A recruiter found your profile, liked what they saw, and clicked "Contact info." What happens next decides whether you get a message or they move to the next tab. If that panel is empty or locked down, the interest you just earned evaporates in a second.
Most people set up their LinkedIn contact section once, years ago, and never look at it again. Worth a two-minute audit.
What actually lives in the contact panel
LinkedIn gives you several slots behind the "Contact info" link: your profile URL, websites, phone, email, and your birthday and connection date. Not all of them deserve to be filled, and the defaults are not great.
The two that matter most for getting hired:
- Your custom profile URL. The default is a string of random numbers. Change it to linkedin.com/in/yourname so it looks clean on a CV, in an email signature, and when someone reads it out loud.
- A reachable email. Use a personal address you check daily, not your current work email. Recruiters often message you outside the platform, and an inbox you actually open is the difference between a reply and a missed opportunity.
What to think twice about
Your phone number is the one to consider carefully. Adding it means anyone in your network, and depending on your settings a wider audience, can see it. If you are deep in a job hunt and want recruiters to call, add it. If you would rather screen first contact through messages, leave it off. There is no universally right answer here.
Skip the birthday unless you enjoy the automated birthday messages. It adds nothing professional and quietly hands out a data point.
If you list a personal website or portfolio, make sure the link works and points somewhere current. A dead Behance link from 2019 is worse than no link.
Open to work, without telling your boss
This trips people up. LinkedIn's "Open to work" feature has two modes. The green photo banner is public and tells everyone, including your current employer. The other option shares your availability only with recruiters using LinkedIn's hiring tools, and LinkedIn tries to hide it from recruiters at your own company.
If you are job hunting quietly, use the recruiters-only setting. It still surfaces you in searches without lighting up your feed.
Make your profile easy to act on
Contact info is plumbing. It only works if the rest of the profile makes someone want to reach out in the first place. A sharp headline and a clear About section do the persuading; the contact panel just needs to not get in the way. Our LinkedIn profile optimization guide walks through the parts that pull recruiters in.
One more thing worth checking: the spelling and format of your name and contact details should match across LinkedIn and your CV. Recruiters cross-reference, and a number that differs between the two creates a small, avoidable doubt. If you build your CV from your LinkedIn profile with a tool like Postulit, those fields stay in sync by default, which also keeps your CV contact block clean and consistent.
Spend the two minutes. Fix the URL, set a reachable email, decide on the phone number, and choose the quiet "Open to work" mode. That is the whole job.