A LinkedIn portfolio lives in the Featured section of your profile, so pin the proof a buyer would actually open.

What the Featured section LinkedIn shows on your profile

A LinkedIn portfolio is not a separate product you buy or build. It is the Featured section: the row of pinned work samples that sits near the top of your profile, under your introduction, where a visitor lands before they read a word of your experience.

LinkedIn Help describes the Featured section as a place to showcase the work samples you are most proud of, as evidence of your skills and experience. Every item in it is there because you put it there, and you can add or remove items whenever you want.

That is the whole difference between Featured and the Activity section below it. Activity shows your posts, articles, comments and reactions from the past 45 days, flattering or not. Featured shows only what you chose, in the order you chose.

The Featured section LinkedIn rolled out also absorbed the media that used to sit in the About section, which is why some profiles display items nobody remembers adding. If that is your profile, the first job is to remove what no longer represents you.

The section lives under Recommended in the Add profile section menu, alongside Licenses and certifications, Projects, Courses and Recommendations. It is optional, which is why so many profiles that sell something never switch it on.

Why the Featured section works as a LinkedIn portfolio

Buyers check profiles between the message and the meeting. They are answering one question: does this person know my problem, or are they working through a list? A LinkedIn portfolio answers that before they scroll, without a form or a follow-up email.

A designer shows finished work. A seller or consultant has a harder job, because the work is a conversation nobody can see. Featured is where you make that work visible: the guide you wrote, the document that explains your method, the talk you gave, the customer story you are allowed to tell.

• It is the first thing under your introduction. Your headline makes a claim, and the featured item is the evidence sitting directly below it.
• It carries files, not only links. A prospect can open a document without leaving LinkedIn or filling in anything.
• It is curated. Your best post from last year stays visible long after it left the feed.
• It survives message deletion. The guide you sent in a message six months ago is gone; the featured one is still there.

The rest of the profile still has to do its job. If the headline and About section do not name a buyer and a problem, the portfolio has nothing to prove. Our guide on how to create a LinkedIn profile covers that order of work.

What to include in a LinkedIn portfolio when you have no gallery

Designers and photographers know what goes in a portfolio. Everyone else stalls here, because the work is a project nobody photographed. The fix is to decide what kind of proof you can publish, then build one professional item per kind.

• A case study. One customer situation, the decision, what you did and the results you are allowed to include. Anonymize the company if the contract says you must.
• A method document. The checklist, questions or framework you actually use. This is the easiest portfolio piece to create from work you have already done.
• A project write-up. A project that shaped how you work, described as a problem and an outcome rather than a job description.
• Visual proof. A screenshot of a dashboard, a before and after, a slide from a workshop. Visual items stop the scroll on a phone.
• A published opinion. An article or post that takes a position a buyer can agree or disagree with.
• Credentials. A certification or a course that matters in your category, which is worth featuring when buyers select on it.

Two of these are enough to start a portfolio. The point is not volume: it is that a professional visitor can see your work instead of reading claims about it.

What you can feature: posts, articles, links and media

LinkedIn Help lists four kinds of work sample you can add to the Featured section. Each behaves differently for a buyer, which is why the choice matters more than the count.

A document post is the format most sellers underuse. LinkedIn renders an uploaded PDF, deck or Word file page by page as swipeable slides, and members who can see the post can download it as a PDF. Our LinkedIn carousel guide covers how to build one that reads on a phone.

What you cannot put in your Featured section

• Posts from Groups or Events. LinkedIn Help says posts from Events you are attending or Groups you belong to cannot be featured, to protect other members' privacy.
• Content you have not published. A post or article has to exist on LinkedIn before you can feature it.
• Other people's posts you did not re-share. The list covers posts you authored or re-shared, not anything you liked or commented on.
• Anything on a company page. LinkedIn Help says the Featured section is only available on individual profiles, not on Pages.
• Automatic pins. There is no setting that files new posts into Featured for you. You feature a post from the More icon on the post itself, or from the Featured page.

Image and file limits for a LinkedIn portfolio

These are the limits LinkedIn publishes in its Help Center. Where LinkedIn does not publish a number, this page says so instead of guessing.

One number is inconsistent across LinkedIn's own pages. The profile media article gives a maximum image resolution of 120 megapixels, while the general media article gives 36 mega pixels for content posted on LinkedIn. Neither is a limit a normal screenshot or slide will ever reach.

For documents, LinkedIn advises converting files to PDF for the best upload quality, flattening layered PDFs, and fitting every page to the same size. Videos inside a document display as static images, so a demo belongs in a video post, not a deck.

How to build a LinkedIn portfolio in the Featured section

1. Open the Featured section

   Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then View Profile. Click Add profile section in your introduction, click the Recommended dropdown, then click Add featured.

2. Publish before you pin

   LinkedIn Help says a post or article must already exist on LinkedIn before you can feature it. Write and publish it first, then return to the Featured page.

3. Add each work sample

   Click the Add icon on the upper right of the Featured page, select the type of sample you want to feature, follow the prompts and click Save or Done.

4. Write the title and description

   Click Edit below a featured item to change its title and description. Name the problem the item solves for a buyer, not the file it came from.

5. Put the strongest item first

   Click the Reorder icon on the upper right of the Featured page and drag items into the order you want. You need at least two samples before reordering is possible.

6. Check it as a visitor, then review it quarterly

   Open your profile on a phone, read the first cards as a buyer would, and remove anything you would not send someone today.

On the mobile app the path is the same with different words: tap your profile photo, then View profile, then Add section, then Recommended, then Add featured. Editing works from the Edit icon next to the Featured section.

Adding and reordering items after the first upload

Adding items is easy to find. Changing them is the part people miss, because the controls sit behind the Edit icon next to the Featured section rather than on the profile itself.

Two notes from LinkedIn Help are worth reading twice. New items appear first by default, so the newest pin pushes your best one down. And once a work sample is removed from the Featured section it cannot be restored, so use Remove from featured rather than Delete when you are only tidying.

Pinning profile sections, which needs a subscription

There is a second way to fill the section: pinning content that already exists elsewhere on your profile. LinkedIn Help lists Experience, Licenses and certifications, Recommendations, Courses, Honors and awards, Skills, Projects and Education as sections you can feature this way.

That version is described as a Premium feature, available to Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter subscribers, and it repeats the rule that items are unlimited while only 400 are displayed. Adding ordinary posts, articles, links and files stays free for every member. LinkedIn Premium covers what else sits behind those tiers.

A customer recommendation pinned at the top of a seller's profile is the strongest use of it. A recommendation buried in the recommendations section is read by almost nobody; the same recommendation in Featured is read by people deciding whether to reply.

What a seller should feature: five slots that earn replies

Most profiles need five items, not fifty. This plan was written for this page, and it assumes the reader is a prospect who has just received your message and wants to know whether you understand their situation.

If you only fill one slot, fill the first. A featured item you do not personally send to people is decoration. If you have nothing to pin yet, write the post first: the approach in LinkedIn content strategy produces the material a portfolio needs.

Keep the portfolio to the work you can defend in a conversation. A featured item you cannot explain in two sentences is decoration, and a professional buyer reads decoration as noise.

Creative, consulting and sales portfolios are not the same

Consultants and freelancers often keep their real portfolio on a personal site. That is fine, as long as the link is not the only thing featured. Pin one item that can be opened inside LinkedIn, so a visitor who does not click away still sees something.

The Projects section, for work that never became a post

Some work does not belong in the feed: an internal project, a migration, a research piece a client paid for. LinkedIn has a Projects section for exactly this, listed under Recommended next to Featured in the Add profile section menu.

One quirk is documented in LinkedIn Help. The Project URL field is not available for newly added projects, so to attach a link you click Add media and then Add a link. The same profile media file types and size limits apply to anything you upload there.

Projects and Featured are not rivals. Projects holds the full record of your professional work; Featured holds the two or three pieces you want a visitor to open first. Subscribers can pin a project into Featured, which connects the two.

Do you still need an external portfolio website?

For creative and freelance careers, yes. A portfolio website holds more work, in higher quality, without a sign-in wall, and you control how it looks. LinkedIn is where people find you; the website is where they study the work in depth.

For most sellers and consultants, no. Building a website to hold three case studies is a way to avoid publishing. Create the case study, feature it on LinkedIn, and let the profile do the job while the content proves itself.

If you do have a site, link it. A featured link is free and shows a preview from the page you point to. Subscribers can also add a custom button, and one of the labels LinkedIn offers is View my portfolio, which sits in the introduction where nobody has to scroll.

The first three items decide whether the rest are seen

The Featured section scrolls sideways, so a phone shows the first card and hides the rest behind a swipe. Order is therefore a real decision, not housekeeping. Because new items appear first, an unmanaged section eventually shows whatever you pinned most recently.

• Slot one: relevance. The item that matches the reason someone opened your profile today.
• Slot two: depth. Something longer for the visitor who is genuinely evaluating you.
• Slot three: proof. A recommendation, a customer story or a result you can publish.
• After that: anything. The remaining items exist for people who keep scrolling, and there will be few of them.

Reorder after every new pin. It takes ten seconds from the Reorder icon and it stops your newest post from displacing the item that does the selling.

Whatever you showcase, write it for one reader. A portfolio built to impress everyone has no impact on anyone, because the visitor cannot tell which part was meant for them.

Three LinkedIn portfolio examples, written for this page

These examples were written for this page, not taken from real profiles. Each one shows the order, not the wording, because the order is what decides the impact a portfolio has on a visitor who is already half decided.

Notice what none of them do. They do not showcase everything, they do not open with a company brochure, and they do not ask for contact details before the visitor gets anything useful.

Titles and descriptions that earn the click

Each featured item has a title and a description you can edit, and both default to something unhelpful: a file name, or the first line of a post. LinkedIn does not publish a character limit for either field, so assume the phone crops it and put the point first.

These examples were written for this page. Write the description as the sentence you would say when handing the document to someone: who it is for, how long it takes, and what they should disagree with.

Who can actually see your featured items

Featured obeys the visibility settings already on your content. LinkedIn Help is explicit about three rules that surprise people, and each one can quietly hide a portfolio from the buyers it was built for.

1. Featured content follows your profile and post visibility settings, so a connections only post stays connections only inside Featured.
2. Featured content is not discoverable through search.
3. A viewer must have a LinkedIn account and be signed in to see anything in your Featured section.

That last rule matters if you paste your profile link into an email. A prospect who is signed out sees a public profile, and the public profile shows only the sections your public profile settings allow. Anything gated by the sign-in wall is not doing the work you think it is.

Because featured items are invisible to search, the section persuades rather than attracts. The terms buyers search for belong in your headline, About section and skills, which is the argument behind LinkedIn SEO.

Why the Featured section disappears from a profile

The most common reason is the simplest one. LinkedIn Help says that if you have no content to feature, the section is hidden from people who view your profile. It is not broken, it is empty.

The other places a portfolio can live on LinkedIn

Featured is the main surface, not the only one. Several other parts of the profile accept media or links, and each reaches a slightly different visitor.

Contact info is the weakest of these for a portfolio. LinkedIn Help says the contact and personal information in that panel is visible to your 1st-degree connections, while information such as a webpage or blog URL may be visible to all members. Either way, the visitor has to go looking.

The custom button is a subscription feature, listed for a selected group of Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite subscribers, and adding it replaces services on your profile. LinkedIn also removed the old profile hyperlink that creator mode used to provide, which our LinkedIn creator mode guide covers.

A quarterly review that takes ten minutes

Do this on the same day you review your headline. A portfolio that describes last year's offer is worse than an empty section, because it tells a buyer you are not paying attention.

How to tell whether your portfolio is working

There is no click report for the Featured section, so the measurement is indirect. Watch profile views, watch the analytics on the posts you featured, and watch what happens in conversations after someone opens your profile.

• Profile views over time. Compare the weeks before and after you rebuilt the section, using LinkedIn analytics.
• Post analytics on featured posts. A featured post keeps collecting impressions long after the feed forgets it.
• Replies that mention an item. The clearest signal is a prospect referring to the document by name.
• Meetings booked from the featured link. Use a separate booking link so you can attribute them honestly.

If you are running outreach, the profile is part of the sequence, not a separate exercise. A prospect who opens your profile after a connection request is in the middle of deciding, which is the moment LinkedIn prospecting either works or stalls.

The honest test is simpler than any metric. Open your portfolio, imagine the last prospect who ignored you, and ask which item would have changed their mind. If none would, the portfolio needs new work, not new ordering.

Common LinkedIn portfolio mistakes

• Leaving the section empty, so it hides itself and the top of your profile says nothing.
• Pinning twelve items, so the visitor sees only the first one and learns nothing about the rest.
• Letting the newest pin sit first by default, permanently burying the item that sells.
• Featuring a link behind a form, so the proof needs an email address before it proves anything.
• Keeping file names as titles, which tells a buyer how you manage folders.
• Featuring a post that is set to connections only, then wondering why prospects never mention it.
• Using Delete when you meant Remove from featured, which cannot be undone.
• Pasting a profile link into an email and assuming a signed out reader can see any of it.

The message that sends a prospect to one featured item

The template below was written for this page. It points at a single item, says what it is and how long it takes, and asks for an opinion rather than a meeting. Use it only when the item is already pinned and you have opened it yourself.

Hi {{firstName}},

You mentioned {{problem}} when we spoke about {{topic}}. I put the short version at the top of my profile: {{itemTitle}}, under Featured.

It is {{format}}, about {{length}}, and page {{page}} is the part that matches your situation. No form, no signup.

If it is useful, tell me which part you would argue with.

{{senderName}}

Frequently asked questions