The 9 LinkedIn Profile Essentials for Pastors Making a Career Change
Sep 26, 2025
Read Time: 3.5 minutes
Todd Linder
Founder & Head Coach
Overview
Welcome to the Ministry To Marketplace Minute! In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about your LinkedIn Profile. Do you need one? Yes, you do. Does it need to be good? Depends on how long you want to be on the job hunt. In the Strategy Shift section, I’m going to break down the 9 parts of your LinkedIn profile you need to set up in order to be considered an attractive candidate online. So let’s dive in.
Today's Ministry To Marketplace Minute:
Mindset Shift: Your online resume as a former pastor.
Strategy Shift: Show your pastor transferable skills online.
Do This Right Now: 3 things you can change in 5 minutes.
Who Will Hire Me?: 5 ministry friendly organizations with jobs for ex-pastors.
🧠 MINDSET SHIFT: Your online resume as a former pastor.
You can’t just look good on your resume; you have to look good online, too.
No, I’m not talking about Instagram or TikTok. I’m talking about how you present yourself as an attractive candidate on LinkedIn. And there are two reasons why getting a job now includes having a killer LinkedIn profile.
This is more than your online resume. It is your personal career sales page. Eww, I know. But this is where you can show not just your experience, but also your personality, a more well-rounded version of you than your one-page paper.
In some cases, LinkedIn is starting to replace your resume altogether. It is harder to lie online, so employers may verify your experience there.
The question remains: Do I have to have a great LinkedIn profile?
My answer: Do you want a job sooner… or later?
♟️ STRATEGY SHIFT: Show your pastor transferable skills online.
Let’s set up your profile. The 9 parts of your profile that you need to update.
What everyone sees: On your profile and everywhere else on LinkedIn.
Profile Picture: Smiling picture of yourself where your face takes up about 75-85% of the profile picture. And not a picture of you speaking. If you’re not applying for a job where you will be speaking, this isn’t impressive.
Headline: What everyone sees underneath your name. This should specifically state your value for the job type you will be pursuing next. We like to use the XYZ format: X = who you help, Y = what you help them with, and Z = how you do it (without the specific pain they have when trying to do it).
Location: Not where you actually live, but the metro area closest to you. If you aren’t in close proximity to a metro area, then where you live is fine.
What makes it easier to hire you?
Custom URL: You can change your LinkedIn profile URL so that it has your name instead of a bunch of random letters and numbers. Looks much better on your resume.
Your Job Experience: Use our Impact Bullet formula to reformat the bullets you put on your resume. Then copy and paste them into the ‘Experience’ section of your profile.
Change your ‘About’ section: This is an abbreviated story of your career journey and why it makes sense that whatever the next step is in your career… just makes sense. This should have a little bit of your personality as well (we have a template for this, and all of the other sections in the Interview Accelerator).
Other important areas.
Education and Certifications: Necessary, but don’t spend too much time here.
Cover Image: A stock cover image is wasted space. Show people why they should hire you.
Open to Work. Enable the private version without the banner unless you’re okay with everyone (even your current employer) knowing that you are looking for another job. This will be shown to recruiters, but no one else.
✅ DO THIS RIGHT NOW: 3 things you can change in 5 minutes.
Update the first three parts of the strategy section - this will be a great first step:
Profile Picture
Headline
Location
🚀 FROM THE COACHING GROUP
Forever grateful for Todd Linder and for this community. This absolutely doesn’t happen without you.
🤝 WHO WILL HIRE ME?: 5 ministry friendly organizations with jobs for ex-pastors.
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