“I’d like to change the information at the top of my profile where it lists ‘XYZ’ company and university.”
I’ve received this request a dozen times or more recently. Typically, when something pops up with our clients several times, we decide to blog about it because we are fairly certain that there must be many others out there experiencing the same confusion or frustration.
In this particular case, there is a default field directly under the Headline in your Profile that many (many, many) professionals do not want there and/or do not see the value in. The field I’m referring to is here:
As with so many other elements within our Profiles, many people expect that they can simply go in and change or modify this field. Unfortunately, you cannot. This field auto-populates based on your most recent role and your most recent education.
I think LinkedIn’s thought process was that these two pieces of information enable someone viewing your Profile to quickly identify possible important associations – your company of employment and your alma mater. I’m not sure that LinkedIn has achieved this, as we all have many different affiliations, multiple roles and various educational backgrounds that are not as clear cut as an auto-populated field.
What You Can Do
As a best practice, we recommend ensuring that your Profile is completely up to date. If you have multiple present roles (for example, a full time role and a consultancy or board position) make sure that the company that you are most closely affiliated with is sorted to the top of your Experience section because this is the one that will auto-populate in this field.
In order to move a role to the top of your Experience section, please see the instructions below from the LinkedIn Help Center.
*Important Note: This feature has never worked consistently for me. Sometimes the “Reorder” icon appears on my Profile and allows me to reorder positions. Other times, I cannot get it to appear at all. …Yet another frustrating feature that LinkedIn really needs to rework.
Feel free to leave a comment here if you have additional thoughts or questions related to this default field. I know many of you have also come across this field and wondered how you could update it. Unfortunately for now, there is not much you can do. We will be sure to update you if that changes.
