If you are learning how to create a LinkedIn profile for freshers, start with the part you cannot skip. Before anyone reads your headline, your education or your projects, they see three things. Your name, your photo and your cover banner.
Get those three wrong and a recruiter scrolls past without reading a word. Get them right and you have bought yourself the ten seconds it takes for someone to actually read the rest.
This guide covers only those three, in the order you should fix them, with the free tools we use in class. It takes about twenty minutes.
In this guide:
- What to write as your name, and what never to write
- How to make a clean profile photo without hiring a photographer
- How to make a cover banner in Canva at the right size
The three things a recruiter sees first
Open any LinkedIn profile on a phone. Above the fold you get a banner, a circular photo sitting on top of it, and a name. That is the whole first impression.
Everything else on the profile is below that. Your degree, your internships, your certifications, your projects. All of it depends on the reader deciding to keep going.
That is why this order matters. Fixing your photo is worth more than rewriting your headline for the fourth time, because the photo is what decides whether the headline gets read.
Step 1: Fix your name
Write your name. That is the entire instruction.
What we see from students constantly, carried over from Instagram:
- Dad's little princess
- King of my own kingdom
- Names with symbols, dots, decorative characters or extra spacing
- Nicknames that nobody outside your friend circle would recognise
None of this belongs on LinkedIn. A recruiter searching for you, or checking whether the name on your resume matches your profile, needs to find exactly that name.
Use your name with your initial or surname, spelled the way it appears on your resume and your college records. Nothing else in the field.
Step 2: Fix your profile photo
Two rules cover almost every mistake.
Avoid selfies. A selfie reads as casual no matter how good the lighting is. Ask someone to take the photo, or use a tool to clean up one you already have.
Avoid the party photos. Pictures from a pub, a bar, a hotel night out or a trip with friends do not belong here. Even cropped, the background usually gives it away.
What works is simple. Face clearly visible, plain or clean background, decent light, a neutral or pleasant expression, shoulders in frame. It does not need to be a studio photograph.
Making one without a photographer
You do not need Photoshop or a paid studio session for this. PFPMaker does the job free.
- Go to pfpmaker.com and click Start Now
- Upload any decent photo of yourself
- The tool removes the background and generates a set of profile picture options
- Zoom or scale the crop so your face sits properly in the circle
- Change the background colour, or choose a plain circle or transparent background
- Download the one you want
The free version handles background removal and generates the variations. Paid upgrades exist but you do not need them for this.
If you want the photo and banner to look like a set, pick a background colour for the photo that appears in your banner too. That is the only design decision required.
Step 3: Fix your cover banner
The cover photo is the widest piece of space on your profile and most freshers leave it as the default grey. It is free real estate.
The size is 1584 x 396 pixels, a 4:1 ratio, JPG or PNG, up to 8 MB. Design at that exact size and LinkedIn will not crop or stretch it. Keep any text or logo towards the centre, because the crop changes between mobile and desktop, and your profile photo covers part of the lower left corner.
Making it in Canva
- Open canva.com and search for LinkedIn Banner
- Pick from the ready-made templates, which are already at the correct size
- Edit the text and colours to suit you
- Download and upload it to your profile
On colour, there is a simple choice that works. Match the banner to LinkedIn's own dark blue. It sits naturally on the platform and looks deliberate rather than decorative. This is the choice I made on my own profile, and it was purely strategic, not a favourite colour.
Some Canva templates are free and some need Pro. Filter to what you can use before you start editing, otherwise you will design something you cannot download.
Build a template library while you are in Canva
A small habit that pays off later.
When you find a template you like, star it. Canva collects everything you star into one place, so the next time you need a banner, a poster or a company page cover, you are choosing from designs you already liked instead of scrolling from zero.
There is a second layer to this. Every Canva template is made by a named creator. Click through to the creator of a template you like and you can see everything else they have made. If their style suits you once, it usually suits you again, and you have just found a consistent visual set for your whole profile.
This matters more than it sounds. A profile where the photo, the banner and later your post graphics look like they belong together reads as considered. One assembled from four unrelated templates reads as random.
Your 20-minute checklist
- Name field contains your name only, matching your resume
- No nicknames, symbols or Instagram-style handles
- Profile photo is not a selfie
- No pub, bar, party or trip photos
- Face clearly visible, clean background, good light
- Banner is 1584 x 396 pixels
- Banner text and logo kept towards the centre
- Banner colour and photo background work together
- Useful templates starred in Canva for next time
Once these are done, the rest of the profile is worth writing, because now people will get far enough to read it.
Frequently asked questions
What should a fresher write as their name on LinkedIn?
Only your actual name, spelled the same way it appears on your resume and college records. Recruiters search by name, and a nickname or a decorative handle carried over from Instagram makes you harder to find and looks unprofessional.
Can I use a selfie as my LinkedIn profile photo?
Avoid it. A selfie reads as casual regardless of quality, and the angle is usually unflattering. Ask someone to take a photo of you against a plain background, or run an existing photo through a free tool like PFPMaker to clean up the background.
What is the correct LinkedIn cover photo size?
1584 x 396 pixels for a personal profile, which is a 4:1 ratio. LinkedIn accepts JPG and PNG up to 8 MB. Keep important text near the centre, since the crop differs between mobile and desktop and your profile photo covers part of the lower left.
Do I need Photoshop to make a LinkedIn profile picture?
No. PFPMaker removes the background and generates profile picture variations free, and Canva has LinkedIn banner templates already set to the correct dimensions. Neither requires design experience.
What colour should my LinkedIn banner be?
Matching LinkedIn's own dark blue is a safe choice, because it looks deliberate on the platform. What matters more is that your banner colour and your profile photo background work together, so the two read as one set rather than two unrelated images.
Is a LinkedIn profile worth it for a fresher with no experience?
Yes. For most freshers it is the only professional presence a recruiter can find, and it works as a live version of your resume. Starting with the name, photo and banner means anyone who lands on it takes it seriously enough to read further.
What comes next
This covers the visual layer only. The written layer is the headline, the About section, your education and projects, your skills and your custom profile URL. That is the next class, and the next post.
If you want to work through both with feedback on your actual profile