How to Showcase Your Work Using LinkedIn's 'Professional Portfolio' Feature [Quick Tip]

We've all heard the expression, "You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?"

This idiom means a lot, particularly when it comes to proving your worth in the job market. Interviewers are constantly brainstorming new and unique questions for evaluating a candidate's true potential, and while LinkedIn was once a great place for discovering such value, it quickly became another place where folks talked the talk ... but didn't necessarily walk the walk.

The LinkedIn Professional Portfolio

But all of that is behind them now. With LinkedIn's fairly new professional portfolio feature, launched back in May, LinkedIn users can now easily display their professional work via their personal profiles. This means you now have ability to showcase your presentations, ebooks, blog posts, videos, portfolios (or any work really) right on your profile. The idea is to give users the opportunity to display their work rather than just talk about it. 

Here's an example from HubSpotter Rachel Sprung 's profile. As you can see, Rachel is able to actually show off the work she alludes to in the description of her current position. 

How to Begin Showcasing Your Value on LinkedIn

So how can you start taking advantage of this awesome feature?

To start, head over to your LinkedIn profile, and next to any module or position on your personal profile you'll see a small square image with a plus sign on it. Click this to either upload a file or add a link to your work.

If you don't see this option on your profile, head here and click the blue "display your work" button.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I'm going to add a link to my work under my current LinkedIn position at HubSpot. As shown in the below graphic, you'll be asked to enter a URL and provide a description for that link. LinkedIn will automatically pull in an image for the work. In this case, it's pulling an image from my most recent blog post.

Voila! This link is now proudly showcased on my profile, right under recommendations. Now when someone comes to my profile, they can read what I have to offer ... or see what I have to offer.

TIP: Use the "Title" space to describe the work you're placing on your profile, rather than using the generic title of the website link that LinkedIn populates. Examine the difference between the two below:

Why You Should Take Advantage of LinkedIn's New Portfolio Feature

Now that you know how to easily add your work to your LinkedIn profile, let's talk about why it's pretty sweet.

Take Advantage of the Visual Content Revolution

Let's start with the obvious. Social networks are getting increasingly more visual. With Facebook acquiring Instagram, LinkedIn acquiring SlideShare, and Twitter launching Vine, it's clear that social thrives on visual content. With the introduction of this new feature, individuals can now easily share their work with the world. And this isn't just limited to creative types; the option to share a link (as we saw above) opens a whole new array of opportunities for marketers and content creators to showcase their work and promote their business' content. Marketers, designers, writers, architects, artists, and the like can now make better use of LinkedIn to showcase their core work and stand out from other job seekers. It can also benefit recruiters who are seeking top notch talent.

Give Your SlideShare Content Greater Reach

SlideShare has quickly become an effective channel for promoting visual content, and marketers are finding various ways to capitalize on popularity of the site. Considering LinkedIn's acquisition of SlideShare, it only makes sense that the professional network would seek to integrate visual presentations more seamlessly with its core site, and now users have the ability to prominently display those SlideShare presentations on their LinkedIn Profiles (as Rachel did in our first example). Take advantage of it! 

What other benefits do you think LinkedIn's portfolios feature has for users?