November 2018
A few months ago, I shared a workaround for the character limit of 120 on your LinkedIn headline. Since then, I have learned from listening to LinkedIn Expert Wayne Breitbarth (as a guest on the Resume Storyteller with Virginia Franco podcast), that you get up to 220 characters for your headline on the LinkedIn mobile app. In case you were wondering, your headline is the content right underneath your name on your LinkedIn profile in the top section called the “snapshot.” The snapshot includes your profile picture, headline, summary, and some basic facts (geographic location, contact information, and number of connections).
That’s great news if you need a longer headline, but there is one major downside as I recently learned from personal experience. You can force a longer headline using the trick shared in my May issue. However, after doing so, it’s not as easy to change any of the other data within the snapshot area. You see, even though you could create a longer headline on the LinkedIn mobile app (up to 220 characters) when you try to make a future edit to your snapshot data using the website, it won’t let you save your work because you exceed the LinkedIn website’s 120-character headline limit.
This happened to me when I added a new piece of media to my summary section while on my laptop. The website wouldn’t let me save the change, because it said my headline was too long. In case this happens to you, I’ll share my workaround. While it’s not ideal, it does the trick.
To prepare, have all of your new content ready to go before sitting down with two devices (one device logged into the LinkedIn website and one device opened to the LinkedIn mobile app). Also, be sure to have your extended length headline saved somewhere on the device that has the LinkedIn app open. Schedule a 15-minute window to complete the task (schedule 30 minutes if you tend to get sidetracked on social media).
To execute, open the LinkedIn website and make the changes you want to any area in the snapshot. Before saving, to satisfy the website characters space limitation, edit the content in your headline to appear as X (or a version of your headline that is 120 characters or less). Now, quickly go to the device that has the LinkedIn mobile app open and re-insert your extended headline. Save it and you’re done. For a few minutes, your headline will be off, but it will only be for a brief time, if you do all of these steps in one sitting. I realize this is not an ideal process, so if you find a better way, please share it with me.
