How do I change my job title on LinkedIn at the same company?

Having an accurate and up-to-date job title on your LinkedIn profile is important for several reasons. Your job title communicates to your network what your current role and responsibilities are. It also helps ensure that opportunities that come to you through LinkedIn are relevant to your experience and interests. So when your job title changes at your company, you’ll want to update your LinkedIn profile to reflect that.

Should You Update Your Job Title on LinkedIn?

In most cases, yes, you should update your LinkedIn job title any time it changes at your company. Here are some of the main benefits of keeping your LinkedIn job title up-to-date:

• It clearly communicates your current position to your network.
• It helps ensure recruiters can find you for relevant job openings.
• It builds your professional brand and expertise in your new role.
• It gives you credibility and authority when engaging with your network.
• It allows you to fully leverage the power of LinkedIn for career growth in your latest position.

However, there may be some rare cases where you don’t necessarily need to update your job title on LinkedIn right away, such as:

• If your company changes job titles frequently and they are not meaningful to people outside the company.
• If you are changing roles very soon, so the job title change is extremely short-term.
• If your actual responsibilities have not changed, just the official job title.

In these cases, it may make sense to keep your job title static until there is a meaningful change in your role. But in general, strive to keep your LinkedIn profile as up-to-date as possible.

How to Update Your Job Title on LinkedIn

Updating your job title on LinkedIn is easy and straightforward. Here are the steps:

1. Go to your LinkedIn profile page and click “View profile” to access the edit mode.
2. In the Experience section, click the pencil icon to edit your current position.
3. In the job title field, type your new title.
4. Click Save.

That’s all there is to it! LinkedIn will automatically update your experience section and any other places on your profile that displayed your old job title.

Tips for Updating Job Titles on LinkedIn

Here are some additional tips to make sure your job title update is done right:

• Double check that you have the exact job title as it appears internally at your company. You don’t want any discrepancies between your LinkedIn profile and resume.
• Only update the job title itself, not the company name or employment dates, unless those have changed too.
• Consider updating your headline too, if it contained your old job title.
• Check that any other job titles under your experience are still correct and update those if needed.
• Review positions in the experience section that you are no longer in and make sure they still display the correct end date.

Should You Notify Your Network?

Updating your job title on your LinkedIn profile will automatically notify your 1st degree connections. But what about notifying your broader network about your new role?

Here are some best practices around broadcasting job title changes:

• Congratulate yourself in the activity feed. Write a post sharing the good news of your promotion or new challenge to all your connections.
• Update your professional headline. Summarize your new title and area of expertise in your headline.
• Share on other social networks. Post about your job change on Twitter, Facebook, etc. to notify those networks.
• Notify key connections individually. Send personal messages to share the news with close contacts.
• Update email signatures and out-of-office alerts. Change them to show your new title.
• Add the new job title to your resume. Circulate the updated resume when you apply for new roles.

But avoid spamming your network, like sending a mass template message about your title change. Focus on personal, thoughtful announcements in appropriate contexts.

What If My Company Hasn’t Formally Changed My Title Yet?

Sometimes you may take on a new role before your job title is officially changed in your company’s internal systems and records. In these cases, should you go ahead and update LinkedIn?

Here are some best practices if your title hasn’t formally been updated yet:

• Use your new role descriptively. You can list your job title as “Acting Director” or “Interim Head of [Department]” if those accurately reflect your unofficially new status.
• Add clarification language. You can say “Promoted to Marketing Manager (title change pending)” if a promotion occurred but is not yet effective.
• Wait if it’s extremely short term. If you are filling in for someone out of office for a week, it’s fine to just keep your current title.
• Discuss with your manager. Check if your company has any policies about title changes that haven’t fully taken effect yet.
• Update once finalized. Change your LinkedIn job title once the official change goes through internally.

The key is finding a balance between accuracy and formality – you want your LinkedIn profile to reflect reality, but don’t want to step out of line with internal policies either. Discussing any unofficial title changes with your manager first is a good idea.

Can You Change a Previous Job Title on LinkedIn?

What if you realize that you weren’t using the right job title for a previous position – can you change the job titles LinkedIn has stored for your past roles?

The short answer is no. LinkedIn does not allow users to edit the job titles of previous positions in their experience section once that experience has ended. Here are a few key reasons behind this policy:

• Authenticity – LinkedIn wants to maintain a standardized, consistent record of the actual titles professionals held at various companies.
• Reduced misrepresentation – Not allowing retroactive edits helps curb resume inflation or exaggeration.
• Employer confirmation – Your original job title is confirmed when your manager approves your experience at a company.
• Record preservation – The existing title reflects the role you held at the time you left the company.

So once an experience ends, you cannot change the job title for that position. However, you do have a few options if your previous job title on LinkedIn is incorrect:

• Add clarification language – You can add text to explain if the official title was inaccurate or if your responsibilities changed over time.
• Update company pages – If the job titles are standardized incorrectly across employee profiles, you can work with your HR department to update the company page titles.
• Make the title change on your resume – Even if you can’t update LinkedIn, you can change how previous roles are presented on your resume.
• Focus on the current – Keep your current profile up-to-date, rather than worrying about titles from the past you can no longer modify.

While you cannot alter previous job titles directly within LinkedIn, you can provide clarifying context and emphasize your more recent roles.

Mistakes to Avoid When Updating Your Job Title on LinkedIn

Here are some common mistakes to avoid as you update your LinkedIn job title:

• Using an unofficial, inflated title – Stick with your exact official job title at your company. Don’t add modifiers or exaggerate as this comes across as dishonest.
• Leaving your old title active – Make sure to close out your old title by adding end dates and marking it as your “past” position when you change roles.
• Neglecting to update your headline – Beyond your position title, update your headline if it contained your old title to ensure consistency.
• Forgetting other impacted profile sections – In addition to your experience section, check if your new title should be reflected in education, licenses & certifications, featured skills, etc.
• Using company-specific phrasing – Tailor your job title on LinkedIn for your broader network by removing any internal jargon or acronyms.

Avoiding these pitfalls will ensure your job title change is implemented seamlessly across your profile.

Table of Common Job Title Updates

This table shows some typical examples of job title changes and how you might update your LinkedIn headline to reflect a new role. Tailor your headline to focus on the skills and areas of expertise most relevant to your new position.

Conclusion

Updating your LinkedIn job title is an important step any time you get a new role or promotion at your company. It keeps your professional brand up-to-date, helps you get noticed by recruiters, and clearly communicates your current responsibilities. Follow the steps above to seamlessly change your job title on LinkedIn as your career progresses.