Highlighting Relevant Skills on LinkedIn

Why updating your skills is important

For a lot of LinkedIn users they fill their skills section with "starter" skills like "Leadership," or "Customer Service" or worse, nothing at all. But the skills section serves 2 functions:

• It allows you to highlight your strengths (processes, programs, software, etc) which your network can then endorse

• It allows you to be searchable by recruiters and hiring managers for the skills they're interested in

So it's important to work on and showcase your relevant skills.

Choosing hard skills to highlight

Depending on your LinkedIn focus (job searching, professional branding, presenting yourself as a thought leader, etc) you may want to highlight different types of skills - but in all situations you'll want to focus on hard skills over soft skills.

If you're job searching you may want to:

• Research skills in your field of interest

• Figure out where your experiences align

• Get certifications, attend programs and gain experiences that align

If you're working on your professional brand:

• Emphasize your most impressive skills

• Highlight where you're an expert in your work, projects and/or personal life

• Increase strategic certifications, programs and experiences

If you're a thought leader on a specific subject:

• Highlight your expertise in your skills

• Align your skills with your services and focus

• Pay attention to new processes, programs, etc being offered in your focus

LinkedIn's Top 10 Hard Skills for 2020 are both analytical and data-centered, those being:

• Blockchain

• Cloud Computing

• Analytical Reasoning

• Artificial Intelligence

• UX Design

• Business Analysis

• Affiliate Marketing

• Sales

• Scientific Computing

• Video Production

Choosing soft skills to highlight

Once you've showcased your knowledge-based skills, you can move onto highlighting your interpersonal and other skills.

LinkedIn's Top 5 Soft Skills for 2020 are:

• Creativity

• Persuasion

• Collaboration

• Adaptability

• Emotional Intelligence

Skills to highlight for students

If you're a student, chances are you have a lot of hard skills from your classes, jobs or campus involvement. For example:

• Data Analysis (As a treasurer, research assistant, business student, etc)

• Graphic Design (If you make flyers, t-shirts, etc for class or an org)

• Fundraising (As a volunteer, org treasurer, etc or for a class project)

• Social Media Marketing (As a public relations officer, etc)

• Event Coordination (As a Resident Assistant, org event planner, etc)

• Web Development (As a comp sci student, org public relations officer, etc)

If you're a young professional you can look to your daily responsibilities and job description to determine your hard skills.

Picking new skills to learn

Whether you're a job seeker, working to strengthen your personal brand, or solidifying your position as a thought leader, it's likely that there are a number of skills you can work on gaining or strengthening. It is important to stay up to date on the knowledge-based requirements in your field or a field you're interested in. Make sure you're getting certifications, attending courses, applying to programs, etc and add those new skills to your profile!

The importance of endorsements

Adding the right skills to your LinkedIn profile is a big part of solidifying your professional brand. But another part is securing endorsements from your network. Endorsements validate that others know about or have seen you utilize your skills and the tally is shown on your profile.

A great way to secure endorsements is to simply endorse other people in your network so that they'll take a look at your profile and endorse you for skills they know you're good at.