Communication

Collaborating with ChatGPT Plus on a LinkedIn Refresh

Neville Hobson

02 Jan 2025 — 6 min read

After 20 years on LinkedIn, I decided it was time for a complete refresh and to create a profile that better reflects who I am today and where I’m heading, professionally and personally.

How often do you update or change your LinkedIn profile? Probably when you change your job or get a different role. That’s what I’ve done since I joined LinkedIn in June 2004 – updated things now and again because of a milestone event like a job change.

But, it meant that while I updated who I was working for and when, it didn’t accurately reflect what I was doing and why. Nor explain any of it very well.

In essence, I had a rather stale and impersonal online CV, written in typical third-person corporate-speak, that left a reader saying, “Okay, so what do you do, exactly?” You’d struggle to get a clear answer to that question from reading my old LinkedIn profile.

In recent years, my work and interests have evolved significantly. Aligned with my focus on achieving a more desirable work-life balance, this presented an opportunity to step back and reassess how I present my career, experiences, achievements, and aspirations.

As part of my journey to rebalance my work and life, I decided to rewrite everything (for the first time since 2017) and present my story in a simpler, more direct and cohesive manner.

Back then, I invested in the services of a professional LinkedIn profile writer. This time, I decided to make good use of generative AI with my paid ChatGPT Plus account to help me do this myself.

A Collaborative Workflow

We started this project in early December with my telling the AI assistant (I resist calling it ‘AI agent’ yet) what I wanted to do and what I required it to do. We began by sharing my current (old) profile and a list of ideas I had on structure, format, and tone, along with a formal CV that contains much cumbersome information not in the LinkedIn profile but essential reference for the chatbot.

In turn, ChatGPT Plus proposed a straightforward workflow:

1: Start with Recent and Relevant Roles:

ChatGPT will draft updated entries for my key roles over the past 15 years based on all the information shared and what ChatGPT discovered online. It would pay close attention to ensuring an engaging tone and style that reflected my own based on what ChatGPT already knows about me (it knows a lot), my work and my interests.
These entries will emphasise my unique contributions, achievements, and personality (as ChatGPT described it) while avoiding overly formal language.

2: Streamline Older Roles:

For positions that are further back in time, ChatGPT would summarise key highlights to demonstrate my career progression without overwhelming the profile.

3: Fill Gaps:

If anything was missing or needed clarification (eg, recent projects or achievements), ChatGPT would ask for additional input to refine the entries. This happened frequently as we developed the profile content.

And so we began. In the weeks before Christmas, we iterated on Experience drafts. I reviewed ChatGPT’s suggestions, shared feedback, and at times, shared sections of drafts I’d written or rewritten and asked the chatbot for its feedback.

At the coalface of collaborative editing with ChatGPT Plus

Achieving Collaborative Outcomes

Once this stage was completed, we then turned our attention to the Summary or About section of the Linkedin profile. This is what visitors see first and is an important narrative to get right.

The Summary is the final step, not the first. A mistake I made in the past was to create a Summary and then describe each role. Wrong way round! You need to be very clear on all your Experience first to use that as your source to create a Summary. Creating a draft of that was a terrific demonstration of ChatGPT Plus’ capabilities with its GPT-4o model that we collaboratively evolved over a series of drafts.

This was like working with a human colleague or assistant, ie, a person I had personally briefed and then worked closely with. I am highly comfortable working like this and have developed firm confidence in the success potential of what collaborating with ChatGPT Plus this way can help me achieve.

Ultimately, though, it was down to me to ‘approve’ everything before publication. For this project, that meant carefully reviewing every draft, and checking everything that needed verification, including the actual narratives, companies, type of role, dates, and places.

If there are any mistakes in the new profile, they are mine, therefore, not the chatbot’s.

The outcome of this collaborative work is a wholly refreshed LinkedIn profile – screenshot below – written in natural language, where every role is clearly defined to showcase my expertise and contributions across a range of industries and role types.

The new LinkedIn profile is taking shape…

The profile includes a new profile image that ChatGPT Plus had nothing to do with. It comprises a real photo of my new garden studio that I took in early December, with an AI-generated part that added an extended background behind my profile photo in the landscape-format image, imagined by Adobe Photoshop Elements 2025.

While I would have preferred to employ a grouping approach to the content, where your work and achievements are described and grouped by topic or theme rather than by date, you have to follow the reverse-chronological structure that LinkedIn requires. I think the new profile does that seamlessly in an informal but businesslike tone.

I’m excited to share my thoughts on working with a generative AI tool on this project. ChatGPT Plus’ expertise and guidance helped ensure that the narrative is both professional and personal, striking the right balance.

For the most part, I used the ChatGPT desktop app for Windows 11, occasionally reviewing and editing texts on the ChatGPT website in the Chrome browser, depending on the device I was using.

A final point to mention is LinkedIn’s own built-in AI writing tool that you can use to create or edit your profile. I did not use that because it’s only available to a small group of members with paid Premium accounts. However, a more important reason was that I intended to develop the new profile over weeks, and ChatGPT Plus offers a far more comprehensive collaborative editing environment for my purposes outside LinkedIn’s walled garden.

For me, this refresh was about aligning my digital presence with the way I see myself now – someone passionate about driving meaningful engagement, embracing emerging technologies, and balancing work with a fulfilling, intentional personal life.

How does my new LinkedIn profile look to you? I see it as a work in progress, and I’d love to hear your thoughts – what works, what could improve, or how this approach could inspire your own profile refresh. Please share your thoughts on LinkedIn or via your preferred social network.

Compelling Reasons to Update Your LinkedIn Profile

Your LinkedIn profile isn’t just a CV; it reflects your professional story, your passions, and the connections you want to make. Here are three reasons to update your profile:

1: Reflect Your Growth and Evolution

Your LinkedIn profile is your professional first impression. As your career progresses, your goals, expertise, and achievements evolve. Keeping your profile updated ensures it reflects the current you – your latest roles, skills, and accomplishments. A stale or outdated profile might give the impression that you’re not actively engaged in your career journey.

2: Build Trust Through Authenticity

A well-maintained profile that authentically represents your story helps build credibility and trust with your network. Whether you’re connecting with peers, potential clients, or recruiters, an honest and up-to-date narrative demonstrates that you’re transparent, professional, and intentional about your online presence.

3: Leverage LinkedIn’s Visibility and Opportunities

LinkedIn is a dynamic platform where recruiters, collaborators, and industry peers look for people with relevant skills and insights. An updated profile increases your chances of being discovered for exciting opportunities, whether that’s a new project, a thought leadership role, or a strategic partnership.

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