How to Use the LinkedIn Featured Section to Get More Job Interviews
The Most Underused Section on LinkedIn Profiles
The LinkedIn Featured section appears just below your About section and above your Experience section -- one of the highest-visibility positions on your profile. It lets you pin links, posts, articles, and media that a visitor can click through to immediately.
Most job seekers leave it empty. That's a wasted opportunity. For hiring managers who visit your profile after reviewing your resume, the Featured section is the fastest way to show work samples, case studies, or thought leadership without asking them to navigate elsewhere.
For certain roles -- product, design, marketing, writing, engineering, sales -- a strong Featured section can be the difference between a callback and a pass.
What You Can Add to the Featured Section
LinkedIn allows four types of Featured content:
Posts: Any LinkedIn post you've published. If you've written a post that got significant engagement or demonstrates expertise, pin it here.
Articles: LinkedIn articles (long-form content) you've published on the platform. Useful for thought leaders and consultants.
Links: External URLs -- your portfolio, a case study PDF, a news article that mentions you, a project you've contributed to, a GitHub repo, a Notion page with your work samples.
Media: Files you upload directly -- PDFs, presentations, images. You can upload a portfolio PDF, a one-page career summary, or a before/after case study document.
The most powerful use of the Featured section combines links and media to create a mini-portfolio that's accessible without leaving LinkedIn.
What to Put in Featured by Role
Product Managers
Link to a case study that walks through a product decision you made: the problem, your research process, what you shipped, and the outcome. Even a Notion page or a PDF works. The goal is to show how you think, not just what you've shipped. If you don't have public case studies, write a LinkedIn article about a product decision and pin that.
Designers (UX, Product, Brand)
Link to your portfolio -- Behance, Dribbble, a personal site, or even a Figma Community link. If your portfolio requires a password, add the password to your About section or featured description so hiring managers don't have to ask for access and give up. Also consider pinning a before/after post showing a specific design problem you solved.
Marketing Professionals
Show results, not credentials. Pin a case study with actual numbers: "Email campaign that generated $200K in pipeline" or "SEO strategy that grew organic traffic 180% in 6 months." Even a screenshot of an analytics dashboard with context is more compelling than a list of job duties.
Sales Professionals
Pin a testimonial, a LinkedIn recommendation that speaks to your results, or a post you've written about a deal methodology that worked. If you've been written up in a company newsletter or press release for hitting quota, link to it. Sales is a results business -- show the results.
Engineers
Link to your GitHub profile, a specific project repo, a blog post where you documented a technical problem you solved, or a conference talk you've given. If you've published open-source work, feature it. If you've written a technical blog, pin a post that shows depth of thinking in your specialty.
Writers and Content Creators
Clip 3 of your best published pieces -- not 10. Curate. A hiring manager who sees 3 excellent, relevant pieces will have a better impression than one who sees 12 mediocre ones. Choose pieces that demonstrate range or depth in your specific niche.
Executives and Senior Leaders
Feature a media mention, a conference talk, a board presentation summary, or a thought leadership piece in a trade publication. At the senior level, credibility is as important as competency. External validation through press or speaking engagements belongs in Featured.
How Many Items to Feature
Three to five items is the sweet spot. One item looks sparse. More than five starts to feel overwhelming, and most visitors won't scroll through all of them.
The first featured item is what most people see before deciding whether to scroll. Put your single most impressive, relevant piece of work there. Everything after is additional evidence.
Writing Compelling Featured Titles and Descriptions
Each Featured item has a title field and a description field. Most people leave the description blank. Don't.
The title should be specific and outcome-oriented. Not "Portfolio" -- but "UX Case Study: Reducing Checkout Abandonment by 34%." Not "Blog Post" -- but "How I Built an SEO Strategy That Drove 50K Monthly Organic Visits."
The description field (up to 2,600 characters) is where you add context. Tell the visitor what they'll see when they click, why it matters, and what it demonstrates about your capabilities. Two to three sentences is enough. Long descriptions get skipped.
Example of a weak featured item:
Title: "My Work"
Description: (blank)
Example of a strong featured item:
Title: "Growth Strategy Case Study: 0 to 10K Users in 90 Days"
Description: "A detailed breakdown of the acquisition strategy I built for a B2B SaaS startup in 2024, including channel prioritization, conversion optimization, and what we'd do differently."
The second version tells the hiring manager exactly what they'll get before they click. It demonstrates results, specificity, and self-awareness. That's what gets clicks.
What NOT to Put in the Featured Section
The Featured section can work against you if you fill it with the wrong things:
Content from years ago that doesn't reflect your current level. A blog post from 2018 when you were a coordinator doesn't help you apply for a senior role in 2026. Feature work that reflects where you are now, not where you started.
Irrelevant personal projects. A cooking blog, a travel photography page, a personal podcast about your hobbies -- unless these directly relate to the role you're targeting, they take up space that should showcase professional work. The exception: creative professionals whose personal projects demonstrate the same skills they'd use at work.
Broken links. Check your links before a job search. If a company website where your case study was published has gone down, remove the link. Broken links damage credibility.
Non-password-protected private work. If you're featuring client work that's confidential, either get permission or anonymize it. Sharing confidential client work without permission is an ethics red flag in many industries.
The Featured Section Checklist
- Featured section is not empty
- First featured item is your single most impressive, role-relevant piece of work
- 3-5 items total (not 1, not 10+)
- Every featured item has a specific title with outcomes or context
- Every featured item has a 2-3 sentence description
- All external links are tested and working
- Content reflects your current career level, not where you started
- No irrelevant personal projects unless they directly demonstrate relevant skills
- Any client or employer work is either anonymized or permission has been obtained
When You Don't Have Portfolio Work to Feature
This is the most common reason people leave Featured blank: "I don't have anything to show."
You almost always do. Here's what to create or surface:
Write a LinkedIn article about a specific professional challenge you solved. It doesn't need to be long -- 500-800 words with specific details is enough to demonstrate expertise. Pin it.
Create a one-page PDF that summarizes your career highlight -- a specific result, how you achieved it, and what the outcome was. Upload it directly to Featured as a media file.
If you gave a talk, presentation, or training -- even internally -- create a summary document or upload the slide deck (with any confidential information removed).
Find any mention of your work online -- a company blog post that references your project, a local news article about an event you organized, a podcast where you were a guest. Link to it.
The bar is not perfection. It's evidence. Hiring managers want to see that you've done the kind of work you say you've done. Give them something to click.
Pairing Featured with the Rest of Your Profile
The Featured section works best when it's consistent with the rest of your profile. If your headline says "Senior UX Designer," your Featured section should show design work. If your LinkedIn About section talks about a specific campaign you led, your Featured section should link to the results from that campaign.
Inconsistency between sections creates doubt. Consistency creates conviction. For a broader look at making every section of your profile work together, see our complete guide to LinkedIn profile optimization.
For a full picture of how your profile performs together, get an Avery audit. We look at every section and tell you exactly what a recruiter or hiring manager is seeing. See how it works.