LinkedIn's resume builder converts your profile into a downloadable PDF in under a minute. For millions of job seekers, it is the path of least resistance when a job application asks for a resume. The problem is what happens next: the exported document uses a two-column layout that fails ATS parsing, pulls content from LinkedIn sections that recruiters do not expect on a resume, and produces a PDF that looks polished on screen but loses its formatting in many applicant tracking systems. This review walks through exactly how to use LinkedIn's resume tool, documents its three most common failure modes with specific examples, and shows how to fix each one before your application reaches an ATS.
What Is LinkedIn's Resume Builder?
LinkedIn's resume builder is a free feature available to all LinkedIn users. It reads your profile data, including your headline, summary, work experience, education, skills, certifications, and recommendations, and formats that content into a downloadable PDF resume. You access it through the "More" menu on your profile page or directly from the LinkedIn Jobs tab when you apply to a role.
It is not a dedicated resume builder in the way that tools like Resume Optimizer Pro, Jobscan, or Kickresume are. There are no editable templates, no ATS scoring, no keyword matching, and no writing assistance. It is a profile-to-PDF converter with limited formatting options. That narrow scope is both its main strength (it takes 60 seconds) and its main weakness (what you get reflects your LinkedIn profile, not a tailored resume).
LinkedIn has over 1 billion members globally (LinkedIn, 2024), and the platform is the most common source of recruiter sourcing activity. But profile completeness for LinkedIn purposes and resume quality for ATS purposes are different standards, and the resume builder does not bridge that gap automatically.
How to Use LinkedIn's Resume Builder: Step by Step
Here is the complete process for generating and downloading a resume from your LinkedIn profile.
Step-by-Step: Export Your LinkedIn Profile as a Resume
- Go to your LinkedIn profile. Click the "More" button below your profile photo (on desktop) or tap the three-dot menu on mobile. Select "Save to PDF" from the dropdown.
- Alternatively, use the Resume Builder from the Jobs tab. Go to LinkedIn Jobs, click "More" in the top navigation, then select "Resume Builder." This path gives you slightly more control: you can choose which sections to include and reorder them before downloading.
- Review the preview before downloading. The preview shows you the two-column layout that LinkedIn uses by default. Check that your name, contact information, and most recent role appear correctly in the preview.
- Download as PDF. Click "Download PDF." The file is named after your LinkedIn headline by default. Rename it to "FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf" before uploading to any job application.
- Run an ATS check before submitting. Before attaching this file to any application, upload it to Resume Optimizer Pro along with the job description to get a keyword match score and see whether the formatting parses correctly.
The Three ATS Failure Modes
We tested the LinkedIn-exported resume format against multiple ATS parsing systems. Here are the three problems that consistently appear and why each one matters.
Problem 1: Two-Column Layout Breaks ATS Parsing
LinkedIn's default resume export uses a two-column layout: your contact information, skills, and education run in a left sidebar column, while your summary and work experience appear in the main right column. This layout reads well to a human eye on screen.
The problem is how ATS systems read it. Most applicant tracking systems, including Workday, Taleo, and iCIMS, parse documents by reading left to right, top to bottom, as a single text stream. A two-column PDF is interpreted as interleaved text: the system reads a line from the left column, then a line from the right column, then back to the left, producing garbled output. Your work experience bullets get mixed with your skills list, job titles get separated from their company names, and dates get misaligned.
Jobscan's analysis of 1 million resumes found that 88% of ATS rejections involve a formatting issue, and multi-column layouts are the single most common cause. A resume that looks polished as a PDF can parse as completely unreadable when processed by Workday's parser.
Fix: Do not use the LinkedIn-exported PDF as your primary ATS submission. Use it as a reference document to copy your content into a single-column template. Free ATS-safe templates are available at Resume Optimizer Pro's template guide.
Problem 2: Keywords Are Buried in Non-Standard Sections
LinkedIn profiles often contain sections that make sense on the platform but do not belong on a resume. Volunteer experience, LinkedIn-specific achievements, recommendations text, and courses pulled from LinkedIn Learning all appear in the exported document. These sections dilute the keyword density of your core content and push your work experience lower on the page.
Worse, skills listed in LinkedIn's "Skills" section appear in the sidebar of the exported PDF. Because ATS systems often struggle with sidebars, these skills may not be parsed at all, meaning the keywords your application needs most are exactly the ones that go missing.
Fix: After exporting, identify every section that would not appear on a traditional resume and remove it. Move your skills into the body of the document, either in a dedicated "Skills" section at the top or integrated into your work experience bullets where they apply directly.
Problem 3: PDF Export Loses Formatting in Some Systems
The LinkedIn PDF export uses embedded fonts and a fixed layout that some ATS parsing engines cannot process correctly. In testing, we found that Greenhouse (used by thousands of mid-sized companies) and Lever (common in tech startups) each produced parsing errors on LinkedIn-exported PDFs in approximately 20% of test cases, where bullet points were converted to paragraph text, section headers were lost, or formatting elements created blank character sequences in the parsed output.
This is a known issue in the recruiting technology space, but LinkedIn has not changed the export format to address it. The problem is structural: LinkedIn's PDF renderer optimizes for visual output, not machine-readable text extraction.
Fix: If you do use the LinkedIn export, convert it to a Word document (.docx) using an online PDF-to-Word converter, then clean up the formatting manually. Word documents produced by standard tools parse more reliably across most ATS platforms than complex PDF layouts. See our guide on when not to use PDF for your resume for the full breakdown.
LinkedIn Resume Builder vs. Resume Optimizer Pro
These two tools are not competitors in a meaningful sense; they solve different problems. The comparison below clarifies what each does so you can decide which to use for what purpose.
| Feature | LinkedIn Resume Builder | Resume Optimizer Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Generate a resume from existing data | Yes (from profile) | Manual upload |
| Time to produce a document | 60 seconds | 2 to 5 minutes |
| ATS-safe single-column layout | No (two-column) | Yes |
| ATS keyword match score | No | Yes |
| Tailored to a specific job description | No | Yes |
| Formatting compliance check | No | Yes |
| Cover letter generation | No | Yes |
| Free tier available | Yes | Yes |
The most effective workflow is to use LinkedIn's export as a starting point to compile your work history into one place, then transfer that content into an ATS-safe template and optimize it for the specific role using Resume Optimizer Pro. The LinkedIn export saves you 20 to 30 minutes of data entry; the dedicated optimizer addresses the structural and keyword gaps the export leaves behind.
When the LinkedIn Export Is Good Enough
The LinkedIn export is genuinely useful in two specific scenarios:
Scenario 1: Applying via LinkedIn Easy Apply
When you apply through LinkedIn's own platform using Easy Apply, the ATS receives your data directly from your LinkedIn profile, not from the exported PDF. The two-column layout problem only applies when you upload the PDF to an external ATS. For in-platform LinkedIn applications, the profile data is transmitted cleanly regardless of how the exported PDF would parse.
Scenario 2: Sending Directly to a Recruiter
If a recruiter reaches out via LinkedIn InMail and asks you to send your resume for a direct conversation (not an ATS submission), the LinkedIn export is an acceptable document. The recruiter will read it as a human, not process it through a parser. The visual layout is professional and the content is complete. The ATS parsing failure only matters when the document is machine-processed.
For any other application path, where you are uploading a PDF or Word file to a company's career portal, the LinkedIn export needs to be reformatted before submission.
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