How to Add Certifications on LinkedIn: Desktop, App and LinkedIn Learning

To add a certification in LinkedIn, open your profile, click Add profile section, choose Licenses & certifications, fill in the name, issuing organization, dates and credential details, then click Save. In the mobile app the button is called Add section, and the form is the same.

LinkedIn Learning certificates are added differently: from your Learning History, not from your profile. This guide covers both, explains what to put in each field, and shows how to share a new certificate as a post without it reading like a brag.

Steps checked on October 14, 2026 against LinkedIn Help: Add sections to your profile, Edit your profile, Add Learning Certificates of Completion and Skills to your LinkedIn profile and Post and share updates. Menu labels can vary by app version and interface language.

Adding certifications on LinkedIn at a glance

On a narrow screen, scroll sideways to read every column.

How to add certification in LinkedIn (desktop)

LinkedIn groups Licenses & certifications under the Recommended sections in the Add profile section menu.

1. Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
2. Click View Profile.
3. Click Add profile section in your introduction section.
4. Open Recommended and select Licenses & certifications.
5. Fill in the form in the pop-up window.
6. Click Save.

How to add a certification in the LinkedIn app

1. Tap your profile picture.
2. Tap your profile photo again to open your profile.
3. Tap Add section in your introduction section.
4. Tap Recommended, then the Licenses & certifications option.
5. Fill in the details and tap Save.

Some issuers send you an Add to Profile button by email or on their certificate page. LinkedIn's help says that button no longer autofills certification details: it opens the profile form and you type the details yourself. Keep the issuer's email or certificate page open while you fill it in.

What to put in each field

The form is titled Add license or certification. The LinkedIn Marketing Academy FAQ lists its fields as Name, Issuing organization, Issue date, Expiration date, Credential ID and Credential URL.

On a narrow screen, scroll sideways to read every column.

Expiration dates are real for many credentials. LinkedIn's own Marketing Academy certificate, for example, expires two years after you earn it. Update or remove a lapsed entry rather than leave an expired license looking current.

How to add a LinkedIn Learning certificate to your profile

When you finish a course or learning path, LinkedIn Learning prompts you to add the certificate. If you skipped that prompt, you can add it later from your Learning History (LinkedIn Help).

On desktop

1. Log in to LinkedIn Learning.
2. Click your profile picture in the upper right corner and select My Library, or select My Library on the left side of the screen.
3. Click Learning History under My Library.
4. Click More (...) to the right of the course or learning path.
5. Select Add to profile.
6. In the confirmation window, tick Share with network if you want an update to go out. The Share with dropdown lets you limit it to Connections or to specific Individuals.
7. Untick any suggested skills you do not want, then click Add to Profile.

In the LinkedIn Learning app

1. Tap the My Courses icon at the bottom left of the screen.
2. Scroll to Learning History and tap See all.
3. Find the course and tap Add to profile.
4. Tap Add to profile again in the confirmation pop-up.

If the Add to profile option is missing

LinkedIn only lets you add completed courses and learning paths. Check that every video in the course shows a green checkmark, refresh Learning History, and clear your cache and cookies if it still does not show as Completed (LinkedIn Help). Individual videos and series courses that are updated continuously, such as weekly tip courses, do not come with certificates (Learning certificates FAQ). If your profile already lists more than 100 skills, LinkedIn will not add the course's skills.

Once a course is on your profile, its button in Learning History changes to On your profile.

Certificates of Completion vs Professional Certificates

These are not the same thing, and it is worth naming the right one on your profile:

• Certificate of Completion: generated automatically when LinkedIn Learning detects that you watched all the videos. You do not need to pass an assessment to earn one (LinkedIn Help).
• Professional Certificate: issued by a third-party provider after you complete a course and pass an assessment on LinkedIn Learning. The exams are timed, randomized and have limited attempts, but they are unproctored (LinkedIn Help).
• Certification: a proctored exam taken off LinkedIn, for example with a software or industry body. LinkedIn Learning offers prep courses for these but does not award them.

Where LinkedIn certifications appear on your profile

Entries you add through the form appear in the Licenses and certifications section of your profile (LinkedIn Marketing Academy FAQ). LinkedIn's help does not name the section for LinkedIn Learning certificates, but in LinkedIn's own Certificate of completion tutorial the instructor refers to his added courses as his licenses and certifications. Open your profile after adding one to confirm where it landed.

Two other places are worth knowing:

• Featured section. You can feature posts you wrote, documents and links, so a certificate announcement or the PDF itself can sit near the top of your profile. Featured items are visible only to signed-in LinkedIn members (Featured section FAQs).
• Your name. LinkedIn has no suffix field. Its help suggests adding a credential to the Last Name field, such as "Smith Ph.D.", or adding a certification entry instead. Keep this for credentials your industry actually uses after a name, like a license or a doctorate.

Note what LinkedIn's verification badge covers: right now you can verify your identity, workplace and educational institution. A certification you type in yourself is not verified by LinkedIn, which is why the credential URL matters.

How to edit or delete a certification

1. Click Me, then View Profile.
2. Scroll to Licenses & certifications and click the Edit icon to the right of the section (Edit your profile).
3. Click the Edit icon next to the entry you want to change.
4. Update the fields and click Save.

To remove an entry, open it the same way and click Delete at the bottom of the edit form, then confirm. In the app, tap the Edit icon on the section, then on the individual entry. LinkedIn's help notes that anyone viewing your profile sees edits as soon as you save them.

How to share a certificate on LinkedIn as a post

Adding a certification does not reliably announce it. LinkedIn's help lists job changes, education changes and work anniversaries as the updates it can notify your network about, and says some profile edits won't generate notifications even when sharing is on. A post is the dependable way to tell people.

1. Click Start a post at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
2. Choose who can see it: Anyone, Connections only, or a Group.
3. Use the Add media icon for an image of the certificate, or the Plus icon, then Document, to attach a PDF. There is also a Celebrate icon for marking an occasion (Post and share updates).
4. Write the text. Posts can be up to 3,000 characters, though a certification post rarely needs more than a few short paragraphs.
5. Click Post.

For LinkedIn Learning certificates there are two more routes. You can download the certificate from the course page, learning path page or Learning History (LinkedIn Help). Or you can turn on Share my certificate link and post that link: anyone with it can view the certificate page, which shows your name and completion date (Share Certificates of Completion FAQ).

Before you post an image of a certificate, crop or blur anything you would not hand to a stranger, such as a license number tied to personal records or a home address.

3 example posts announcing a certification

Replace the brackets with your details. Keep what you actually learned at the center; the certificate is the reason to post, not the content.

1. Short and specific

I passed [certification name] from [issuer] this week.

The part I'll use first: [one concrete skill or method]. On [project or task type], that means [specific change you'll make].

Thanks to [person] for [specific help]. Credential link in the comments if you want to verify it.

2. What studying taught you

[Number] weeks of evenings, [number] practice exams, one pass: I'm now [certification name] certified.

Three things I didn't expect:

1. [Surprising lesson]
2. [Mistake you made while studying]
3. [Topic that turned out more useful than you thought]

If you're preparing for it, my one tip: [practical tip].

3. Course certificate, honestly framed

I finished [course name] on [platform].

It's a course certificate, not a formal certification, but it filled a real gap: I can now [specific task] without [old workaround].

Next I'm applying it to [real project]. If you've done the same, what would you learn after this?

What to include and what to skip

Include:

• Licenses you must hold for your work, with the license number or credential URL where your profession allows it.
• Certifications from recognized bodies in your field, especially proctored ones.
• Professional Certificates and course certificates that support the role you want next, named accurately.
• Current dates. Remove or update anything that has expired.

Skip or trim:

• Dozens of short course certificates that have nothing to do with your goal. A long list makes the important credential harder to find.
• Certificates you cannot back up with a link, ID or document if someone asks.
• Wording that inflates the credential, such as calling a completion certificate a certification. LinkedIn itself says Learning Certificates of Completion are not the same as a degree program or a software certification program.
• Expired licenses presented as active.

Do employers care about LinkedIn certificates?

Some do, some do not, and the type of credential matters more than where it appears. There are a few facts worth keeping in mind:

• LinkedIn Learning is not accredited, and its Certificates of Completion are not endorsed or recognized by third parties. They show you watched a course, not that you passed an exam.
• LinkedIn's own FAQ says a Professional Certificate does not guarantee you a job related to the training.
• LinkedIn does not verify certifications you type in yourself. A working credential URL or ID is what lets someone check.

The practical approach: list the credentials that are required or respected in your field first, keep course certificates to the ones that support your target role, and back each skill with something a reader can see, such as a project in your Experience section, a sample in Featured, or posts where you use what you learned. A certification next to evidence is stronger than a certification on its own.

Next steps

Certifications are one section of a profile that has to make sense as a whole. Run your headline and recent posts through the free LinkedIn profile analyzer to see what a visitor takes away, then work through the LinkedIn profile optimization guide for the other sections. If you are job hunting, LinkedIn profile tips for job seekers covers Open to Work, your headline and your Experience entries.

For the announcement itself, the free LinkedIn post generator can turn your certification, what you learned and who helped into a first draft to edit. If you post regularly and want drafts that sound like your own past posts, WriteHero builds a voice profile from your LinkedIn posts and drafts in that style. For more structures, see LinkedIn post templates.