A hiring manager, a P&I club contact, a shipowner considering a surveyor, checks LinkedIn before replying to an email. This happens more often than most maritime professionals assume, and the profile they find usually says almost nothing. A job title, a company name, a photo. No indication of what this person actually does well, or for whom.
That gap costs opportunities quietly. Nobody tells you they did not reply because your profile gave them nothing to go on.
Your Headline Is Not Your Job Title
LinkedIn shows your headline everywhere: search results, comments, connection requests, messages. Most maritime professionals leave it as their job title and company name. That wastes the single most visible line available to explain what makes you worth a reply.
A stronger headline names the specific work, the specific scope, and one credential or number that makes it concrete. Not marine surveyor. Something closer to: senior marine surveyor, pre-purchase and condition surveys, fifteen years offshore experience. The difference is not tone. It is information density.
James Stavros
Senior Marine Surveyor | Pre-purchase, Condition & P&I Surveys | 15 Years Offshore Experience
Keywords + specific value — searchable and clear
Marine Surveyor at GlobalMarine Ltd
Just a job title — no value, no keywords
The About Section Nobody Reads Versus the One They Finish
Most About sections open with a sentence like: I am an experienced maritime professional with a passion for excellence. That sentence tells the reader nothing and gives them no reason to keep reading.
A stronger opening states plainly what you do, for whom, and where, in the first sentence, then backs it with a specific number: years of experience, surveys completed, vessels handled, ports covered. The reader finishes the paragraph because every sentence adds a fact, not an adjective.
Generic — skipped
I am an experienced maritime professional with a passion for excellence in the marine industry. I have worked in various roles across different vessel types and ports worldwide.
Specific — read in full
I survey bulk carriers and tankers on behalf of P&I clubs and owners across the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and Arabian Gulf. In 12 years of full-time surveying I have completed over 400 pre-purchase, condition, and damage surveys. If you need an independent assessment before a transaction or a claim — this is what I do.
Experience Section: Not a Crew Record
The Experience section should not look like a crew record. A crew record lists dates and vessel names. Your Experience section should tell the reader what you actually did and what resulted from it.
For each role: the company and vessel type, what you were responsible for in active statements, and at least one measurable result or notable outcome. Instead of Chief Officer on MV Atlantic Star, 2019–2022, write: Chief Officer, 75,000 DWT bulk carrier — oversaw cargo operations across 14 ports, led crew safety briefings for a 22-person team, reduced loading time variance by coordinating directly with terminal supervisors. You do not need a result for every bullet point, but one concrete detail per role changes a skimmable profile into an informative one.
Skills That Actually Matter in Maritime
The skills that matter for a maritime professional are the ones people search for. Specific, operational terms: vessel inspection, condition survey, P&I survey, ISM Code, SOLAS, MARPOL, cargo operations, bulk handling, planned maintenance systems by name. Endorsements carry less weight than your headline and About section in search ranking, but they add social proof. Ask two or three former colleagues directly. Most people will do it if asked specifically.
One Action to Take This Week
Open your LinkedIn profile and read your headline out loud. If it is just your job title, rewrite it using this structure: what you do, what you specialise in, who you do it for. Keep it to 220 characters. Publish the update. That single change makes your profile more findable. It takes ten minutes and it is the highest-return action on this list.