How to score a LinkedIn profile against a job description

Not “is this person impressive.” Did they actually do the work this role needs. That’s the whole trick.

The headline is a sales pitch

You already know this. “Passionate engineer” tells you nothing. The job description is the only honest document in the room-if you actually use it.

I look at three things before I care about anything else: the must-haves, the real seniority (not the title), and whether they’ve been near this kind of product lately. If those don’t land, I’m not reading the rest of the About section.

What I actually check

Read the JD once. Mark the non-negotiables. Then scan the profile for those-not for a pretty banner.

  • Must-have skills in the last two roles, not a skills dump from 2016
  • Scope: what they owned, not just the title on the door
  • Same kind of product, or a stretch you can defend
  • Dates. If they left this stack three jobs ago, treat it that way

Do it on the profile, not in another doc

You don’t need a spreadsheet for this. Stay in Chrome. Paste the JD into a project, open the LinkedIn tab you already have, and get a score plus why-strengths and gaps.

  1. Paste the job once

    Create a project and drop in the full description. That’s the yardstick. Don’t rewrite it into keywords unless the JD is a mess.

  2. Open the profile you’d open anyway

    LinkedIn or GitHub. Same habit you have now. The side panel watches the tab; you don’t copy-paste the URL into a separate tool.

  3. Read the why, then keep or skip

    The number is a shortcut. The strengths and gaps are the part you use. Save the ones you’d actually email.

LinkedIn will lie to you sometimes

Some people write a great LinkedIn and barely ship. Some people ship and can’t write a headline. If you’ve got GitHub, score that against the same JD. Same person. Two signals. Then decide.

Common questions

How do you score a LinkedIn profile against a JD?

Use the JD as the rubric. Must-haves, seniority, domain, recency. Then fit vs skip. Insayab does that in a Chrome side panel and gives you a match score with strengths and gaps-not a vibe.

Can I do GitHub the same way?

Yes. Open the GitHub profile, match it to the same project, and link it to the LinkedIn candidate if it’s the same person. One shortlist row, two scores.

Do I need a credit card?

No. Free is 1 project and 10 AI matches a month. That’s enough to try it on a real role.

Keep reading Match LinkedIn and GitHub to one candidate · How to read an AI match score · How to use Insayab

How to use Insayab · Insayab