How to Add & Announce a Promotion on LinkedIn: The Complete 2026 Guide

Adding a promotion to LinkedIn is a two-minute edit, but most people get one part of it wrong: instead of nesting the new title under their existing employer entry, they add it as a brand-new, separate job — which makes years of steady growth at one company look like several short, unrelated jobs. This guide covers the correct way to do it on desktop and mobile, how to fix an entry you’ve already added incorrectly, and how to decide whether and how to announce it publicly.

Quick Answer

To add a promotion at the same company: go to your profile’s Experience section, click the pencil (edit) icon on the existing company entry — not the “+” button at the top of the section — then select “Add position” from within that entry. Enter your new title and start date, leaving your previous role’s end date matching your new role’s start date. This keeps both roles grouped under one employer, correctly showing progression rather than two separate jobs.

Promotion vs. New Position: Which Are You Adding? {#promotion-vs-new-position}

Before editing anything, it’s worth being clear on which of these you’re actually adding, since LinkedIn treats them differently:

A promotion — your responsibilities and seniority changed meaningfully within the same company (e.g., Associate → Senior Associate, Individual Contributor → Team Lead). This is what this guide covers, and it should be nested under your existing employer entry.
A new position at a different company — this is a standard “Add experience” entry from the top of the Experience section, not a nested addition.
A lateral move or title tweak with no real change in scope — LinkedIn’s system doesn’t require a new entry for this. A simple edit to your existing title within the current entry is usually more accurate than creating a new one.

If you’re unsure which category applies to your situation, our dedicated comparison — LinkedIn promotion vs. new position — walks through the distinction in more depth, including how each one displays differently on your profile.

How to Add a Promotion on Desktop {#desktop-steps}

Go to your profile and scroll to the Experience section.
Find the entry for the company where you were promoted. Click the pencil (edit) icon on that specific company entry — not the “+” icon at the top-right of the whole Experience section, which creates an unrelated, separate entry.
In the panel that opens, scroll down and look for “Add position”. Click it.
A new, nested form appears within the same company entry. Fill in:
- Title — your new, promoted job title
- Employment type — full-time, part-time, contract, etc.
- Start date — the date your new role began
- Check “I am currently working in this role” if it’s your current position
Go back to your previous role’s entry (still nested under the same company) and add an end date matching your new role’s start date, so the two roles connect cleanly with no gap or overlap.
Add a description for your new role — a few lines on your responsibilities and what’s changed is enough; you can expand it later.
Click Save.
LinkedIn will typically prompt you to share this update with your network — more on deciding whether to do that below.

How to Add a Promotion on Mobile (iOS & Android) {#mobile-steps}

The mobile app follows the same logic with a slightly different navigation path:

Open the LinkedIn app and tap your profile photo, then “View Profile”.
Scroll to the Experience section and tap the pencil icon next to your current employer’s entry.
Tap “Add position” within that entry (not the standalone “+” at the section level).
Fill in your new title, employment type, and start date, and check the box for your current role if applicable.
Scroll to your previous role within the same entry and add a matching end date.
Tap Save (top-right corner).
You’ll be prompted to notify your network — toggle this based on your own timing and privacy preference (see the section below).

The mobile app occasionally reorders these menu labels after updates, but the underlying structure — edit the company entry, then add a position from inside it — stays consistent.

The Same-Company Mistake Almost Everyone Makes {#same-company-mistake}

The single most common error is clicking “Add experience” at the top of the Experience section instead of editing the existing company entry first. Doing this creates a completely new, separate company card — even if you type the exact same company name — rather than nesting your promotion under your existing history there.

The visible result: instead of one employer entry showing “5 years, 2 roles, clear progression,” your profile shows two separate, shorter-looking jobs at what appears to be the same or a suspiciously similarly-named company. This is exactly the pattern our guide on why a LinkedIn promotion isn’t showing correctly covers in more detail if you’re troubleshooting an entry that already looks wrong.

How to avoid it: always start from the pencil icon on your existing entry, never the “+” button at the section header level, when the promotion is at a company you already have listed.

How to Fix an Entry You’ve Already Added Incorrectly {#fixing-existing-entry}

If you’ve already created a duplicate, separate company entry for your promotion instead of nesting it correctly, here’s how to consolidate it:

Go to the newer (incorrect) entry and note down the exact title, start date, and any description you’d already written.
Delete that separate entry.
Go to your original company entry, click the pencil icon, and select “Add position” as described above.
Re-enter the same title, start date, and description you noted down — this time nested correctly under the existing employer.
Add the matching end date to your previous role within the same entry.
Save your changes.

This takes a few extra minutes but is worth doing properly — a correctly nested profile reads clearly to anyone reviewing your career history, while two separate, similarly-named entries can look confusing or even accidental.

Should You Announce Your Promotion Publicly? {#should-you-announce}

Saving the update to your Experience section and publicly announcing it are two separate decisions — you can do one without the other. There are legitimate reasons to do either:

Reasons to announce publicly: it signals career growth to your network, can surface you to recruiters and peers evaluating your trajectory, and gives colleagues and mentors a natural way to congratulate you.
Reasons to hold off or skip it: you’re still finalizing details internally, your company hasn’t made an internal announcement yet, workplace culture or politics make a public post feel premature, or you simply prefer to keep career updates private.

We’ve covered this decision in more depth, including timing considerations, in Should you announce a promotion on LinkedIn? Pros & cons.

How to Write a Promotion Announcement Post {#writing-the-post}

If you decide to announce it, a simple structure works better than an elaborate one:

State it clearly and briefly. One or two sentences naming your new title and company — don’t bury the actual news.
Express genuine gratitude. Thank specific people — a manager, a mentor, a team — rather than a generic “thank you to everyone.”
Add one concrete detail. A project, a skill, or a challenge that contributed to the promotion, without going into confidential specifics.
Look forward briefly. A line about what you’re excited to work on next keeps the post from feeling purely retrospective.
Keep it short. A few sentences reads as confident; a long post can come across as overdone for what’s meant to be a quick, warm update.

Tag your company page and any specific colleagues or mentors you mention — this both credits them properly and tends to extend your post’s visibility to their networks as well.

Privacy & “Notify Network” Settings Explained {#privacy-settings}

When you save a new position, LinkedIn separately asks whether to notify your network. Understanding what each choice actually does helps you decide:

Notify network: On — generates an automatic update in your connections’ feeds announcing your new role, separate from any manual post you write yourself.
Notify network: Off — the change saves to your profile with no automatic feed notification. Your profile is still updated and visible to anyone who visits it directly; you’re simply not proactively broadcasting it.
These settings don’t affect profile visibility itself — even with notifications off, your updated title is visible to anyone viewing your profile from the moment you save it.

If you want to control timing precisely — for example, saving the profile update now but writing and sharing your own post later — turn notifications off when saving, then create a separate manual post when you’re ready.

If Your Promotion Isn’t Showing After Saving {#not-showing}

If you’ve followed the steps above correctly and your promotion still isn’t visible to your network, appears delayed, or looks wrong on your profile, that’s a separate troubleshooting issue rather than a how-to one. Our dedicated guide — Why your LinkedIn promotion is not showing — covers the specific causes (caching, privacy settings, incorrect company name matching, and more) and how to fix each one. You may also want to check how long LinkedIn typically takes to display a promotion if you’re unsure whether you’re dealing with a genuine issue or just normal processing time.

FAQ

Do I need to create a new entry for a small title change, like adding “Senior” to my existing title? Not necessarily. If your responsibilities haven’t meaningfully changed, simply editing your current title within the existing entry is often more accurate than creating a new, nested position for a minor label update.

What if my new title is at a different company with a very similar name to my previous employer? Double-check the company field carefully and select the correct, distinct company page for the new employer — even a small difference in company name can cause LinkedIn to treat it as an unrelated entry rather than recognizing the connection, which is fine and expected if it genuinely is a different company.

Can I backdate a promotion I forgot to add months ago? Yes — the start date field accepts any past date, and LinkedIn doesn’t restrict how far back you can set it. Backdating doesn’t trigger a “network notification” retroactively for that time period, only for whenever you actually save the change.

Will adding a promotion notify my current employer specifically? No more than any other connection — if your employer’s HR team, manager, or coworkers are among your LinkedIn connections, they’ll see the update the same way any other connection would, based on your notification and visibility settings.

Is it better to add the promotion immediately or wait until it’s officially communicated internally? Most guidance favors waiting until it’s been formally communicated within your company before updating LinkedIn publicly, to avoid your public profile becoming the way colleagues find out before an internal announcement happens.

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