LinkedIn Featured Section: 8+ Examples That Actually Get Clicks

Q: How many items should I feature?

Cap at 4 to 5 items. On mobile only the first 1 to 2 cards are visible without scrolling, and on desktop only 2 to 3 cards render in the row. Beyond five items, the marginal click rate drops sharply, and a long list signals indecision rather than depth.

Q: Do recruiters look at Featured?

Yes. A 2024 Resume Worded survey of 1,200 recruiters found that 64% considered a strong Featured section a difference-maker when deciding whether to open or skip a profile, and 71% said profiles with Featured items received more InMail responses than identical profiles without.

The LinkedIn Featured section sits directly below your About section and above Experience, which makes it the second thing a recruiter sees after your headline and photo. It is, statistically, the most under-used piece of real estate on the platform: a 2025 audit by Resume.io of 5,000 mid-career profiles found that only 18% had any Featured items, and just 4% had three or more. That gap matters because LinkedIn renders Featured as visual cards with thumbnails, which interrupt the scroll in a way that plain text never does. Done well, it converts a casual profile view into a click on your portfolio, case study, or proof asset. Done poorly, it broadcasts that you stopped maintaining your profile two years ago.

What Is the Featured Section, and Where Does It Sit

The Featured section is a horizontally scrollable showcase of pinned content that appears between your About section and your Experience section on your LinkedIn profile. It launched in late 2019 to replace the older Media area inside About, and it has been a fixed component of the profile ever since. Think of it as the LinkedIn equivalent of a tweet pinned to the top of a Twitter profile: you choose what gets featured, you control the order, and the items remain visible until you remove them.

Where Featured appears in the LinkedIn profile stack (top to bottom)

Header (photo, banner, headline, location, current role)
About (your summary, max 2,600 characters)
Featured, the showcase area covered by this guide
Activity (posts and reactions, auto-populated)
Experience
Education
Licenses & Certifications
Skills, Recommendations, Projects, Languages, Volunteer, Publications, Honors & Awards (optional, in any order you arrange)

The placement is deliberate: by the time a recruiter has read your headline and About, they have a hypothesis about you. The Featured section either confirms that hypothesis with proof or it is empty, which weakens the signal. There is no third option. According to LinkedIn's own help documentation, you can add posts, articles, links, and media to Featured, and you can reorder them at any time. The first item in the order is the one that appears first on desktop and the only one that appears on mobile without horizontal scrolling.

Content Types You Can Add

LinkedIn supports four content types in the Featured section, and each one renders as a slightly different card. Understanding the visual difference matters because thumbnail clarity drives click-through. A blurry preview will be skipped no matter how strong the underlying content is.

Content type	What it is	What the card shows	Best for
Posts	A post you authored or reshared on LinkedIn	First two lines of the post + author name + reactions count	Thought leadership, announcements, viral moments
Articles	A long-form article you published via LinkedIn Publishing	Hero image + headline + estimated read time	Original research, point-of-view pieces, case studies
Links	An external URL (portfolio, GitHub, company press, podcast)	Open Graph image + page title + domain	Portfolio, GitHub, conference talks, press coverage
Media uploads	PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, or image files (JPG, PNG, GIF) up to 100 MB; videos up to 5 GB	First-page or first-frame preview + filename you set	Case study decks, white papers, certificates, work samples

Thumbnail trap: LinkedIn auto-generates the link preview from the destination page's Open Graph tags. If the destination has no OG image, or has a generic favicon, the Featured card will look hollow. Before pinning an external link, paste it into LinkedIn's Post Inspector and confirm the preview looks the way you want.

8+ Filled Examples by Role

Below are nine role-specific Featured layouts. Each one is built around the principle that the first three items decide the recruiter's impression, and the order should run from highest-signal to lowest-signal. Tags indicate the content type so you can replicate the layout exactly.

1. Software Engineer

Link GitHub profile (pinned repos visible in OG preview)
Link Personal portfolio site or one flagship project page
Post A technical post you wrote (e.g., "How we cut p99 latency from 1.2s to 180ms")
Media Conference talk PDF or a system design doc

Why this works: The GitHub link gives recruiters immediate signal on code volume and recency. A personal site shows you can ship outside work. The technical post proves you can communicate, which is what separates senior from staff candidates.

2. Salesperson (AE or SDR)

Post A customer win post with permission to share (logo + quantified outcome)
Media A 1-page PDF: "How I Run Discovery" or your call framework
Link Podcast or panel appearance discussing sales process
Post Reposted recommendation from a buyer or customer

Why this works: Sales hiring managers want pattern recognition that you have closed before. Customer wins and frameworks demonstrate both outcomes and methodology, which together justify a quota.

3. Executive (Director, VP, C-suite)

Article A LinkedIn article you authored on strategy or industry POV
Link Press feature (TechCrunch, Forbes, industry trade pub)
Link Keynote or panel video (YouTube or conference site)
Post A team announcement post (promotion, funding, product launch)

Why this works: Executives are evaluated on judgment and reach. An article shows judgment, press shows external validation, and a keynote shows you can carry the room. Avoid old certifications; they do not match the level.

4. Creator or Content Marketer

Post Your most-engaged post of the last 12 months
Link Newsletter or Substack landing page
Media A 1-page PDF: "Things I Write About" or your content brief
Article A long-form article that ranks in Google for your topic

Why this works: A creator's profile gets evaluated on reach and recency. The top-performing post is social proof in card form. Newsletter shows audience ownership, which is what brands pay for.

5. Founder or Startup Operator

Link Your company website
Link Funding announcement on TechCrunch or company blog
Post A "lessons learned" post from a real launch or pivot
Link Product Hunt launch or app store listing

Why this works: Investors, candidates, and prospective customers all show up on a founder's profile. The order above answers their three questions in sequence: what is the company, is it real, and what is the founder like to work with.

6. Active Job-Seeker (Software or Product Role)

Post A pinned "open to work" announcement post (not just the green banner) with target roles and locations
Media Resume PDF, optimized and ATS-friendly (run it through our free score checker first)
Link Portfolio or GitHub showcasing 2-3 case studies
Media Screenshot of a recommendation or testimonial from a manager

Why this works: A standalone "open to work" post explains context the green banner cannot: target geography, target seniority, work authorization. The resume PDF lets recruiters share you with hiring managers without leaving LinkedIn.

7. Designer (Product, Brand, or Visual)

Link Personal portfolio (Figma, Webflow, custom site)
Link Behance or Dribbble profile
Media Case study PDF for one flagship project (problem, process, outcome)
Post A LinkedIn carousel post showing before/after of a redesign

Why this works: Designers are visual-first. The portfolio link should be first because it carries the strongest preview image. Behance is secondary because not all hiring managers use it, and a case study deck reaches viewers who prefer text-first review.

8. Data Scientist or Analyst

Link GitHub profile or Kaggle ranking page
Article A LinkedIn article walking through a model or analysis
Media Slide deck PDF from a brown-bag or conference talk
Link Tableau Public or Power BI Service dashboard with public sharing on

Why this works: Data hiring is split between code (Python, SQL, dbt) and communication (dashboards, decks). The order above hits both audiences in the first three cards, which covers most hiring panels.

9. Career Changer (Bootcamp Graduate or Pivot)

Post A "why I pivoted" post explaining the transition narrative
Link Capstone project or live demo from your new field
Media Certificate PDF (bootcamp, Google Career Certificate, Coursera Specialization)
Media Resume PDF rewritten for the new field

Why this works: Career changers fight a credibility deficit. The pivot post addresses it head-on so the recruiter does not need to guess. A live demo proves the new skill is real, not theoretical. The certificate is supporting evidence, not the lead.

Mobile vs Desktop Visibility

The Featured section renders differently on each device, and the difference is bigger than most profiles account for. LinkedIn reported in early 2025 that approximately 57% of all profile views originate on mobile. If your top item assumes a desktop view, more than half your audience is missing it.

Desktop preview

Shows 2-3 cards in a horizontal row depending on browser width
Cards display thumbnail, title, and short subtitle
"Show all" link reveals the rest in a side panel
Hover shows the full title without clicking

Mobile preview

Shows only the first 1-2 cards above the fold
Horizontal swipe reveals the rest
Titles truncate to roughly 40 characters
Thumbnail is smaller, so low-resolution previews look worse

Mobile-first rules for the Featured order

Front-load your single best item. Whichever piece of content most directly proves you can do the job goes in position 1.
Use a short, descriptive filename or title. "Q3 Marketing Case Study, 38% lift" reads better on mobile than "case_study_v7_final_FINAL.pdf".
Skip horizontal images that lose detail when scaled. Vertical or square thumbnails keep their meaning on a small screen.
Test on your own phone. Open your profile in incognito on mobile data and screenshot what a stranger sees first.

Featured vs Activity vs About vs Projects: Where to Put What

One of the most common mistakes is duplicating content across sections. Each section has a different purpose and a different audience expectation. The table below clarifies what belongs where.

Section	Best for	Visibility	Cadence
Featured	Curated proof items (portfolio, top post, case study, resume PDF)	High (top of profile, visual cards)	Update every 60-90 days
Activity	Recent posts and reactions, auto-populated	Medium (third item in stack, shows last 3)	Driven by posting frequency, not editable
About	Narrative summary, positioning statement, search keywords	High (second item in stack, text-first)	Update once a quarter or after a role change
Projects	Discrete deliverables with title, dates, collaborators, and a link	Low (buried below Experience, text-only)	Update when projects ship

The practical rule: anything you would point a hiring manager toward goes in Featured. Anything that lives well as a sortable list with dates goes in Projects. Anything that only needs to be said in narrative goes in About. Activity is automatic, so do not plan content for it; just keep posting regularly so the section is not stale.

For Job-Seekers Specifically

If you are actively interviewing, the Featured section is the highest-leverage edit you can make to your profile in under 30 minutes. Recruiters on LinkedIn Recruiter (the paid sourcing tool) see your profile in the same order as everyone else, and they screen quickly. According to LinkedIn's Future of Recruiting 2024 report, recruiters spend an average of 23 seconds on a profile before deciding whether to message. The Featured section is the part of the profile that earns the click within those 23 seconds.

High-signal items for job-seekers

ATS-optimized resume PDF
Portfolio or GitHub link
Case study PDF for a flagship project
Screenshot of a written recommendation (with permission)
Awards announcement post (e.g., "Promoted to Senior" or industry award)
Pinned "open to work" post with target roles and locations

Low-signal items to avoid

Generic motivational quotes or stock images
Outdated certifications (more than 5 years old)
Articles unrelated to your target role
Reshared posts you did not author and did not add commentary to
Press from a former company that no longer reflects your work
Anything with a broken thumbnail or 404'd destination

One specific tactic that works well: upload your resume PDF as a Featured media item with the filename "First Last Resume, [Target Role]". A recruiter who likes your profile can download it in one tap and forward it to a hiring manager without needing to email you first. If your LinkedIn profile already mirrors a strong resume, the easiest way to produce that PDF is to start from LinkedIn and use our LinkedIn to Resume builder, which converts your profile into an ATS-safe one-page resume in seconds.

How to Add and Reorder Featured Items

The mechanics are straightforward on desktop and slightly different on mobile. Both flows are covered below.

Adding the Featured section for the first time (desktop)

Go to your profile and click "Add profile section" near your headline.
Expand "Recommended" in the dropdown and select "Add featured".
Click the "+" icon inside the new Featured section.
Choose Post, Article, Link, or Media.
Paste the URL, pick the post or article from your history, or upload the file.
Add a title and description if prompted, then save.

Reordering items (desktop)

Click the pencil icon at the top right of the Featured section.
In the editor, drag any item by the four-arrow handle on the right.
Place your strongest item in position 1 (top of the list = leftmost card on the live profile).
Click "Save" to commit the new order.

On the mobile app

Open your profile and tap the pencil icon next to Featured.
Tap "Add" to insert a new item, or long-press an existing item to reorder.
Drag items with the handle to reorder, then tap the checkmark to save.

One quirk worth noting: when you reorder, LinkedIn occasionally takes a few minutes to refresh the public view, especially on logged-out browsers. Wait 5-10 minutes and then check in incognito to confirm the new order is live.

Updating Cadence: When to Refresh Featured

Featured is not set-and-forget. Stale Featured content actively works against you: a 2024 LinkedIn announcement post pinned in May 2026 reads as inattention to detail. The right cadence depends on what you are using the section for.

If your goal is…	Refresh cadence	Why
Active job search	Every 30 days	Roles close fast; keep your "open to work" post and resume version current
Passive job interest	Every 60-90 days	Refresh the top item when your best work changes; recruiters notice activity
Personal brand / creator	Whenever a post outperforms the current pin	Featured should reflect your current high-water mark
Sales prospecting	Every quarter	Buyer-relevant case studies and customer wins should be recent
Executive positioning	After every major company milestone	Press, funding rounds, product launches all earn a Featured slot

A simple operational habit: set a recurring 15-minute calendar block on the first Monday of every month titled "LinkedIn Featured audit". In that window, check that every link still resolves, every thumbnail still renders, and the order still reflects your strongest current work.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Outdated content

The mistake: A pinned post from 2022 about a company you no longer work at.

Fix: Remove anything older than 12 months unless it is evergreen press or a permanent portfolio anchor.

Low-resolution thumbnails

The mistake: A blurry PDF first-page or a missing Open Graph image on a personal site.

Fix: Use a 1200x630 OG image on linked pages. For PDFs, design the first page as a title card, not a wall of text.

Too many slots

The mistake: 12 items pinned, signaling indecision and burying your best work.

Fix: Cap at 4-5 items. The 6th item is almost never clicked, so it is just dilution.

Irrelevant links

The mistake: A side hobby blog featured on a profile targeting senior product roles.

Fix: Every Featured item must answer "would this help me get my next role". If not, cut it.

Broken or 404'd links

The mistake: A featured link to a page that moved or a press article that fell behind a paywall.

Fix: Click every Featured link from incognito once a quarter to confirm it still resolves.

Generic filenames

The mistake: A PDF titled "resume_final_v4.pdf" or "Untitled Document".

Fix: Rename to a descriptive title with your name and a one-line result, e.g., "Jane Doe Resume, Staff Engineer".

The Recruiter-Search Angle: Why Featured Is a Confirmation Signal

Recruiters on LinkedIn Recruiter run boolean searches on titles, skills, and keywords, and they see the top portion of your profile in a preview pane before clicking through. The Featured section is the part of the profile that confirms or invalidates the signal from your headline and About. According to a 2024 survey of 1,200 recruiters by Resume Worded, 71% reported that profiles with Featured items received more InMail responses than identical profiles without them, and 64% said a strong Featured section was the difference-maker between "open the profile" and "skip".

The mechanism is straightforward: when a recruiter sees your headline and About claim something, the Featured section is where the proof lives. If you are claiming "ML engineer specializing in production LLM systems," a Featured GitHub link to a repo with LLM inference code is direct evidence. The same claim with an empty Featured section is just a sentence. The first claim earns the InMail; the second one does not.

For roles that involve writing or public communication (PM, marketing, sales, customer success), the Featured section is even more load-bearing. Hiring managers actively look for a writing sample, a deck, or a video before progressing a candidate. A Featured article you authored eliminates an entire round of "send us a writing sample" back-and-forth.

Putting It Together: A 30-Minute Featured Audit

If you read this guide and only have time for one pass, do this:

Minute 0-5: Open your profile in incognito on your phone. Screenshot what shows above the fold in the Featured section.
Minute 5-10: List the items currently pinned. Mark each as "lead" (worth keeping), "fix" (needs a better thumbnail or title), or "cut".
Minute 10-20: Identify the single strongest proof item you have today (portfolio, top post, case study). Make sure it is in position 1.
Minute 20-30: Add one missing item from the role-specific list above. Save, refresh, and re-screenshot in mobile incognito.

Most profiles improve dramatically from this one pass because the bar is so low: 82% of LinkedIn users have nothing in Featured at all. Anything thoughtful puts you in the top 20% of recruiter-search results before the recruiter has even read your headline.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Featured section sits directly below your About section and above your Experience section on your LinkedIn profile. If you do not see it, scroll to "Add profile section" near your headline, expand "Recommended", and choose "Add featured". It will then appear in the standard slot for every visitor to your profile.

Four content types are supported: posts you authored or reshared, articles you published on LinkedIn, external links (portfolio, GitHub, press, podcast), and media uploads. Media supports PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, images (JPG, PNG, GIF) up to 100 MB, and videos up to 5 GB. The most clicked combinations include a resume PDF plus a portfolio link plus a flagship case study.

Cap at 4-5 items. On mobile only the first 1-2 cards are visible without scrolling, and on desktop only 2-3 cards render in the row. Beyond five items, the marginal click rate drops sharply, and a long list signals indecision rather than depth. If you feel you need more than five, you are likely treating Featured as a portfolio rather than a curated proof set; move the overflow into the Projects section instead.

Yes, and they look at it early in the screen. A 2024 Resume Worded survey of 1,200 recruiters found that 64% considered a strong Featured section a difference-maker when deciding whether to open or skip a profile, and 71% said profiles with Featured items received more InMail responses than identical profiles without. Featured serves as a confirmation signal that backs up the claims in your headline and About.

Active job-seekers should refresh every 30 days. Passive job-seekers and most professionals can refresh every 60-90 days. Creators should refresh whenever a new post outperforms the current pin. Executives should add an item after every major milestone (press, funding, launch). Stale Featured content (older than 12 months for non-evergreen items) actively works against you because it suggests inattention.