communication and Microsoft Office are valid terms, but this version gives the limited space to more relevant details. Public speaking could come back for a role involving events or presentations.

The application version

Content Lead · Berlin · [email] · [phone]

Content marketer with more than six years across B2B and B2C, currently leading a content team of four. Background in journalism.

Content Lead — Nordwind Software · Mar 2022 – Present

• Leads a content team of four and manages content marketing strategy
• Manages the editorial calendar, company blog, newsletter, and social channels
• Works with designers and the product team

Marketing Specialist — Halden Retail · Jan 2020 – Feb 2022

• Ran social media and email campaigns and supported the loyalty program launch

Staff Writer — Kanal Weekly · Sep 2018 – Dec 2019

• Wrote features and news pieces

Skills: Content Marketing, SEO, Copywriting, Social Media, Team Leadership, HubSpot, Google Analytics

Some bullets remain broad because the input is broad. Before adding newsletter growth, ask for the period, starting and ending audience, and the candidate’s contribution. A cleaner sentence cannot supply that information.

Apply the same decisions to your import

Open the profile beside the editor. Check that all expected entries arrived, then work through contact details, experience, education, summary, and skills. Keep a copy of anything you remove so another application can use it.

In ExportMyResume, switching a section off marks it as not exported while retaining it in the editor. Experience entries can be reordered by dragging. Manual editing is free. PDF and Word downloads require Pro. Free for now during the launch offer: sign in to download either format without a subscription.

If LinkedIn groups several roles under one employer, check each position’s title and dates separately. Shortening a profile should not merge distinct roles or make a contribution look like a promotion.