Applies to: Free and Pro (the builder is identical on both tiers) · Last updated: 2026-08-18
This guide covers the core of Profiled: importing your résumé, adding your photo, working through the nine profile tabs, understanding your quality score, and publishing. Expect 30–45 minutes for a first working profile; you can split it across sittings.
How saving works (read this once)
There is no Save button on profile fields. Typing schedules a save about a second and a half after you stop; leaving a field saves immediately; switching tabs or minimising the browser also flushes pending edits. A small "Saving…" → "Saved" pill appears and fades.
The one residual habit worth keeping: if you type and then close the browser tab within a second or two, that last edit may not complete. Pause a moment — or watch for the "Saved" pill — before closing the tab.
One exception to "no Save button": the public-URL editor on the Basics tab has an explicit Save URL button (more on your URL below).
Step 1 — Import your résumé (recommended first move)
Click Import from resume on the dashboard, or the same button inside the Basics tab.
[SCREENSHOT: the Import from Resume modal]
- Accepted files: PDF or DOCX, up to 10 MB, 50 pages maximum for PDF. Writing in Google Docs? Use File → Download → Microsoft Word (.docx).
- Analysis usually takes 5–15 seconds.
- You can import up to 5 times in a rolling 24-hour period.
When analysis finishes, a review screen shows what was found — Basic Profile, Professional Summary, Experience, Skills. Nothing is written until you click "Apply to profile." Education and certifications are extracted and shown but not imported — they’re noted for future use.
[SCREENSHOT: the extraction review screen]
Three things worth knowing before you click Apply:
- The extractor is deliberately conservative. It keeps compound skills together and won’t mark a skill "strong" just because it appears in a list — when unsure it files skills as "moderate," and it leaves years blank rather than guess. After an import, your main cleanup is usually to promote the skills you genuinely are strong in up to the Strong column — publishing requires at least three Strong skills, and a conservative import may start you below that line.
- Languages import as skills, with a sensible category (fluent/native → Strong; beginner → Gaps; otherwise Moderate).
- Check imported dates and names. If a start date couldn’t be read, the import may fall back to today’s date; a missing company or title becomes "Unknown Company" or "Unknown Role." Fix these in the Experience tab — they’re easy to spot.
Importing again later? Read this first. A second import appends — it adds every extracted role and skill alongside the ones you already have, creating duplicates rather than updating in place. And if the "Basic Profile" section is ticked (it is by default), the imported name, title and location overwrite your current values, and your social links are replaced by whatever the résumé contained. If you re-import, untick Basic Profile unless you want that, and plan a few minutes to remove duplicated entries.
Step 2 — Add a profile photo
In the Basics tab you can upload a profile photo. It appears in the hero section at the top of your public profile, next to your name and title.
[SCREENSHOT: the profile-photo upload control in the Basics tab]
- Uploads are limited to 10 per rolling 24 hours — enough to get the crop right.
- Your photo is removed permanently if you delete your account.
- A photo is optional. Nothing gates on it.
Step 3 — The nine tabs
The builder is organised into nine tabs, in this order:
Basics → Narrative → Experience → Skills → Gaps → Values → FAQ → AI Instructions → Portfolio
Each tab ends with a "Continue to next" button. The active tab is carried in the page address, so you can bookmark where you left off.
Before the tab-by-tab detail, the single most important fact about the builder:
Where your private context actually goes. Fields marked Private are never shown to visitors — and they are never given to the visitor chat at all. Private context feeds exactly one thing: your Honest Fit Assessment, the tool a hiring manager uses when they paste a job description against your profile. The visitor chat answers only from your public content. So: private depth sharpens your fit assessments; public content (narrative, accomplishments, FAQ) is what shapes the chat.
Basics — who you are
Full name, current title, target titles (comma-separated), remote preference, availability, available-from date, salary range and currency, location, and three links (LinkedIn / GitHub / website) that render as chips on your public profile.
- Set your availability. The availability badge on your public profile only appears if you choose a status here — the builder won’t prompt you for it, and without it your profile says nothing about whether you’re open to work.
- Paste full URLs for your links, starting with
https://. A link that can’t be saved shows "Save failed" — and because the three links save together, the message can appear on a neighbouring field. Fixing the URL format resolves it.
Narrative — your story
Seven free-text fields: elevator pitch, career narrative, known for, looking for, not looking for, management style, work style. All public.
- The elevator pitch must be at least 100 characters to publish, and it’s the narrative field your quality score counts — treat it as the two or three sentences someone should read first.
- Career-changers and early-career candidates: use the narrative to frame your trajectory honestly. "I came from teaching into UX through a bootcamp; here’s what transferred and what I’m still building" reads far stronger than padding.
Experience — public role, private depth
Each role has a public half (company, title, title progression, dates, key accomplishment bullets) and a private half — eleven optional reflection fields: why you joined, why you left, actual contributions, proudest achievement, would do differently, challenges faced, lessons learned, what your manager would say, what your reports would say, conflicts & tensions, quantified impact.
The private half is where your fit assessments gain their specificity. "Why you left," "Would do differently," and "Quantified impact" are the highest-leverage answers.
Publish check: at least one role needs two or more private-context fields filled. One current quirk: the Conflicts & tensions field doesn’t count toward that check — if you fill it, make sure two other private fields are also filled on that role.
Skills — three honest columns
A matrix of Strong / Moderate / Gaps. Each skill card has a name, category, years, last-used, evidence, and private honest notes.
- Publish check: at least 3 Strong skills and 1 Gap skill. The "gap" category here means a skill you want to grow in — it’s distinct from the Gaps tab (next), which is for broader experience gaps. Both checks exist and they’re satisfied separately.
- When you add a skill, the name field pre-fills with the text "New skill" — select it all and type over it.
Gaps — where you’re not a fit
Each entry: a description, a gap type, "why it’s a gap," and an interested-in-learning checkbox.
Publish check: at least one gap or weakness entry. Two or more earns full quality-score points. This is the honesty thesis in mechanical form — the AI can only be honest about gaps it knows about.
Values — entirely private
Must-haves, dealbreakers, and five "how you work" reflections. This tab is entirely private: it’s never rendered publicly and feeds your fit assessments.
FAQ — pre-written answers
Question-and-answer pairs you write; public. The visitor chat references them, so pre-writing your hardest interview answers lets it field them consistently.
AI Instructions — steering the chat
Directives typed Honesty / Tone / Boundaries / Custom, e.g. "If asked about management experience, be clear I’ve led projects but not direct reports."
- Instructions shape the visitor chat on your public profile.
- They are deliberately not given to the fit assessment — that path is the hiring manager’s impartial evaluator, so candidate-authored instructions are excluded from it by design. An instruction cannot change a fit verdict.
Portfolio — links to your work
Title, type, URL, description. Eight types: GitHub, Blog post, Case study, Publication, Presentation, Project, Certification, Other. For PRDs, strategy memos or writing samples, pick Case study — the closest current option.
Known limitation, stated honestly: portfolio items are not currently scored and are not yet shown on your public profile, and they are not read by the AI. Add the links — they’ll be ready when the public rendering ships — but today they won’t move your score or be seen by visitors.
Step 4 — Your quality score
As you fill sections, a 0–100 score builds — a weighted sum across the nine tabs: Basics 10 · Narrative 20 · Experience 25 · Skills 15 · Gaps 10 · Values 10 · FAQ 5 · AI Instructions 5. Portfolio is not currently scored.
Details that save head-scratching:
- Basics counts exactly three fields — name, title, location. Salary and links don’t move the score (they’re still worth filling for visitors).
- Narrative counts only the elevator pitch (full points at 100+ characters).
- Experience wants three roles that each have company, title and at least one private-context field. A role with no private context scores nothing.
- Skills counts your first three Strong skills, plus a bonus as soon as one Gap skill exists. Moderate skills don’t score.
You need at least 50% to publish. Between 50 and 75 you’ll see an amber note — "profile may not sustain deep AI interrogation" — on any tier; publishing is still allowed. Above 75 the dashboard reads "Your profile has real depth. Ready to publish when you are." That’s the band worth aiming for.
Step 5 — Publish
A status row, a Publishing checklist toggle, and the Publish button sit at the top of the builder. The checklist shows all four checks plus the minimum score, each with a tick or a cross and a specific "what’s missing" message:
| Check | Passes when |
|---|---|
| Experience depth | ≥1 role with 2+ private-context fields |
| Skills breadth | ≥3 Strong skills and ≥1 Gap skill |
| Professional narrative | Elevator pitch ≥100 characters |
| Acknowledged gaps | ≥1 gap/weakness entry |
| Minimum score | Quality score ≥50% |
[SCREENSHOT: the publishing checklist expanded, with one check unmet]
When everything is green, click Publish profile. On success you’ll see an inline banner — "Your profile is live" — with a View it link that opens your public page in a new tab. Publishing also makes your profile findable in the recruiter directory, and you’ll receive an email with your public link.
What the public sees at your profile address: your name, title, photo, availability badge, elevator pitch, company badges and social links; your public experience bullets; your Skills and Gaps columns; the fit assessment tool (where a hiring manager pastes a job description); your FAQ; and an "Ask AI About Me" chat. Never anything marked private. Every profile also carries a "Powered by Profiled" line — that’s standard on all tiers, not a tier difference.
Unpublishing: one button, next to the status dot. It returns your profile to Draft and removes it from the recruiter directory; nothing is deleted, and your public address simply stops resolving until you publish again.
Your public URL
Your profile lives at profiled.careers/your-name — a top-level address, no
prefix.
- Your first URL is derived from your email with a short random suffix. The first
time you enter your full name (typing it or via résumé import), it’s replaced
automatically with a name-based one, e.g.
jane-nguyen. - You can edit it yourself — the Basics tab has a URL editor with live availability checking (3–50 characters; lowercase letters, numbers, dots, dashes).
- Change it thoughtfully: one change per 30 days. After a manual change, you’re locked for 30 days (the error tells you exactly how many days remain). The automatic name-based swap doesn’t count against this, so your first real edit is never rate-limited.
- After a change, your old link keeps redirecting for 90 days while your profile stays published.
- A URL someone else used and gave up isn’t available — that’s permanent, not a waiting period. If your preferred name is taken, vary it.
After publishing: watch your AI work
Open AI Activity in the sidebar. It shows every question visitors have asked your profile’s AI and every fit assessment run against your profile. If writing eleven private reflections per role felt exposed, this page is the reassurance: you can see exactly what’s being asked, and what your profile is being measured against. On Pro, Insights adds the patterns across that activity — see Candidate Insights.