This is the detail page behind the short LinkedIn to resume guide. It walks through the export, the import, the template step, and the parts of a LinkedIn profile that need rewriting before the file is a resume.
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LinkedIn has a built-in export. It produces a PDF of your profile in the same order the profile is displayed on the page. As of September 2026, LinkedIn's help article Save a profile as a PDF gives these steps for the desktop site.
You can save another member's profile the same way: open their profile, then More or Resources, then Save to PDF. Indeed's help center points job seekers to this same LinkedIn article as the way to get a PDF for an Indeed upload (as of September 2026, indeed.com/help). If you are working from an Indeed resume instead, see how to import an Indeed resume.
Three conditions are worth knowing before you go looking for the button. As of September 2026, the same LinkedIn help article (linkedin.com/help) says the feature is not available in the LinkedIn mobile app, it only works when your profile and your language setting are both in English, and each member is limited to 200 PDF downloads per month, counting your own profile and other members' profiles together.
There is no in-app path. LinkedIn's help center states that Save to PDF is not available in the LinkedIn mobile app on iOS or Android (as of September 2026, linkedin.com/help). The dependable route is to sign in at linkedin.com from a laptop or desktop computer, follow the steps above, and either upload the file from that computer or send it to your phone.
You may find third-party guides describing a phone workaround: tap the three dots on your profile in the app, then Share via, then a Save to Files or PDF option if it appears. A LinkedIn Pulse article dated May 30, 2025 (linkedin.com/pulse) describes this and warns that the app may not support direct PDF download. LinkedIn does not document that path, so treat it as unreliable.
The button disappeared without notice for many accounts in July 2025 and then came back in waves. A July 8, 2025 post by Bob Woods (linkedin.com/posts) and r/linkedin threads such as this one tracked the outage (as of September 2026). If you cannot find it today, confirm the English-language conditions above, use the desktop site rather than the app, and check under both the More and Resources labels.
Open the builder at smoothapply.com/resume-builder/?start=import and upload the LinkedIn PDF. The importer accepts a PDF, a DOCX, or a photo of a resume, and you do not need an account to start editing. SmoothApply reads the file and fills the editor with your name, contact details, work experience, education and skills, so you are not retyping years of job history by hand.
LinkedIn's export is a printout of the profile page, not a document designed as a resume. It mirrors the profile layout and section order, which is why resume writers answering on Quora describe it as a profile rather than a targeted resume (as of September 2026, quora.com). Any importer, ours included, reads that layout as well as it can, so spend two minutes checking:
Once the content is right, switch templates from the design sidebar. SmoothApply has 93 templates and every one of them is on the free plan, in one-column, two-column and mixed layouts, with fonts, colors and spacing you can change while you look at the page. Pick A4 or US Letter depending on where you are applying. If you would rather start from a design and paste the content in, browse the templates first.
Downloading needs a free account, which is also what saves the resume to the cloud so you can come back to it. There is no charge, no credit card, and no watermark on the file. You can download as PDF, as DOCX for Word, or as TXT for application forms that ask you to paste plain text, as many times as you like. A free account holds up to 20 resumes, so you can keep a version per role, and each one gets a shareable read-only link.
Before you send it, run the finished file through the free ATS resume checker. It is an 11-point scan and needs no account.
Import your LinkedIn PDFA profile and a resume have different jobs. The profile is a standing public record read by anyone who lands on it. The resume is a short, targeted case for one job, read by a recruiter or hiring manager who is comparing you with other applicants. Importing gets the raw material across; the edits below turn it into a resume.
| LinkedIn profile | Resume | |
|---|---|---|
| Reader | Anyone: recruiters, colleagues, clients | One hiring team, one job |
| Length | Full history | Recent, relevant roles, usually one or two pages |
| Voice | Conversational, often first person | Short bullets, no pronouns |
| Content | Responsibilities, endorsements, posts | Results with numbers |
| Tailoring | One version for everyone | One version per application |
Nothing on LinkedIn stops you listing every job since school, and many people keep a complete history there. A resume should carry the recent and relevant roles and make the strongest case in the least space. Cut early or unrelated positions to a single line, or drop them. Do the same with the skills list: keep what matches the posting and remove the rest.
Profile descriptions tend to describe responsibilities. Resume bullets should show results: revenue, users, cost, time saved, team size, error rate. If you do not have a metric for a bullet, give the scope instead: how many clients, how large the budget, how many people you led. The free plan includes 25 AI credits for enhance, proofread and condense, which is handy for tightening a paragraph into three bullets.
Read the posting, note the exact titles and tools it uses, and mirror that wording where it is true of you. Save a copy per application so the base version stays clean; a free account holds 20. The same 25 free AI credits also cover tailor to job and job match analysis. Once you are applying to several roles, the free job application tracker keeps the versions and deadlines straight.
If your About section is written in the first person and addressed to a general reader, do not paste it in as the summary. A resume summary is two or three lines about what you do and what you are aiming for in this role. Rewrite it rather than reuse it.
Recommendations, follower counts, posts, old courses and volunteering unrelated to the role can stay on LinkedIn. Put your LinkedIn URL in the contact line so a recruiter who wants that context can find it. If the application also asks for a cover letter, the free cover letter builder uses matching templates, and for forms with a paste box there is a guide to converting a resume to plain text.