How to Add Contract Work to LinkedIn

The algorithms of the LinkedIn business professional networking website are set up so that they attempt to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. As soon as you start typing in the name of a company, an auto-complete engine tries to find what you were looking for. This is helpful when you’re entering information about positions held at established businesses, but when you’ve worked for yourself or as a contractor, you can still add this vital information to your LinkedIn profile. The process for adding contract work in LinkedIn is similar to how you’d add other types of positions. You simply have to choose how to title yourself and best describe your efforts.

Navigate to LinkedIn on the Web and log into your account. Hover the cursor over the blue “Profile” link and click “Edit Profile.”

Scroll to the Experience section. Click the “Add a position” link to the right of “Experience,” which opens the Add Position window.

Click into the “Company Name” field. Type “Contractor,” “Freelancer,” the job title you used while contracting if you worked for yourself as a sole proprietor or the name of the company for which you contracted. If you are typing anything other than a company name here, such as “Contractor,” immediately click outside the field once you’ve typed. This prevents LinkedIn from trying to auto-complete the company name and find the business.

Click into the “Title” field. Type the name of the position you held, such as “Graphic Designer.” If you already typed that in the “Company Name” field, such as “Contact Graphic Designer,” you can leave this field blank. You can also type “Contractor” or “Independent Contractor” in this field if you used the job title in the “Company Name” field.

Enter the location where you worked on the contract, if desired. You can also leave this blank.

Enter the dates of the contract work. If you’re still performing the contract work, check the “I currently work here” box and leave the second set of dates blank.

Click into the “Description” field. Enter as much or as little about the position as desired. Keep in mind that what you write here will be visible on your LinkedIn profile. Add information about your contract, if desired, or simply cover the tasks you performed while in the job.

Click the “Save Changes” button and the page returns to the profile view with the contract work added. Repeat the process to add additional contract jobs.