Why do I have to upload a PDF instead of pasting my LinkedIn URL?

LinkedIn blocks automated reading of profiles and requires a login, so any tool that claims to read your profile from a URL is either unreliable or doing something LinkedIn prohibits. LinkedIn provides its own export (Profile, More, Save to PDF). Reading that file in your browser is accurate, permitted, and private: the file never leaves your device.

How does LinkedIn recruiter search actually work?

It runs in two stages. First a hard filter retrieves everyone who matches the recruiter's Boolean and facet criteria, which supports quoted exact phrases and has no wildcards. Then a machine-learned model ranks that set. This matters because anything that keeps you out of the first stage cannot be compensated for by anything in the second.

How many skills can I add to LinkedIn?

LinkedIn's Help Center states 100 as of August 2026, raised from the older limit of 50. LinkedIn's own talent blog still says 50, so the two properties disagree. Treat the Help Center as operative, and if the field stops you earlier, trust the field.

Will this tool write my profile for me?

It rewrites your headline and the opening of your About using only facts already present in your profile. The rewrite is sent the first 1200 characters of that About section, not only the part shown before “see more”. A number that is not already in what you sent is refused in code rather than trusted to the model, and the rest of the wording is constrained to your own headline, titles, skills and About, so read it before you post it. When your profile is too thin to rewrite honestly it says so and tells you what to add yourself instead of making something up.

Free LinkedIn profile review

Recruiters search. You do not come up.

LinkedIn recruiter search runs a hard filter first and ranks second. This tells you which is happening to you: whether you are invisible, or just placed low. Free, and your file never leaves your browser.

1 On LinkedIn: your profile, then More, then Save to PDF 2 Drop it below 3 Fix the blockers first

Drop your LinkedIn export, or browse

Your file is read on your device, never uploaded and never stored. No signup.

What role are you going for? Optional. It lets us check whether recruiters searching that exact phrase can find you.

Runs in your browser
Your file stays on your device
Free, no account

Your export is parsed here in this browser and the file itself is never sent anywhere. We do store your IP address for about an hour so we can rate-limit these pages, and we record aggregate page usage: seconds on the page, how far you scrolled, which controls you pressed, how many times this page is loaded, and a count of Profile Checks that showed a result. A page can also record your arrival, keeping only the kind of site that sent you (a group name such as Google or Reddit, never the link), and set a cookie holding the value 1 that stops later pages recording it again. The optional Rewrite button in your results is the one thing on this page that sends any of your own words off this device, and the card there says exactly what it sends. The privacy policy spells that out.

Two different problems, and only one of them is about writing

Blocks you

You are not in the list at all

Recruiter search retrieves before it ranks, using quoted exact phrases with no wildcards. If your title says "Growth Ninja", a search for "Marketing Manager" never sees you. No amount of good writing fixes that. These are binary, and you can verify every one yourself.

Moves you up

You are in the list, lower than you should be

Once you are retrieved, a ranking model decides order. Fuller sections, real hard skills, and a specific opening all help here. These improve your odds. They are not guarantees, and we label them that way.

Most tools mix these together and score you out of 100 as if every item mattered equally. They do not.

What this tool will not do

These are popular. They are also either against LinkedIn's rules, provably useless, or simply untrue, so we refuse them on purpose.

Inflate your title or seniority. LinkedIn's policies prohibit misrepresenting your experience, and it is the fastest way to lose an offer at reference check.
Invent metrics. The most common failure of AI rewriters. If a number is not already yours, it will not appear.
Keyword stuffing. Retrieval is satisfied by presence, not repetition, so saying your target title twelve times buys you nothing and reads badly to the human who follows.
Recommend features that no longer exist. Skill assessments, Creator Mode, profile hashtags and Cover Story are all gone, and advice still recommending them is stale.
Repeat multipliers we cannot source. The "headlines are indexed at 5x weight" claim is everywhere and has no primary source, so we do not use it.
Promise you interviews. No tool can, and anyone who does is selling you something.

Questions

Why not just paste my LinkedIn URL?

LinkedIn blocks automated profile reading and requires a login, so URL-based tools are either unreliable or doing something LinkedIn prohibits. LinkedIn gives you its own export instead. Reading that in your browser is accurate, permitted, and private.

What can you not check?

Quite a lot, and we list it on your results rather than quietly scoring it: your Featured section, banner, the Industry dropdown, your verification badge, how skills are tagged to roles, and your recruiter-visibility settings. None of those survive the export, so we refuse to score them.

How many skills does LinkedIn allow?

The Help Center says 100 as of August 2026, up from 50. LinkedIn's own talent blog still says 50, so their properties disagree. We treat the Help Center as operative, and if the field stops you earlier, trust the field.

Does this work for Indeed?

Partly, and the honest answer is that Indeed is a different problem. One setting dominates everything: if your resume visibility is Private, employers searching Indeed cannot find you at all, no matter what your profile says. Check that first.

Is it really free?

Yes, and it stays free. We make money when people pay for Bounce Pro to rebuild their resume. The reviews and the resume scan are free forever.