How to add certifications on LinkedIn to your profile

How do I add certifications on LinkedIn?

Go to your profile, click Add profile section, open Recommended, and choose Licenses & certifications. Fill in the pop-up form and click Save, and the certification appears in its own section of your profile.

Below: the desktop and app steps, how LinkedIn Learning certificates work, and how to decide what belongs in this section.

How to add certifications on LinkedIn from a computer

Every certification goes into the same profile section, whoever issued it. On desktop:

1. Click the Me icon, then View Profile.
2. Click Add profile section in your introduction section.
3. Open Recommended and choose Licenses & certifications.
4. Enter your details in the pop-up and click Save.

LinkedIn's page on adding sections to your profile shows the same path. Once saved, the certification sits in a Licenses & certifications section on your profile.

To add a second one, repeat the steps. Each certification is its own entry.

How to add a certification in the LinkedIn app

On an iPhone or Android phone, the route is shorter to describe but the same underneath:

1. Tap your profile picture, then tap your profile photo again.
2. Tap Add section.
3. Choose Licenses & certifications from the Recommended group.
4. Fill in the form and tap Save.

A certification added on your phone shows on desktop too, and the reverse. There's one profile, whichever device you edit it from.

What to have ready before you open the form

LinkedIn's help center doesn't list the form's fields one by one, so the safe move is to have everything from the certificate in front of you.

Keep these to hand:

• The exact name of the certification, as the issuer writes it.
• The name of the organization that issued it.
• The date you earned it, and the expiry date if there is one.
• Any credential number or verification link the issuer gave you.

Copy the name exactly. "AWS Certified Solutions Architect" and "AWS Architect cert" read very differently to a recruiter searching for the real title.

Where Licenses & certifications sits among profile sections

LinkedIn groups its profile sections into three sets when you click Add profile section:

• Core: About, Education, Position, Services, Career break and Skills.
• Recommended: Featured, Licenses & certifications, Projects, Courses and Recommendations.
• Additional: Volunteer experience, Publications, Patents, Honors & awards, Test scores, Languages, Organizations and Causes.

If you can't find the certification option, you're probably looking in Core. It lives under Recommended.

Certification, course or award: which section fits?

Not everything with a certificate belongs in Licenses & certifications. Picking the right section keeps your profile easy to scan.

Use Licenses & certifications for credentials an organization grants after an exam or assessment, and for professional licenses.

Use Courses for classes you took without a formal credential at the end. Use Honors & awards for prizes and recognition, and Test scores for exams you want to show a number for.

When in doubt, ask whether a hiring manager would call it a credential. If they would, it goes in certifications.

How to add a LinkedIn Learning certificate to your profile

LinkedIn Learning certificates of completion have their own shortcut, so you don't type anything by hand. LinkedIn's guide to adding Learning certificates to your profile describes it.

On a computer

1. Open LinkedIn Learning, click your profile picture, and choose My Library.
2. Open Learning History.
3. Click More (...) next to the finished course and select Add to profile.
4. Tick Share with network if you want a post about it, then click Add to Profile.

In the LinkedIn Learning app

Go to My Courses, then Learning History, tap See all, and choose Add to profile on the course.

Which LinkedIn Learning courses come with a certificate?

Only completed courses do. If you're partway through, there's nothing to add yet.

LinkedIn also says certificates aren't issued for collections or for individual videos. Watching one clip from a course, or working through a curated collection, doesn't produce a certificate on its own.

So if a course is missing from your Learning History options, check whether you actually finished every part of it.

Why a certificate's skills may not show up

Adding a LinkedIn Learning certificate can also add skills to your profile. There's a cap, though.

LinkedIn says that if you already have over 100 skills, you can't add more. The certificate may go on, but the skills attached to it won't.

A long skills list isn't a strong one anyway. If you're near the limit, remove skills you'd never want to be hired for. Then the new, relevant ones have room.

When a provider gives you an Add to Profile button

Some certification and degree providers send you an Add to Profile button with your certificate. It looks like a one-click shortcut.

LinkedIn's FAQ for Add to Profile buttons says the button no longer autofills your details. Clicking it takes you to the profile form, where you enter the information yourself.

It's still useful as a starting point. Just expect to type, and check each detail against your certificate before saving.

Showing a key certificate in your Featured section

The certifications section lists your credentials as text. Sometimes you want one of them to be seen first, near the top of your profile.

That's what Featured is for. It sits in the same Recommended group as Licenses & certifications, and it accepts uploads such as images and documents.

For one credential that defines your work, a PDF or image of the certificate in Featured puts it in front of every visitor before they scroll. Keep the listing in Licenses & certifications as well, since that's the structured version.

Save this for one or two credentials at most. A Featured section full of certificates looks like a filing cabinet.

Add the matching skill as well

A certification proves you learned something. The Skills section is where LinkedIn expects to see what that something is.

Skills sits in the Core group of Add profile section. After adding a certification, check that the skill it covers is listed there too, using the same wording job ads use.

The two reinforce each other. A recruiter who searches for the skill finds you, then sees the certification backing it up.

LinkedIn Learning certificates can add skills for you, within the 100-skill cap. For other certifications, add them yourself.

Which certifications are worth adding

A certifications section works best when every entry says something about the job you want next.

Worth adding:

• Industry credentials that job ads in your field ask for by name.
• Professional licenses you need to practice.
• Recent certifications that show a new skill, especially after a career change.

Worth leaving off: dozens of short completion badges from years ago. They bury the two or three credentials a recruiter is actually looking for.

Keeping expired certifications on your profile

An expired certification isn't automatically worthless, but it can mislead.

If the credential lapsed and you still work in the area, keep it and show the real dates. That's honest, and it still proves you passed it once.

If it's expired and unrelated to what you do now, remove it.

And if renewal is coming up, update the dates the day you renew, so your profile never shows a lapsed credential you actually hold.

Should you announce a new certification?

For LinkedIn Learning certificates, the choice is built in: the Share with network box posts it for you.

For other certifications, you can write a post yourself. A short note works better than a bare announcement.

Say what you studied, why, and one thing you'll use it for. That gives your network something to respond to, not only a badge to like.

Mistakes that weaken a LinkedIn certifications section

A few common slips make certifications less useful than they should be:

• Using a nickname for the credential. Recruiters search the official title.
• Adding it in the wrong section. A certification buried under Courses is easy to miss.
• Leaving out the verification link. If the issuer gave you one, a reader can check it.
• Never pruning. Twenty old badges hide the one that matters.

Each takes a minute to fix, and together they change how quickly a reader trusts the section.

Your certification checklist

Before you close your profile, run through this:

• Certificate in front of you, with the exact name, issuer and dates.
• Added through Add profile section, Recommended, Licenses & certifications.
• LinkedIn Learning certificates added from Learning History, not typed by hand.
• Skills list under the 100 cap, so new skills can attach.
• Expired or irrelevant entries removed.

Then view your profile as a visitor would. The certification you most want seen should be the easiest one to find.

Certification questions

Can I add a certification I'm still working toward?

The section is meant for credentials you hold. If you're mid-course, many people mention it in their About section or a post instead, then add the certification once it's issued.

Why can't I find Licenses & certifications on my profile?

It's in the Recommended group of Add profile section, not in Core. Open Recommended and it's listed there.

Do LinkedIn Learning certificates count as certifications?

They're certificates of completion, and LinkedIn lets you add them to your profile from Learning History. Treat them as proof you finished a course, not as an industry credential.