You've probably seen people with fancy symbols in their Professional Headlines and wondered how they did it.

Those Headlines really stand out in the list of LinkedIn search results. You can't add images to the text in your LinkedIn Profile, so what's the secret?

The secret is to add "eye candy" symbols to your Profile and posts, like these ☛ ✅ 🔹 🎯 ⏺ 🚩 ► ✿ 📌 ☚ (100+ in the table below).

Used carefully, these symbols draw readers' attention to the specific elements in your Profile you want to highlight or make easily found.

Note that on mobile devices, Macs, and tablets, these symbols may appear differently, than they appear below. So, check them on a few different devices to be sure they look the way you want them to look.

The symbols in the left column are usually visible in colors, depending on the device being used by the viewer. The symbols in the right column are usually visible as black and white.

Enhancing Your LinkedIn Headline, About, Experience, Education, and Posts with Symbols

Make your LinkedIn Profile more distinctive by choosing and using a few of these symbols. They can attract interest and direct attention to your biggest accomplishments.

This eye candy can be added to any part of your LinkedIn Profile that allows you to input text. Add these symbols, carefully, to your Professional Headline to make it stand out.

Make your About section more effective by creating bulleted lists with these symbols. Also include the symbols in the descriptions of your current and former jobs in the Experience section, your experience volunteering, descriptions of what you studied in school (and awards earned there).

Use the eye candy symbols to draw attention to specific parts of posts that you publish on LinkedIn as well as comments you make on the posts of other members. Include them in articles you publish on LinkedIn, too.

Use Eye Candy to Break Up the "Wall of Words"

A major issue for most LinkedIn members is providing too much information in dense blocks of text — often called the "wall of words" problem. With a wall of words, many words in large paragraphs melt together, become uninteresting, and are ignored.

We see this often in the LinkedIn About section, in descriptions of jobs in the Experience section, and also in posts and the articles members publish on LinkedIn. Bulleted lists are an excellent tool for breaking up the wall. Currently, the best way to create bulleted lists is to add your own bullets. The tables below offer you 80+ different options.

So, carefully add the symbols below to your Profile to improve the overall impression and to attract attention to items you want to highlight (see the examples below).

100+ LinkedIn Eye Candy Options

To add any of these characters to your LinkedIn Profile, follow the directions below this table. Note: The size of the image may change slightly when you add it to your document.

Colorful
Red X ❌
Green Box with X ❎
Green Check Mark ✔️
Green Box w/ Check Mark ✅
Blue Box w/ Check Mark ☑️
Triangular Flag 🚩
Thumbtack 📌
Round Pushpin 📍
Key 🔑
Earth 🌍
Thumbs Up 👍
Thumbs Down 👎
Raised Hand ✋
Writing Hand ✍
Pointing Up ☝
Red Flag 🚩
Smile 🙂
Cool Smile 😎
Frown 🙁
Red Circle 🔴
Do Not Enter ⛔
Blue Circle 🔵
Blue Diamond 🔹
Split Blue Diamond 💠
Blue Box w/Circle ⏺
Blue Box w/Square ⏹
Red Up Arrow 🔺
Red Down Arrow 🔻
Blue Up Arrow 🔼
Blue Down Arrow 🔽
Double Blue Up Arrows ⏫
Double Blue Down ⏬
Blue Right Arrows ⏩
Blue Left Arrows ⏪
Yellow Star ⭐
Flame 🔥
Yellow Sun 🌞
Gold Bag of $ 💰
Hot Beverage ☕
Pink Flower 🌺
White Flower 💮
Anchor ⚓
4-Leaf Clover 🍀
Sparkles ✨
Padlock 🔒
Do Not Enter 🚫
Up Graph 📈
Down Graph 📉
Business Chart 📊
Hitting the Target 🎯
Globe (Americas) 🌎
Calendar 📅
File Folder 📁
Cellphone 📱
Red Phone 📞
E-Mail 📧
Black & White
Printed X ✖
Hand-written X ✘
Black Square ■
Small Black Square ▪
White Square □
Small White Square ▫
Double Square ▣
Shaded Square ❑
Inverse Bullet ◘
Black Diamond ◆
Sharp Diamond ✦
White Diamond ◇
Double Diamond ◈
Split Diamond ❖
Black Triangle ►
Reverse Black Triangle ◄
White Triangle ▷
Reverse White Triangle ◁
Right Arrow ➜
Solid Arrow Point ➤
Shaded Arrow Point ➢
Wedge-tailed Arrow ➽
Black Up Triangle ▲
Black Down Triangle ▼
White Up Triangle △
White Down Triangle ▽
White Flag ⚐
Black Flag ⚑
Black and White Star ✪
Black Star ★
Asterisk ✷
Pinwheel Asterisk ❃
Floweret ✿
Cloverleaf ✤
Unchecked Box ☐
Hand Pointing Right ☛
Hand Pointing Left ☚
Black Circle ⚫
Small Black Circle ●
White Circle ○
Bullseye ◉
Double Circle ◎
Checked Box ☑
Shaded White Circle ❍
Coffee Cup ⛾
Caution ⚠
Radioactive ☢
Recycling ♻
Black Flag ⚑
Light Check Mark ✓
Heavy Check Mark ✔
Music Notes ♬
Eyeballs 👀
White Question Mark ❔
      ➊      ➋      ➌      ➍      ➎
      ➏      ➐      ➑      ➒      ➓

To copy a symbol from the table above, simply:

  • Run your mouse over the symbol you want until it is highlighted.
  • Click Control-C in your PC or Command-C in your Mac to copy the character you have selected into your computer's memory.
  • Open your LinkedIn Profile, and click on "Edit" in the section where you want to add the character.
  • Place your mouse where you want to add the character to your Profile.
  • Click Control-V (PC) or Command-V (Mac) and the character will be inserted into your Profile where you have the mouse placed.

Some Good Example Profiles

The following LinkedIn Profiles contain effective — but judicious — use of these symbols to enhance the Profile without being distracting or unprofessional:

  How to Change Your About and Experience

See how to successfully make that impenetrable wall of words easier to comprehend and more effective for your About section and the descriptions of your accomplishments in your jobs.

⏺ The Wall of Words Version

My specialties include understanding how to effectively build and maintain relationships via networking and marketing; navigating the federal and local healthcare regulations to ensure compliance; supervising inpatient clinical pharmacy, ambulatory services, and specialty pharmacy services; product development, marketing, and strategic branding for healthcare operations.

⏺ Basic LinkedIn Text List Version

My specialties include:
* Effectively building and maintaining relationships via networking and marketing
* Supervising inpatient clinical pharmacy, ambulatory services, and specialty pharmacy services
*Navigating and coaching healthcare professionals through career transitions
*Product development, marketing, and strategic branding for healthcare operations

⏺ Version with Eye Candy Added

The addition of a simple bullet symbol to replace the hyphen at the start of each line in the basic text makes the list stand out and gain more attention.

My specialties include:
📌 Effectively building and maintaining relationships via networking and marketing
📌 Supervising inpatient clinical pharmacy, ambulatory services, and specialty pharmacy services
📌 Navigating and coaching healthcare professionals through career transitions
📌Product development, marketing, and strategic branding for healthcare operations

These symbols draw reader attention to this bulleted list much more effectively than the simple keyboard character used before.

The bullets for the list above were chosen from the different symbols available in the table above.

  How to Change Your Professional Headline

Your name and Professional Headline will stand out in search results with special symbols included appropriately in the Headline. LinkedIn's terms ban them from the Name fields.

⏺ Basic LinkedIn Version

Account Executive – Clinical Applications Specialist, Cell and Gene Therapy, Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals

⏺ Version with Eye Candy Added

Account Executive ★ Clinical Applications Specialist ★ Cell and Gene Therapy ★ Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals

The symbols make the content stand out in the second version even though the words are exactly the same. This symbol was chosen from the options in the table above.

More Sources of Symbols:

  • Wikipedia Geometric Shapes – many of the bullet images and other pointers
  • Wikipedia Dingbat Elements – many of the standard symbols and bullet images
  • Wikipedia Miscellaneous Symbols – from coffee cups to snowmen, musical notes, and more
  • Wikipedia Emoji Elements – more than the usual smile symbols we see often
  • Wikipedia Block Elements – boxes and variations
  • Complete Wikipedia Character List – many different languages and technical symbols overwhelming!

The Bottom Line on LinkedIn Symbols, Colors, Emojis, and Special Characters

Be cautious about over-using symbols, but don't limit their use to your About. These characters can also add distinction to your Headline, descriptions of your jobs in Experience, and other text sections of your Profile. They can also be used very effectively in your posts, comments, and any articles you publish on LinkedIn.

If you want to add bolded and/or italicized words to your LinkedIn visibility, search for "unicode text converter" to find a site where you can type in the text you want to change. Then, copy and paste it into your Profile as you can with the symbols above.

Be cautious! Too many symbols added to your Profile may make it look unprofessional.

Susan P. Joyce About the author…

Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. A veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a recent Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Susan is a two-time layoff "graduate" who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. Since 1998, Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt.org. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg and on Facebook, LinkedIn.
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