How to Add a Promotion on LinkedIn: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you’ve come across this article, chances are that you’ve recently received a well-deserved promotion, so first and foremost—congratulations! 

Achievements like these have to be celebrated, and besides sharing the good news with your friends and family, it’s also worth sharing it with the world. 

Regardless of your industry or location, LinkedIn is the number one professional networking platform in the world, making it the perfect place to post your promotion news. 

LinkedIn is also one of the most popular engagement channels for modern sales and marketing teams. Given the importance of multichannel outreach in business success, it’s definitely a good idea to keep your LinkedIn profile updated at all times. 

No matter if you’ve moved up the corporate ladder at your current company or taking the next step in your career with another firm, LinkedIn is a fantastic place to showcase your professional growth. 

Stick around as we explore how to show a promotion on Linkedin step by step, share the news with your audience, why it’s important, and more. 

How to add a promotion on LinkedIn

To get the ball rolling, let’s directly start with the step-by-step guide on how to add your promotion on LinkedIn, and cover all the ‘extras’ later on. 

Interestingly enough, after looking through numerous articles on this topic, I noticed that the information provided in most cases, well, isn’t really correct. After some digging, I realized that, in their defense, LinkedIn changed their approach to adding promotions several times over the last couple of years. 

Before, there were several ways to add your promotion, but as of October 2024, there’s really only one way to add a promotion for both your current and new company. 

Step 1: Access profile

Go to your LinkedIn profile from the LinkedIn homepage by clicking on the circle in the top right corner with your profile picture, and in the drop-down menu click ‘View Profile’. 

Step 2: Navigate experience

Scroll down to the ‘Experience’ section which outlines all your previous and current occupations and companies you work for, in a neat chronological order. At the top right corner, you’ll see two icons—a plus sign (+) to add a new position, and a pencil to edit existing positions. 

In order to add your promotion on LinkedIn in 2024, you’ll have to click on the plus sign (+) and add a new job position (alternatively, you can first click on the pencil icon, which will bring you to a new tab, and then click on the plus sign (+) to add a new position): 

Step 3: Add new position

Once you’ve clicked on ‘add new position’, LinkedIn will open up a dedicated menu tab where you will have to fill out all the information regarding your promotion:

This is where it’s time to get a bit focused. Fill out all the required information such as your new Job title, employment type (full-time, part-time, contract, etc.), location, location type (on-site, hybrid, remote), start date, and tick the ‘I am currently working in this role’ box. 

With regards to the ‘Company Name’ field, depending on whether your promotion is in your current company or a new company: 

1. If you’re promoted within your current company, simply enter your current company and make sure it matches the one from your previous position on LinkedIn (there are many similar-named companies out there). 

As long as you do that and ensure the dates are entered correctly (the new position starts when the old role ends), LinkedIn will automatically group them to create that aesthetic trajectory line showcasing your career progression within the organization: 

2. If you’re starting your new promotion in a different company, fill out all the required information and in the ‘company name’ field simply enter the new company name. Once again, it’s important to ensure the dates are aligned currently, meaning the start date of the new job position begins after the end date of the previous role. 

Step 4: Verify dates

As mentioned in Step 3, in order for LinkedIn to recognize your new role as a promotion, besides entering the right company name, it’s imperative to ensure that the dates of the new and previous roles don’t overlap. 

LinkedIn has made this incredibly simple by including a new ‘End current position as of now’ box in the initial ‘Add experience’ tab, so rather than first going to your old position and entering a new end date before entering your new promotion, users can simply tick this box and LinkedIn will get the message: 

Last but not least, write up your new job description, just make sure to keep it relatively short and to the point.

* As you can see, there’s also a ‘Profile headline’ tab for you to edit your existing headline given your new promotion, which is one of the numerous ways of optimizing your profile post-promotion that we’ll discuss later. However, this is a great first step and it’s super easy to get done right away.” 

Step 5: Add skills/media

If you wish, you can add your new job position’s skills and media right from the ‘Add experience’ tab, though this can be done later on at any given time, which may make more sense given it will take some time to develop new skills, achievements, and showcase them in various media files and projects. 

Step 6: Review & save

Triple-check that all the information entered is correct (especially the company name and start date), make sure all the necessary boxes are ticked (‘I am currently working in this role’ and ‘end current role’), take a deep breath, and hit that save button.

Congratulations, it’s official! 

Now it’s time to share the good news with your network, which we’ll cover in the next section. 

But you can start leveraging your well-deserved promotion right away to create new opportunities for networking, partnerships, and sales, or all of the above. 

How to share your promotion with your network

Sharing the great news of your promotion is just as important as adding the promotion in the first place. It allows your network of peers to celebrate this milestone with you. On top of that, it puts you on a better, more ‘updated’ radar for potential future business opportunities like collaborations and partnerships.   

There are several ways to share your promotion with your network. 

• For starters, when you go to add your new promotion as outlined in the previous section of the article, the ‘Add experience’ tab will always greet you with the following notification at the very top: 

As you can tell, if you have this toggle on, the moment you add your new job position, your network will automatically get a notification showcasing your promotion (keep in mind that it may take up to 2 hours). You can also control these notifications in your profile settings at any time. 

• Once you complete all the steps of adding a new promotion and click that save button, a default short prompt will appear for this notification post for you to share with your LinkedIn connections.

It’s advised to create your own, custom message instead that provides a more personal touch with regards to your new promotion, which will also make your post much more engaging than the default prompt. 

It doesn’t have to be long and detailed, just a short sentence will be enough, but it does have to be ‘you’. Trust me, your network will appreciate it. 

• As previously mentioned in step 4, it’s also a good idea to update your profile headline and summary to make sure that everything is aligned and optimized. After all, you wouldn’t want your profile headline and/or summary to mention your previous job title and not your shiny new promotion. Finally, consider adding a new profile picture to really make a splash and emphasize the new chapter in your life! 
• Though definitely not necessary, I’d also recommend going beyond the initial automated notification message that LinkedIn offers and taking it a step further by creating a separate post about your promotion. 

This is a great way to dive into more detail and share some of your personal reflections, challenges, new goals and ambitions, and the journey that led you to this promotion. Such a post is also an excellent opportunity to tag your company, potentially some key individuals who contributed to your success, visuals, and anything else that you feel like mentioning. 

How to update a promotion on LinkedIn

The good news is that you can update your new job promotion at any given time, so don’t feel pressured to make it pitch perfect right away. Additional information like new skills, achievements, and media will only come with time anyway, so it only makes sense to leave this section for later, as they come to life. 

You may hit your first grand achievement/milestone 3 months after starting your new role, and that’s when it would make the most sense to add it to the experience section of your profile, along with any media files like presentations, videos, or images related to it. 

To update any information when the time is right, you can simply navigate to the ‘Experience’ section in your profile, but instead of clicking the plus icon (+) like you did to add the promotion in the first place, now, you’ll click the pencil icon. Simple as that. 

There are several key best practices to keep in mind when updating your LinkedIn promotion: 

• Even though the skills and achievements related to the new job will come with time, you may consider adding some of the skills and achievements you’ve acquired from the previous role that helped you land this promotion.

This can refer to both your hard skills and soft skills because promotions are not always a result of ‘generating X clients in Y years’ or ‘growing traffic by X%’. Sometimes, it’s a matter of impressive work ethic, team collaboration efforts, and more.

• Whenever the situation allows, it’s also a good idea to include as many media files to your experience descriptions as possible. Not only does this give your profile page a more pleasing look, but it’s also more in tune with modern preferences for visual content. Besides, what a great way to also promote your company, product, or lead magnets!

• Finally, it’s probably a good idea to leave out information about your day-to-day tasks and responsibilities in your experience description. Your descriptions should ideally be results-focused rather than a description of what it is you do (leave that for your CV).

Keep in mind that your description should also be primarily made and maintained for your network, potential future partners, or employers, so the prime focus of your promotion description should be your skills, strengths, and achievements. 

Why add a promotion to LinkedIn? 

There’s an abundance of reasons to add your new promotion to your LinkedIn profile, besides merely celebrating this grand achievement. For starters, it seems quite logical to keep your professional online presence updated at all times, just as one would with their CV. 

On top of that, there are a few other things to consider: 

#1. If you’re in sales, business development, partnerships, or any other client/customer-facing role, a new better job title offers you more authority and social proof, especially when engaging with high-level decision makers. But even on a smaller scale, going from a Marketing Assistant to a Marketing Manager will put you in a much better position when building connections with senior-level marketing professionals, perhaps praising their content or inviting them to an event. 

#2. Considering that LinkedIn is one of the top business communication channels, especially for B2B professionals, showcasing your new job title will undoubtedly open new sales and partnership doors for you. Just remember, LinkedIn is a social media platform, so keep your conversations light and friendly, perhaps using a personalized icebreaker to spark a conversation.

#3. Regardless of your job title or industry, an optimized LinkedIn profile is in itself a powerful tool for your personal and company brands. Including your new title along with the new achievements and skills that led you there will improve your personal brand, and therefore increase your company’s brand awareness. 

Social selling on LinkedIn has gained immense popularity over the years, so believe it or not, when done correctly, your LinkedIn profile can be an extra sales and revenue pipeline.   

#4. Linked to the previous point, optimizing your LinkedIn profile with your new promotion and leveraging it to open new doors for networking, building your brand, and social selling will gradually build up your Social Selling Index, which opens even more doors in the context of business opportunities and sales. 

#5. Much like Google’s SEO rule of the jungle, LinkedIn has its own version of SEO. In other words, updating your profile with new job experiences can improve your ranking and visibility in LinkedIn searches, and once again, open doors for new opportunities. Much like with marketing content, take some time to research for role-specific keywords to include in your profile to increase your search rating. 

Examples of LinkedIn promotion posts

A huge achievement like a new promotion deserves a well-thought-out announcement to the world, so you should take some time to craft your LinkedIn post to fully express your excitement and leave a good impression. 

There are no rules here—it’s your achievement, and hence your decision on how to craft it, the length, the tone, any media, etc. Just for inspiration, here are some examples of effective LinkedIn promotion posts that you can model: 

• Short and sweet:

“Thrilled to step into my new role as [Job Title] at [Company]! Looking forward to the new challenges and opportunities this position will bring. A huge thank you to my team for their continuous support!” 

• Detailed and reflective: 

“Honored to announce my promotion to [New Title] at [Company]! It’s been an incredible journey, and I’m grateful for the trust placed in me. Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of leading [X Project] and helping grow our team by [Metric]. Looking forward to achieving even more in this new role!” 

• Ambitious and forward-looking: 

“Excited to share that I’ve been promoted to [New Title] at [Company]! Over the past [Years], I’ve had the opportunity to work on some exciting projects and learned so much from my talented colleagues. Now onto the next chapter—bigger goals, bigger challenges!”

Congrats on your promotion! 

Now that we’ve covered everything on how to put a promotion on LinkedIn, spread the word with your network, and why it’s important, take some time to really take in and enjoy your hard-earned achievements. Posting your promotion on LinkedIn is important, but it can wait! 

Once you’re ready (and all the details of the new job have been finalized), follow this simple step-by-step guide to update your LinkedIn profile with your shiny new job title. 

Keep regularly optimizing your LinkedIn page and your promotion with new achievements, skills, and posts to build your personal brand and leverage it to step up your sales outreach, networking, and whatever else this great social platform offers for your career. 

Once again, congratulations, and here’s to many more promotions in the (near) future!