DEV Community

Cover image for What recruiters actually search for on LinkedIn (and why your headline matters more than your summary)
PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

What recruiters actually search for on LinkedIn (and why your headline matters more than your summary)

#career #linkedin #jobsearch

Recruiters searching LinkedIn type keywords into a search bar before they read a single profile — 'RAG', 'fine-tuning', 'GenAI', a specific framework name. If those words aren't in your headline or skills section, you don't surface in that search at all.

What to actually put where

  • Headline: your role plus your two or three sharpest, most searched skills — not a vague tagline.
  • Skills section: the exact terms recruiters search, not synonyms you personally prefer.
  • About section: this is read after you've already surfaced in search, so it can be more narrative — but the headline can't be.

The mistake that costs the most reach

A creative, personality-driven headline with no technical keywords looks nice to a human who already found you, but never surfaces you in a recruiter's keyword search in the first place. Optimise the headline for search, and let the About section carry your personality.

See LinkedIn for CS students: a guide.

About Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour presenting with a microphone in front of a slide reading 'Now what's the conclusion?'
Presenting to a room

Pranjul Rathour on stage presenting a requirements-gathering and user-flow slide
Requirements gathering, on stage

Pranjul Rathour seated in a black jacket and white turtleneck with an event lanyard
Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour presenting KrishGyan — farming advice in your voice and language — in front of a projector screen
Presenting KrishGyan

Pranjul Rathour, GenAI engineer from Kanpur, in a white turtleneck and black jacket, looking to the side
Pranjul Rathour — GenAI engineer, Kanpur

Pranjul Rathour is a GenAI engineer from Kanpur, India, and CTO at SCULT INDIA, currently shipping production RAG,
fine-tuning and agentic AI systems, mentoring 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave, and judging and speaking at
student hackathons across India. Updated 2026-09-07.

Reach out if you want to talk GenAI, book a campus session, or invite him to judge:

Pranjul Rathour · GenAI engineer, 3x hackathon winner, campus mentor. Open for GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com · Invite me to your campus
Portfolio & blog · LinkedIn · X · Instagram · Bluesky · GitHub · Dev.to

Top comments (0)