Your LinkedIn Interests section does more than fill a tab on your profile — it shapes your daily feed, signals your professional focus to recruiters and hiring managers, and quietly tells the algorithm which conversations matter to you. This guide explains exactly what Interests are on LinkedIn, gives you step-by-step instructions for adding and managing them on both desktop and the mobile app, and shows you how to curate a focused, professional list that supports your brand and job search.
What the LinkedIn Interests section actually is
LinkedIn groups everything you follow into a single Interests section, visible to anyone who views your profile. It is not a freeform text field where you type hobbies — it is a curated collection of entities you have chosen to follow inside the platform. LinkedIn currently organises Interests into five distinct types, and understanding the difference between them helps you make deliberate choices about what to follow rather than clicking Follow at random.
| Interest type | What you follow | Why it matters professionally |
|---|---|---|
| Companies | Employer pages for businesses of any size | Their posts, job openings, and news appear in your feed; signals target employers to recruiters |
| Groups | Member-driven communities organised around a topic or industry | Lets you participate in discussions, grow your network, and be discovered by peers |
| Newsletters | Long-form LinkedIn publications by individuals or brands | Keeps relevant thought leadership in your feed; shows intellectual engagement in your field |
| Schools | University and institution pages | Connects you with alumni and signals educational background or affiliation |
| People (Creators) | Influential professionals and creators on LinkedIn | High-quality commentary and content from voices in your industry shapes your feed quality |
When a recruiter visits your profile, the Interests tab is one of several signals they use to form a picture of you beyond your headline and job titles. A list that shows you follow three competing employers in your sector, several relevant professional groups, and a couple of respected industry newsletters tells a coherent story: this person is engaged in the field. A list cluttered with entertainment brands, sports clubs, and accounts entirely unrelated to your career sends the opposite message.
How following the right accounts shapes your LinkedIn feed
LinkedIn’s feed is a product of what you follow and what you engage with. Every time you click Follow on a company, group, newsletter, or creator, you are effectively voting for that type of content to appear in your daily scroll. This is not a small point: a well-curated Interests list means your LinkedIn time becomes professionally useful — you see industry news, open roles at target companies, and expert commentary relevant to your field instead of generic motivational posts and content from accounts you followed years ago without thinking.
The feed algorithm amplifies posts from accounts you interact with, so the quality of what you follow directly determines the quality of what you see. Following a handful of high-value industry newsletters, for instance, means your feed surfaces genuinely useful content and signals to the algorithm that you are interested in substantive professional material. Over time this compounds: you become more informed, you comment on relevant conversations, and your profile activity looks more credible to anyone who looks you up.
For job seekers specifically, following your target employers gives you two concrete advantages. First, their job postings appear in your feed often before you would find them through a keyword search. Second, the company’s content — announcements, culture posts, leadership commentary — gives you material for tailored cover letters and interview preparation. Knowing that a company recently launched a new product line or won a major contract is the kind of detail that transforms a generic interview answer into an impressive, specific one. Our guide on how to reach out to a recruiter covers the broader strategy for turning LinkedIn research into direct conversations with hiring teams.
How to add interests on LinkedIn desktop (step-by-step)
Adding interests on desktop is straightforward, but the exact path differs slightly from mobile. Here is the precise sequence so you can do it without hunting through menus.
To remove an interest on desktop, go to the relevant company, group, newsletter, or creator page and click Unfollow (or Leave, for Groups). The entry will disappear from your Interests section on your profile within a few moments. You can also unfollow directly from your feed by clicking the three-dot menu on a post from that account and selecting Unfollow. There is no bulk-unfollow tool built into LinkedIn, so pruning an untidy Interests list takes a small amount of patience — but it is worth doing once or twice a year.
Note that LinkedIn occasionally updates its interface. If the Interests section is not visible on your profile, it may be because you have not followed any entities yet. Follow at least one company, group, or creator and the section will appear automatically on your profile.
How to add interests on the LinkedIn mobile app
The mobile path is slightly different from desktop, though the underlying actions are the same. These steps apply to both iOS and Android versions of the LinkedIn app.
To follow a company on mobile, tap the Search icon at the top of the home screen, type the company name, and select it from the results. On the company page, tap the Follow button. The same method works for creators and schools. For groups, search for the group name, open the group page, and tap Request to Join or Join — once you are a member the group appears in your Interests. For newsletters, find the newsletter via search or through a post you see in your feed, open it, and tap Subscribe; subscribed newsletters appear under the Newsletters tab in your Interests.
To view and manage your current interests on mobile, tap your profile picture in the top left of the home screen, scroll down to the Interests section on your profile, and tap the relevant tab (Companies, Groups, etc.) to see the full list. To unfollow, tap the entity, then tap Following or Unfollow on their page. As with desktop, LinkedIn does not currently offer a single-screen management view for all your interests, so you navigate entity by entity.
Curating a professional, focused Interests list
The Interests section visible on your profile is a public statement about what you pay attention to professionally. Visitors — recruiters, hiring managers, potential collaborators, and clients — can click through it. A cluttered or unfocused list can dilute your personal brand just as surely as a vague LinkedIn headline can. Curation is not about being restrictive for its own sake; it is about making sure every visible interest reinforces the professional story you are telling everywhere else on your profile.
A practical approach is to audit your Interests list once a quarter and ask yourself three questions about each entry. First: is this directly relevant to my current industry or target industry? Second: if a hiring manager at one of my target companies saw this, would it add to or detract from my candidacy? Third: is this account still active and producing useful content? Accounts that went silent two years ago, brands you followed casually, and groups where you never engage are all good candidates for removal.
| Do | Don’t |
|---|---|
| Follow your target employers — even 5-10 companies you aspire to work for | Follow every company you have ever worked for out of habit, especially if you have left on poor terms |
| Follow 2-4 respected industry groups where senior professionals actually participate | Join dozens of groups you never read — low-quality groups reflect poorly and clutter your list |
| Subscribe to newsletters by recognised thought leaders in your field | Subscribe to generic business-inspiration newsletters that have nothing to do with your specialism |
| Follow schools you attended or institutions relevant to your professional development | Follow schools purely for name recognition if you have no genuine connection to them |
| Follow a small number of high-quality creators whose content you actually engage with | Follow large numbers of creators to inflate your list — it looks unfocused, not impressive |
| Review and prune your Interests list quarterly | Leave your Interests untouched for years — stale follows weaken the signal quality |
When you are actively job searching, the Interests section becomes a low-effort but meaningful signal. Following your ten target employers, for example, means that a recruiter at any of those companies who views your profile can see them listed — which confirms that your interest in the company is genuine and considered, not a spray-and-pray application. This kind of detail separates engaged candidates from bulk applicants. The same logic applies to industry groups: active membership in a well-regarded professional association or LinkedIn group demonstrates community involvement in a way that is hard to fake. If you want to understand how this fits into the full picture of professional networking, our article on networking mistakes that make you look unprofessional is a useful companion read.
How your Interests connect to your broader LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn works as a system, not a collection of independent sections. The Interests tab is one piece of a profile that also includes your headline, About section, experience entries, skills, and recommendations. When all of these elements tell a consistent story, the cumulative effect on a recruiter or hiring manager is considerably stronger than any individual section in isolation. Treating Interests as an afterthought breaks that coherence.
Your headline is the most-read line on your profile and the one that appears in search results — it should state your role, specialism, and the value you bring, not just your job title. Your About section is a 2,600-character opportunity to explain your professional narrative in the first person. Your experience entries should follow the same principle as a strong resume: specific, results-oriented bullets that prove impact rather than listing duties. If your interests align with your experience and headline — for example, you are a digital marketing manager who follows the companies, newsletters, and groups you would expect a digital marketing manager to follow — the profile hangs together as a coherent personal brand.
If you want professional support turning your full LinkedIn profile into a tool that actively attracts the right opportunities, our LinkedIn profile writing service covers every section from headline to skills endorsements. The same writers who build high-performing resumes apply the same evidence-based approach to LinkedIn profiles. You can also see who our writers are and what their backgrounds are at our writers page.
One area that professionals often overlook is the relationship between LinkedIn and the additional information they include on their resume. If your resume mentions professional memberships, publications, or community involvement, those same affiliations should be visible in your LinkedIn profile — and your LinkedIn Interests should include the relevant organisations. Consistency between your resume and your LinkedIn profile removes doubt and makes it easier for a recruiter to verify the picture you are presenting. Our guide on how to include additional information on a resume explains which professional details are worth surfacing and where to place them.
Using LinkedIn Interests to support an active job search
When you are actively looking for a new role, the Interests section becomes a strategic tool rather than a passive feature. Here is how to use it deliberately during a job search rather than treating it as background noise.
Start by building a target company list of 10 to 20 employers you genuinely want to work for. Follow each of them on LinkedIn. The immediate benefit is that their job postings, announcements, and culture content will surface in your feed, keeping you informed without active searching. The secondary benefit is that when a recruiter or hiring manager at one of those companies views your profile — which happens more often than candidates realise, especially after you apply — they see themselves in your Interests. It is a quiet confirmation that you know who they are and have been paying attention.
Follow the recruiters and talent acquisition professionals at your target companies too. Many publish posts about open roles, hiring timelines, what they look for in candidates, and what the application process looks like. Following them puts that intelligence in your feed without requiring you to check their profiles manually. When you do reach out — via a connection request or an InMail — you can reference something specific they posted, which is far more effective than a generic message. For a structured approach to that kind of outreach, see our guide on how to reach out to a recruiter.
Groups are particularly underused in job searches. A well-chosen industry group is a place where hiring managers and recruiters also participate — and where your thoughtful comment on a relevant post can lead to a connection request from someone with hiring authority. Before you dismiss this as wishful thinking, consider that LinkedIn’s own data consistently shows that a significant proportion of hires come through network connections rather than job board applications. Being present and visible in the right groups makes those connections possible. This is precisely the kind of proactive networking behaviour that differentiates serious candidates from passive applicants.
Finally, newsletters from respected figures in your target industry keep your knowledge current — which matters in interviews. If a newsletter author you follow publishes something about a trend in your sector the week before your interview, you have a ready-made talking point that signals genuine engagement. That is a small advantage, but in a competitive field, small advantages accumulate.
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Removing and resetting your Interests
If you have been on LinkedIn for several years, your Interests list may have grown organically through casual follows — a company you were curious about, a creator whose one post was interesting, a group you joined and never visited. A reset is worth doing before a serious job search, because a messy Interests tab is a missed opportunity to reinforce your professional brand.
The unfollowing process on desktop: navigate to each company, creator, newsletter, or school page and click Unfollow. For groups, go to the group page and select Leave group. On mobile, the same steps apply. There is no export or bulk-management tool, so the process is manual — but most people find it takes less than 20 minutes to prune down to a focused, professional list.
A simple target: aim for 10 to 20 companies (mix of current or recent employers and target employers), 3 to 5 active groups in your field or target field, 3 to 6 newsletters from genuine thought leaders you read, schools you actually attended, and a small number of creators (5 to 10) whose content is genuinely relevant and whose quality you would be comfortable defending to a hiring manager. That is a list that tells a story rather than displaying a history of undirected clicking.
After you have pruned, take a moment to view your own profile as an outsider would — either by using LinkedIn’s View Profile As feature or by opening your profile in an incognito browser window. Look at the Interests section with fresh eyes and ask: does this list make me look like a credible, engaged professional in the field I am targeting? If the answer is yes, you are done. If something looks out of place, remove it. The same discipline that makes a well-constructed resume effective — relevance, coherence, and the absence of noise — applies here.
If the broader question of what belongs on your professional profile is something you are working through, our free resume review service is a good starting point: the same clarity of thinking that our writers bring to your resume translates directly to how they approach LinkedIn profile strategy.
Common mistakes when managing LinkedIn Interests
The most frequent error is simply neglect: professionals set up their LinkedIn profile during a job search, follow a few accounts in a rush, and never revisit the Interests section again. Years later the list contains accounts that no longer reflect their career direction, brands they followed for a discount code, and groups that stopped being active in 2019. This is not a catastrophic problem, but it is a low-effort fix that pays small but real dividends.
The second common mistake is treating Interests as a social bookmarking system rather than a professional signal. Everything visible on your LinkedIn profile is a data point for anyone who views it. Following your favourite sports teams, entertainment brands, or political organisations is entirely your prerogative — but be aware that a recruiter reading your profile will form impressions from whatever they see. If those follows are not consistent with the professional image you want to project in a job search context, keeping them out of your LinkedIn Interests (even if you follow those accounts elsewhere) is a sensible decision.
A third mistake is confusing quantity with quality. Some professionals follow hundreds of companies and creators under the mistaken belief that a longer list is more impressive. The opposite is closer to the truth. A curated list of 15 to 30 highly relevant follows signals intentionality. A list of 200 random follows signals that you click Follow habitually and have not thought about what you are presenting to the world. The same principle applies to your resume: a tight, relevant skills section beats a sprawling one. For more on how to present your professional attributes precisely, our guide on how to describe your professional skills is directly applicable to both LinkedIn and resume copy.
Finally, professionals sometimes forget that LinkedIn Interests interact with the platform’s notification and connection-suggestion systems. Following a company often triggers LinkedIn to suggest connections who also work there — which can be useful when you are researching an employer or preparing for an interview. Following relevant groups surfaces potential connections in your field. These are small compounding benefits that a well-managed Interests list generates passively over time, simply as a byproduct of deliberate curation.
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