Open your LinkedIn profile and look at the address bar. If it ends with something like /in/jdoe-7a83b12c4 you have the default URL — the one LinkedIn assigns when you create an account. It works, but it looks abandoned.

The custom URL is a five-minute fix that pays off every time someone searches your name, reads your CV, or finds you through an email signature.

Why the default URL hurts you

Three reasons recruiters and hiring managers notice the difference:

• Search ranking. A clean URL with your name in it ranks higher when someone Googles you. Google reads the slug as a strong relevance signal.
• Trust signal. A messy URL looks like an account someone forgot. A clean one signals you maintain your professional presence.
• Practical use. You can't easily type or share a string of random characters. "linkedin.com/in/sarah-martinez" fits on a business card and into a 6-second voice note.

None of these alone wins you a job. Together they reduce friction on every introduction.

How to change your LinkedIn URL — step by step

1. Click your profile picture (top right) and select View Profile.
2. On the right rail, find Public profile & URL and click Edit.
3. Under Edit your custom URL, click the pencil icon.
4. Type your new slug. Hit Save.

That's it. The change is live immediately. The old URL still redirects for a while, but don't rely on that — update your CV and email signature once you've changed it.

Picking a good URL slug

LinkedIn allows 3–100 characters, letters and numbers and dashes only. The good options, in order of preference:

• `firstname-lastname` — the cleanest possible. If it's available, take it.
• `firstnamelastname` — same idea, no dash. Slightly harder to read but works.
• `firstname-lastname-role` — if both above are taken and your role is part of your brand (maria-lopez-uxdesigner).
• `firstname-middleinitial-lastname` — if you have a common name.

What to avoid:

• Numbers tacked on the end. john-smith-2008 looks like a fallback, even if it's the only one available.
• Job-title-only slugs. senior-pm-london ages badly. The day you change cities or move into a director role, your URL is misleading.
• Nicknames or jokes. The URL is searchable. Stick to the name on your CV.

What to do if your name is taken

Very common, especially for short or popular names. Three reliable workarounds:

1. Add your middle name or middle initial — sarah-elena-martinez.
2. Add a short, durable qualifier — sarah-martinez-engineer. Durable means it'll still describe you in five years.
3. Switch the order — martinez-sarah reads naturally in some cultures and frees you from the queue.

Resist the temptation to add the year you joined LinkedIn or the city you're in right now. Both will date your URL within a year or two.

After you change it

A changed URL means three follow-up actions:

• Update your CV. The LinkedIn link in your CV header should be the new one. The old URL will redirect, but recruiters paste links into LinkedIn search to verify them, and a redirect looks lazy.
• Update your email signature. Same logic.
• Update your portfolio site and any other profile that links to LinkedIn (GitHub, dribbble, personal site).

If you're using Postulit to keep your CV and LinkedIn in sync, the new URL flows through to every export automatically — one less manual update.

How often can you change it

LinkedIn lets you change your custom URL up to five times in six months. After that the option locks until the window resets. Don't burn changes on cosmetic tweaks. Set it once, set it well, and move on.

A custom URL is a small detail with surprisingly long reach. It shows up on every CV, every email, every introduction — the kind of compounding cleanup that's worth doing once and forgetting.