Adding projects on LinkedIn is a proven technique for enhancing your LinkedIn profile with informative content that demonstrates your involvement in special initiatives at both work and school.

Projects are definitely worth adding to your profile. These are a great way to communicate long-form achievements as well as beefing up your profile with content to enhance your performance within LinkedIn search results.

Related: LinkedIn Profile Optimization Tips

Here’s a rundown of what you need to know about adding projects on LinkedIn.

Project Name

Project name is a required field. The project name should be high level and concise. Technically, the name can be as long as you wish. I recommend keeping it relatively short. Here are a few sample project names to give you an idea:

• Employee Benefits and Compensation Overhaul (HR)
• Financial Regulatory Compliance Audit (Finance)
• Multi-year Digital Transformation (IT)

Screenshot: Multiple Projects on a LinkedIn Profile

Creators

LinkedIn allows users to add ‘creators’ to a project. This includes fellow colleagues and/or students that participated in the project alongside you. Adding creators to your project is an optional field.

Dates

Project dates allow you to communicate the month/year for the start and end of the project.  You may also check the box (as displayed below) to indicate that you’re currently working on a project. Project dates are an optional field.

Role Associated

LinkedIn allows users to indicate which role the project ties back to from your history. This includes your work history and education sections. Adding associated role to your project is an optional field.

URL

If your project has a URL (such as a website or online portfolio) it may be displayed within the project listing which is a pretty cool feature. Adding the URL is an optional field.

Description

I recommend writing projects in an active first-person format. The description should provide an overview of the project along with action steps and positive results. Similar to the format of a STAR story (situation, tasks, actions, results), your goal in the text is to paint that picture.

The projects section does not allow special formatting (such as hard enters and bullet points). Project descriptions display as a block of text. This is important to keep in mind when preparing your descriptions. LinkedIn doesn’t have a limit on the number of projects users may list. 2,000 characters (approx 300 – 500 words) is the maximum length.

Screenshot: Empty Project Description on LinkedIn

In Conclusion

This post provides a high-level overview of things to know when adding projects on LinkedIn.

One of the hardest parts of the process when adding projects on LinkedIn is preparing long-form descriptions (with titles) that demonstrate your contributions and achievements. Ready for help building projects into your LinkedIn profile? Checkout our LinkedIn Optimization which is available a la carte or as part of our Silver and Gold packages.