Group LinkedIn Experience Positions Together

For those who have worked for the same company for a long time, this is probably a welcome introduction. In the past when I’ve worked on a person’s profile who has more than three entries for the same company, I’ve reduced the number of entries to one and included titles, date and a brief description all in the same entry.

Well, now we don’t have to. Thanks to the new update that not only groups the entries together but also provides a transition line as a visual indicator, all entries for the same position sit together.

Before just assuming the new update is working perfectly on your profile, however, you might need to take a quick look and do some profile maintenance.

Incorrect Grouping

If positions have been grouped together incorrectly, it will be because the company name entered for the positions is the same. To change this, just update the company name to make them different. You can do this by deleting the existing company name entry and re-writing it. As you re-write it LinkedIn will provide you with different options to pick from. If the company doesn’t exist and isn’t’ in the list, you can just write the company name manually.

Positions haven’t been grouped

If this is the case then you’ll need to update the company name for all entries so they match. LinkedIn will then recognise this as one company and therefore one entry.

For Thought-Leaders and Entrepreneurs

As a thought-leader, expert entrepreneur or author we know our LinkedIn profile will read very differently from that of a job hunter or contractor. As such we may have created three or more opens positions for us within our one company. We may have an entry for Speaker and/or Author, or a prior entry about the company before you evolved to your current form.

You may wish to keep them grouped together, however, if you want attention for the specific activity you do, ungrouping them could be important to you. Of course, doing this will mean they can’t all be attached to the same company. YOu’ll have to consider having separate company pages (which may be appropriate) or foregoing the company logo with the position entry.

For one of my clients, the new update required me to make substantial changes. 

Author of four books, Daniel Priestley had an entry on his profile for each, plus two entries for his company Dent; one for the companies everyday activities and his role as a co-founder, and one for his consultancy work. The new update created a huge mess that needed attention.

I fixed it by adding his two roles into one entry by matching the company name, and by adding his books into one company with four positions. In this screenshot, you can see three of them.

Things to note:

Position Titles

I used ‘My Book:’ at the beginning of each entry to make it clear what we were talking about as saying ‘Oversubscribed‘, ‘24 Assets‘ alone wouldn’t have been impactful enough. We can’t assume that the visitor will make the connection with the overarching title above ‘Author of…’

Use of Rich Content Media

I’ve only used 2 items of Rich Content Media (video, pdfs, slideshows) for each entry as too many items overwhelm visitors and can often resulting indecision and no item gets viewed. Also with the reduced size, two items ensure the text is still visible.

Sneaky tick with Location

I’ve put the location as ‘Amazon‘ since this is where the book is for sale. It’s not ideal but, having spoken to LinkedIn insiders and planted the idea of a permanent solution for authors that works better than the ‘Publications’ section, this is what we have for now. It’s visible and it hints at where people can buy it (I assume no one will really think he wrote the books located in the real Amazon).

The Company Name

With the company name, I have added ‘Author’ and all four names of Daniel’s books. Why? Firstly because the book he is best known for ‘Key Person of Influence‘ is at the bottom of the list as it was the first book he published, so the date dictates it is ordered that way. Second, just saying ‘author’ didn’t feel enough. There was no impact. Doing this required me to make sure the company name in each entry matched exactly.

The absence of a Company Logo

You’ll also notice that there is no logo for the entry. This is a shame and something I’d like to see changed. The only way to place a logo in this section is to create a company page. Daniel could create one for free and add little to no content, just to get the logo. Or he could start using the company page to share extracts and updates from fans reading the book. While I pitched this to him I was very aware that at the present time the company page for his main business Dent is not being used to its full extent. In fact, it is very underused so the chances of starting a new company and using it is not a very viable option. So for now, it remains without a logo as with other entries from his company that existed before LinkedIn was popular enough to justify a page.

I hope the above analysis has given you food for thought. If you have any questions about your experience section please reach out.

In the meantime here is a link to LinkedIn’s official commentary on the new update.