The LinkedIn Featured Section: What to Pin There, and How It Actually Works

The LinkedIn Featured section is the row of cards near the top of your profile where you pin proof of your work: posts, articles, links and uploaded files. It is the one part of the profile built entirely from work you choose to show, so an empty one wastes an opportunity and a stale one quietly works against you.

How the Featured section works, according to LinkedIn

Start with the mechanics, because this corner of LinkedIn changes and a lot of the advice online describes an older version. Everything in this section comes from LinkedIn's own Help Center as checked in September 2026. Where LinkedIn doesn't document a behavior, we say so plainly instead of filling the gap with a confident-sounding number.

LinkedIn describes Featured as a place to showcase samples of your work to people who view your profile. It accepts four kinds of item:

• Posts you created or re-shared on LinkedIn.
• Articles you authored and published on LinkedIn.
• Links to external websites, such as a portfolio, a personal site or a case study hosted elsewhere.
• Media you upload directly: images, documents and presentations. LinkedIn's Featured help page also lists videos under media, but its separate page of supported profile file types lists only documents and images, so the dependable route for video is to publish it as a native post and feature the post.

Two restrictions trip people up. You can only feature a post or article that you have already published on LinkedIn, so the content has to exist before the card can. And to protect other members' privacy, LinkedIn won't let you feature posts from Groups you belong to or from LinkedIn Events you're attending.

Adding the section and your first item

If you have never used Featured, the section doesn't exist on your profile yet, and you create it from the introduction card. On desktop, LinkedIn's steps are:

1. 1Click the Me icon at the top of LinkedIn and choose View Profile.
2. 2Click Add profile section in your introduction card.
3. 3Open the Recommended dropdown and select Add featured.
4. 4Click the Add icon in the upper right, choose the type of item, and follow the prompts.
5. 5Click Save or Done.

The mobile app follows the same path: tap your profile photo, then View Profile, Add section, Recommended and Add featured. Once the section exists, new items go in through the Add icon in its upper right. If you're looking at one of your own posts in the feed and want to pin it on the spot, LinkedIn says to use the More icon at the top right of the post.

Uploaded files have hard limits. LinkedIn accepts PDF, PowerPoint (.ppt and .pptx) and Word (.doc and .docx) documents, plus JPG, PNG and GIF images, though an animated GIF displays only its first frame. Files can't exceed 100 MB, documents are capped at 300 pages, and documents cannot be uploaded from a mobile device at all. Build document items on a laptop.

Ordering, editing and removing items

The single most consequential default is this one: in LinkedIn's words, newly featured content shows up first. Every time you add something, it takes the lead position and pushes your carefully chosen top item one slot to the right. You can fix that with the Reorder icon in the upper right of the Featured page, but only once you have at least two items featured.

The same view lets you change an item's title and description, and it offers two different ways to get rid of something. They are not interchangeable:

• Remove from Featured unpins the item from the section but doesn't delete the underlying post or article. LinkedIn notes that a removed item can't be restored to Featured, so if you change your mind you'll be adding it again from scratch.
• Delete permanently removes the content from your profile, not just from Featured. If you only meant to tidy the row, this is the wrong button.

Who can see it, and what Premium adds

Featured follows the visibility settings you've already set on your profile, and LinkedIn says its contents aren't discoverable through search. One detail matters more than it looks: according to LinkedIn's FAQ, a viewer must have a LinkedIn account and be logged in to see your Featured content. A hiring manager who opens your profile link from a résumé while logged out won't see your portfolio card, so never make Featured the only place your best work lives. You can add as many items as you like, though LinkedIn displays a maximum of 400, a ceiling nobody should come close to.

Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter subscribers get one extra option: they can pin items from other profile sections, namely Experience, Licenses and certifications, Recommendations, Courses, Honors and awards, Skills, Projects and Education. Premium Career, the plan most job seekers buy, isn't on LinkedIn's list. Pinning a strong recommendation is the most useful version of this. Everyone else can get most of the effect by writing a post about the achievement and featuring that.

What LinkedIn doesn't document: preview images and the carousel

Two things decide whether a featured item gets opened: which image its card shows, and how many cards a visitor sees before having to scroll sideways. LinkedIn's help pages say very little about either. Here is what is documented, what is observable on the current layout, and where you should treat any specific claim, including ours, as an estimate.

Where each card's image comes from

• Uploaded image: the image itself, which makes this the item type where you have the most control over the card.
• Uploaded document or presentation: the card is built from the document's own pages, so the cover page does the selling. Design page one like a thumbnail, not like a title page.
• Post: the card is generated from the post, so a post that carried a strong image or document produces a stronger card than a text-only post.
• Article: the cover image you set when you published it.
• External link: pulled from the destination page. LinkedIn's guidance on making a website shareable says a page needs Open Graph tags for title, image, description and URL, and recommends an image of 1200 × 627 pixels at a 1.91:1 ratio, under 5 MB. It adds that images narrower than 401 pixels display as a small thumbnail.

LinkedIn's help documents editing an item's title and description. It does not document a control for swapping the thumbnail on a featured post or link, and third-party guides disagree about whether one exists, so don't plan around it. The reliable fix is at the source. If a link card shows the wrong picture, correct the og:image tag on the destination page, then run the URL through LinkedIn's Post Inspector at linkedin.com/post-inspector. LinkedIn is explicit that a refresh only affects new posts containing the URL and that existing ones keep their old preview, which is why the approach that tends to work for Featured is to remove the link item and add it again after refreshing.

How many cards a visitor actually sees

LinkedIn doesn't publish how many featured cards are visible before the row has to be scrolled, and the answer depends on screen width. Items sit in a single horizontal row; a wide desktop window shows several at once, while a phone shows far fewer, with the rest behind a swipe. Third-party guides put the phone figure at somewhere between one and two cards, and they don't agree with each other. Treat any number as an estimate rather than a spec, because the layout changes. The practical rule holds whatever the figure turns out to be: slot one is the only position you can count on being seen, slot two is likely, and everything after it is a bonus for the visitors who were already interested.

What belongs in Featured, by goal

The section can't serve every audience in its first two cards, so decide who you most need to persuade this quarter and build the row for them. Below are the four goals that cover most profiles. The items differ, but the principle doesn't change: each card should answer a question that the visitor already has.

If you're job hunting

A recruiter who reaches your profile has already decided you're plausible. Featured's job is to move you from plausible to shortlist by showing evidence the résumé can only assert.

• A one-page case study as a PDF: the problem, what you did, and the measured result. It's the highest-value item most job seekers can make in an afternoon.
• A portfolio, code repository or published work, linked directly rather than buried in contact info.
• A post where you explained how you solved a real problem in your field. It demonstrates judgment and communication at the same time.
• Third-party proof. If you're on Premium Business you can pin a recommendation from a former manager straight from the Recommendations section; if not, a post quoting it does the same job. Our LinkedIn recommendation examples show what a strong one contains, which helps when you're asking someone to write it.

Be careful with the résumé itself. Uploading it is allowed, but anything in Featured is visible to every logged-in member your settings allow, so strip your home address and personal phone number first. And if you're deciding how loudly to signal that you're looking, our guide to the Open to Work frame versus recruiters-only mode covers the signal; Featured is where you back it up.

If you're winning clients

Prospective clients arrive with two questions: can you do this for someone like me, and what happens if I want to talk? Your first two cards should answer them in that order.

• A case study with a number in the title, published with the client's permission, such as a one-page PDF or a page on your own site.
• A clear next step: a link to your booking page or services page with a title that says what happens, like "Book a 20-minute fit call," not "My website."
• A useful free resource, such as a checklist or template, that shows how you think before anyone pays you.
• A post in which a client describes the result in their own words, if they've publicly shared one.

If you're hiring for your team

When you hire, candidates look you up before they apply and again before they accept. Your profile becomes part of the job ad. LinkedIn's Share that you're hiring feature adds a #Hiring frame to your photo and notifies your network; you need to work at the organization or be a super admin of its Page to use it. Featured can carry the rest of the pitch:

• The job post itself, shared as a post and pinned in slot one while the role is open.
• A post with real photos of the team and the work, not stock imagery.
• An article or post explaining how you run interviews or what someone's first 90 days look like, which answers the questions good candidates are too polite to ask.
• Your engineering blog, design writing or team page, if one exists.

If you're building thought leadership

For writers, speakers and people building an audience, Featured is a greatest-hits shelf, and the mistake is letting it become a recent-posts feed. Pin the piece you'd want a stranger to judge you by, which is rarely the one you published yesterday.

• Your strongest evergreen article or post, chosen for quality and relevance rather than raw engagement.
• A way to follow your work over time, such as your newsletter or a subscribe link.
• A recording or the slides from a talk. Event organizers browse speakers' profiles before booking, and our guide to speaker headshot and press kit requirements covers the photo side of that same evaluation.
• A press mention or podcast appearance, linked to the source.

Why a stale featured item is worse than an empty section

An empty Featured section is simply absent: LinkedIn hides the section from visitors when there's nothing in it, so they see the next section instead of a blank row. A stale one is prominent and dated, in one of the most visible spots on the page. That makes an out-of-date card a net negative, because it's evidence that nobody maintains the profile.

The usual offenders are easy to spot once you look for them:

• A "We're hiring" post for a role that was filled months ago.
• A webinar or event card that still says "Register now" for a date that has passed.
• "Excited to announce I've joined…" for a company you have since left.
• A link card with a broken image or a destination that now returns an error.
• A product demo of a feature the company has retired, or a deck with last year's numbers.

Each of these costs more than its own space. A visitor who notices one dated card starts to wonder what else is out of date, including your headline and your current role. And because LinkedIn places newly featured items first by default, the stale card is often in slot one, since it was the last thing you added before you stopped paying attention.

The preview image decides whether anyone clicks

A featured card is read as an image first and a title second. Visitors see it at thumbnail size, often on a phone, and decide while scrolling whether it's worth opening. A clear image carrying one legible idea earns the click; a cluttered or broken one gets skipped, however good the work behind it.

Some rules follow directly from the card format:

• Design for the horizontal crop. For link cards, LinkedIn's recommended 1.91:1 image at 1200 × 627 pixels fills the preview without awkward cropping. Keep anything important near the center.
• One message per card. A five-word headline on the image beats a paragraph that becomes unreadable at small size.
• Make document covers readable at thumbnail size. Large type, high contrast, no dense charts on page one.
• Keep the row visually consistent. Similar colors or layouts across cards read as a deliberate portfolio rather than a pile of links.
• Check it on a phone, logged in, before you decide it's finished.

Faces pull attention in a row of thumbnails, which is why talk, podcast and interview cards so often carry the speaker's photo. That puts a quiet demand on your headshot: it needs to read clearly when it's shrunk to a corner of someone else's graphic, and it should look like the same person, from the same era, as your profile photo. A tight crop, even light and a plain background all survive shrinking; a busy scene doesn't.

If your current photo is several years old or was cropped out of a group picture, that's worth fixing before you start adding speaker cards. Our LinkedIn profile picture tips cover the crop, expression and background choices that hold up at small sizes. An AI headshot generator is a fast, inexpensive way to get a consistent, current image for profile and card use. For a conference that wants a high-resolution press kit or a specific look, a session with a photographer who can take direction on location is often still the better call.

A maintenance cadence that takes minutes

Featured doesn't need weekly attention, but it does need a schedule, because nothing on LinkedIn will remind you that a card has expired. The routine below takes a few minutes a month and ties the bigger reviews to moments you'll notice anyway, such as a new role or a finished project. Put the monthly check in your calendar.

1. 1Every time you add an item: reorder immediately. The newest-first default means the new card has just displaced your lead item, which may not be what you want.
2. 2Monthly, five minutes: open your profile on your phone while logged in and look at the first card or two the way a stranger would. Tap each link to confirm it still works and still shows the right image.
3. 3Quarterly: retire anything with a date that has passed, replace your lead item if you've made something stronger, and confirm the titles still match your headline and the goal you're building the row for.
4. 4At every career event: a new job, a promotion, a launch, or a role you've filled. Update Featured the same day you update your headline and experience, not a month later.
5. 5Whenever you change a linked page's images: run the URL through Post Inspector, then remove and re-add the card so it picks up the new preview.

On quantity, there's no documented minimum and the 400-item display ceiling is irrelevant in practice. Three to five items is plenty for most people, and one strong item beats five mediocre ones. A short row is also easier to keep current, which, given everything above, is most of the battle.

How Featured fits with the rest of your profile

A visitor reads a LinkedIn profile roughly top to bottom, and each element has its own job. Featured works best when you treat it as the evidence layer for claims made higher up, rather than a separate project. If each part is doing its own job, the whole profile reads as one coherent argument about who you are.

• Your headline makes the claim. Our LinkedIn headline examples show how to write one for your situation; Featured is where a visitor checks whether it's true.
• Your cover photo sets context. The banner is the wide space above your headshot, and our guide to what to put in your LinkedIn cover photo covers it. The two can reinforce each other, with the banner naming what you do and Featured showing it done.
• Your About section tells the story. Our LinkedIn About section examples handle the narrative, and a longer formal bio can live in Featured as a document.
• Your personal brand statement is the sentence all of it proves. If you haven't written one, our personal brand statement examples are a good place to start, and your lead featured card should be the clearest piece of evidence for it.

Get those four aligned and the Featured row stops being the part of the profile people leave empty, and becomes the part that does the persuading for you.