LinkedIn Growth6 min read
How to Make a Resume From Your LinkedIn Profile
How to make a resume from your LinkedIn profile: which sections to pull, what the Save to PDF export quietly drops, how to tailor it, and the fastest clean path.
By Animesh Kudake, Co-founder, Apna Project
The short version
- The fastest start is LinkedIn's built in Save to PDF, found under the More button on your own profile. It turns your profile into a resume-style PDF in one click.
- That automatic export is a first draft, not a finished resume. It is desktop only, English only, and it flattens your formatting, so plan to rework it.
- A profile tries to be complete; a resume is ruthless. Pull only the sections a specific role needs and cut everything that does not earn its space on one or two pages.
- Tailor the summary and the top three bullet points to the job description before you send it. A generic export reads like a generic export.
- Keep the profile and the resume as two separate assets. They serve different readers and neither should be a copy of the other.
The sections worth pulling (and what to cut)
A profile tries to be findable for everyone. A resume is written for one reader deciding on one role. That difference drives every cut.
Keep and sharpen these:
- A summary, rewritten for the role you are chasing rather than the general one on your profile.
- Recent, relevant experience, with each role led by its strongest result, not a list of duties.
- Skills and tools that match the job description, trimmed to the ones you would defend in an interview.
- Education and credentials that the role actually asks for.
Cut without guilt: roles from more than 10 to 15 years ago that no longer matter, unrelated side projects, long skill lists padded for search, and anything that pushes you past two pages. If you are unsure what earns its place, our LinkedIn profile best practices breaks down which parts of a profile carry real weight, and the same instinct applies to the resume.
The test for every line: would this help a hiring manager say yes to this specific job? If not, it belongs on the profile, not the resume.
Tailor it before you send it
A raw export reads like a raw export. Ten minutes of tailoring is the difference between a document that gets skimmed and one that gets a reply.
Rewrite the top third for the role. The summary and your first two or three bullet points are the part most people actually read, so mirror the language of the job description there. If the posting asks for pipeline forecasting, do not make them hunt for the line where you did exactly that.
Lead with outcomes. "Cut onboarding time from three weeks to eight days" beats "responsible for onboarding." Numbers you can defend do more work than adjectives.
Match the resume to the same story your profile tells, especially if you are actively searching and recruiters may see both. If your profile carries an Open to Work signal, make sure the resume backs up the roles you are signaling for, so the two documents reinforce each other instead of drifting apart. The same goes for making the profile itself pull its weight with recruiters, which we cover in making your profile attractive to recruiters.
Keep them as two separate assets
Here is the observation from where we sit. We build a LinkedIn commenting tool, so we spend our days watching how people get noticed on the platform, and the pattern is clear: the profile and the resume are not two copies of the same thing, and treating them as one weakens both.
The profile is your always-on, searchable presence. It should be a little broader, a little more human, and written for people who found you before they knew they needed you. The resume is a targeted pitch for a single role, stripped to what closes that application. A profile that reads like a resume feels cold to a network. A resume that reads like a profile feels unfocused to a recruiter.
So export the PDF, keep it as raw material, and shape a real resume from it for each role that matters. Let the profile stay wide and the resume stay sharp. They are teammates, not twins, and the job search goes better when each one does its own job.
The short version
Click More, then Save to PDF, to get a resume-style draft from your profile in seconds. Treat that file as raw text, not a finished resume. Cut it to the sections one role needs, rewrite the top third to match the job, lead every line with a result you can defend, and keep it to one or two pages. Then leave your profile wide and searchable, because it is doing a different job than the resume in your outbox.
Frequently asked questions
Can you export your LinkedIn profile into a resume?
Yes. On your own profile, click the More button under your headline and choose Save to PDF. LinkedIn builds a resume-style PDF from your visible sections. It is a solid starting draft, but it is desktop only and English only, and you will still want to edit the layout and trim it down.
Does Save to PDF include every section?
No. It pulls your main sections like About, Experience, Education, and Skills, but it drops richer content such as Featured media, recommendations, and much of your formatting. Treat the export as raw material and add back anything important by hand when you build the final resume.
How do I turn my LinkedIn into a resume for a specific job?
Export the PDF first, then cut it to the roles and skills that match the job description. Rewrite your summary for that role, lead each job with its strongest result, and remove older or unrelated positions. The goal is one to two focused pages, not a full career archive.
Is a LinkedIn profile the same as a resume?
No, and they should not be identical. A profile is a searchable, always-on page written for a wide audience. A resume is a targeted document written for one role and one reader. Use the profile to get found and the resume to close a specific application.
Written by the team building Commenti on real LinkedIn growth data. Found an error? Tell us and we’ll fix it. Accuracy beats winning.
Co-founder, Apna Project
Co-founder at Apna Project, where he helps founders and agencies turn ideas into products. Writes here on LinkedIn growth and what actually earns attention in a comment section. Commenti is the LinkedIn comment automation tool by Ampliflow.
If you have ever tried to answer how to make a resume from your LinkedIn profile, you have probably noticed the two halves of your career do not line up as neatly as you hoped. Your profile is sprawling and complete. A resume needs to be short and pointed. Getting from one to the other is less about exporting and more about editing.
The good news: LinkedIn does give you a one-click head start. The catch: that head start is a rough draft, and treating it as a finished resume is how people end up sending a four-page document that reads like a database dump.
Here is the honest path from profile to resume, what the built-in export does well, what it quietly drops, and how to shape the result into something a hiring manager actually wants to read.
Start with the export LinkedIn already gives you
The quickest way to make a resume from your LinkedIn profile is the tool built into the profile itself.
Go to your own profile on desktop, click the More button just under your headline, and choose Save to PDF. LinkedIn assembles a resume-style PDF from your visible sections and downloads it. No third-party tool, no scraping, no risk to your account.
Two limits to know before you rely on it. Save to PDF is desktop only, so it will not appear in the mobile app, and it only works on profiles set to English. If your profile is in another language, switch the display language first or build the resume by hand.
If you also want a full copy of everything LinkedIn holds on you, that is a different export. We walk through both the PDF and the complete data archive in our guide to exporting your LinkedIn profile, and the archive is the better choice when you want raw text to paste into a resume builder.
What the automatic PDF gets wrong
The export is a starting point, not a finished product, and it helps to know where it falls short so you are not surprised.
It flattens your formatting. The clean spacing and bolding you see on the page do not survive intact, so expect to redo the visual layout in a document editor. It also drops the richest parts of your profile: your Featured media, your recommendations, and any nuance that lived in how sections were arranged.
It is complete when you want it selective. The PDF tends to include every role and every skill you listed, which is the opposite of what a strong resume does. A good resume leaves things out on purpose.
So the realistic workflow is: export to get your text in one place, then open it in a document editor and rebuild it as an actual resume. The export saves you retyping. It does not save you from editing.