Written by Kate Flick, MJP Career Counselor
A LinkedIn URL is your LinkedIn profile’s unique web address. When hiring managers research candidates, one of the first things they do after scanning your résumé is look for you on LinkedIn. Customizing your LinkedIn URL and adding this information to your résumé is a great way to help hiring managers find your specific LinkedIn profile quickly. It shows them that you are LinkedIn savvy and know the importance of this job search tool.
When you create your LinkedIn account, LinkedIn will randomly assign you a URL, which will contain your name followed by random numbers or letters, i.e. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane_doe_37b9a69/. Those numbers and letters are default designations assigned when users setup their LinkedIn profiles; it is how LinkedIn differentiates its users. All LinkedIn users should take the time to personalize their LinkedIn URL, and remove the randomly generated characters, so instead your personalized LinkedIn URL could read: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane_doe.
LinkedIn recommends using a variation of your name and/or your professional brand so that people can find you easily, especially if you have a more common name. Some options to try if your first name/last name personalization is not available: last name followed by first name, include spaces or dashes, or add a professional distinction such as degree or certification, for example:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe-mba
or
https://www.linkedin.com/in/doe-jane-PhD
Remember, once you customize your URL, be sure to update your job search marketing material to reflect this new information, including your résumé, email signature, business cards, networking brief, personal website, etc.
Here are step-by-step instructions for personalizing your LinkedIn URL:
Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
Click View profile.
On your profile page, click Edit Public Profile & URL in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
This will bring you to Public Profile Settings. In the sidebar to the right, it will say “Edit URL.” There will be an address beneath that that looks something like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.
Click the edit button, which is shaped like a tiny, blue pencil.
Edit your name anywhere after the phrase “www.linkedin.com/in/”. That part must remain the same.
Click Save.
You now have a custom URL!
Additional notes from LinkedIn about your custom URL:
Your custom URL can have 5-30 letters or numbers. Don't use spaces, symbols, or special characters.
We recommend using a variation of your name and/or your professional brand since you will share this URL with people so they can find your LinkedIn profile. Some job applications may also ask you for your LinkedIn profile URL.
The customizable part of the URL is case insensitive. This means using JohnSmith, johnsmith, or johnSmith will all point to the same profile.
If the URL you want isn't available, please select a different one. LinkedIn can't make custom URLs available to members upon request.
You can change your URL up to five times within six months. Once you have changed your URL for the fifth time, you will not be able to change it for another six months. Changing your URL several times may make it hard for people to find you.
If a member uses a URL and then changes it, that URL will be unavailable for use by other members for six months.
If you navigate to a previously claimed URL, you may see a page that reads ‘Profile Not Found’.
Additional language profiles have the same URL, but LinkedIn will add a language field at the end. For example, "fr" would be added at the end of the URL for a member's French profile.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/87/customizing-your-public-profile-url?lang=en