Modern employers pay attention not only to the resume of the applicant but also to their LinkedIn profile. One of the most important sections is the Skills and Endorsements section. The information there can tell a lot about your strengths to a potential employer. Therefore, when filling out a profile, do not neglect this section.
If you are interested in building a competent LinkedIn Skills and Endorsements section, this article will be useful for you.
How to Add Skills to LinkedIn
Why Add LinkedIn Skills?
When searching for the perfect candidate, recruiters or hiring managers sometimes look for people with particular skills and positions. Accordingly, thanks to the skills you specified in this section, your profile will be at the top when searching. These skills work as keywords and promote your profile to the top of search results. According to the LinkedIn blog, profiles including 5 or more skills get 17 times more views than profiles with fewer skills.
Second, skills are great social proof that will play into your hands when an employer decides whether to contact you or not.
Read More: How Important Is LinkedIn
How Many Skills Should I List on LinkedIn
In this section, you can choose up to 50 skills to display, including three core skills. Once you add the skills to your profile, your first-level contacts can validate those skills. Endorsements are inherently social proof that you actually have experience with whatever is listed in this section.
Which Skills to Add?
You should identify three core skills to complete this section. All visitors to your profile will be able to see them.
To figure out which skills to add to LinkedIn, ask yourself these questions:
- What occupation are you most experienced in?
- Which occupation do you have the most knowledge of?
- What skills are most relevant to your job?
When adding skills, it is better not to state fake skills. This can be easily verified, but as a result, the credibility of your LinkedIn profile will decrease.
After you have identified your three core skills, think about other skills that you would like to point out. Also, remember that although you can add up to 50 skills, it is not necessary to use all of them.
LinkedIn groups all skill options into five main categories:
- Industry Knowledge
This category includes professional skills that characterize your professional activity.
- Tools & Technologies
This category makes it clear what tools and software you are using. Recruiters or hiring managers may be looking for someone experienced with specific programs, so these skills are sometimes crucial.
- Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal Skills are the soft skills that can show you as a good communicator.
- Foreign languages
Knowledge of foreign languages is a huge plus, especially in multinational companies.
- Other Skills
It’s almost impossible to group all skills into specific categories. If you have any other skills then feel free to list them.
The ResumeEdge team understands how difficult it is to choose skills that accurately describe your personality. If you are having difficulty choosing the right skills, then our professional writer can help you with that. All ResumeEdge writers work individually with customers so that they understand their strengths and can describe them succinctly within 50 skills.
How to Add Skills to LinkedIn Correctly?
The LinkedIn Skills and Endorsements section does not appear automatically. That means that you will need to add this section first and then specify the skills.
First, visit the LinkedIn homepage. After that, click on View Profile. Next, you will see the Add profile section function. The social network will immediately offer to select skills from the drop-down menu. In the text box, you just need to enter the name, then select the skill from the list.
If you want to edit something in the Skills and Endorsements section, you need to follow a similar pattern. Go to your LinkedIn homepage, view your profile. Scroll to the desired section. You will see the Add a new skill function. Then enter the skill in the text field and select the one you want from the menu. If you cannot find a certain skill in the list, enter its full name in the text field and click Add. LinkedIn also creates Suggested Skills based on your profile, so you can add these skills as well.
Endorsements on LinkedIn
Once you’ve listed the skills on your profile, first-level contacts can validate your skills.
There are two ways to get endorsements on LinkedIn:
- Ask for them
Reach out to people you’ve worked with before and tell them about your personal branding and LinkedIn profile. Say that you will be grateful for their validation of the skills you demonstrated while working with them. People with whom you have a good working relationship should be happy to help you.
Do not delay asking for recommendations:
- Upon termination of employment, personally ask colleagues for proof of skills.
- If you have completed a project, send people a reference template to rate your contribution.
- If you have little or no experience, feel free to ask faculty and/or academic supervisors to validate your skills.
- Proactively prove other people’s skills
You can start with your acquaintances. To get started, you can look at the profiles of your closest co-workers and partners and confirm a couple of skills that they have demonstrated while working with you. Chances are, your coworkers will do the same with your profile.
After your closest colleagues, you can move on to validating the skills of people you haven’t worked with that much. But, even after working on a small project, you can already conclude the strengths of a person.
Best Skills to Add on LinkedIn
Of course, you should analyze the skills yourself and indicate only the real ones. But we understand that it can seem like a daunting task at first, especially if you have a lot of experience behind you. Therefore, we want to share useful recommendations that should be taken into account when you specify soft skills.
Now employers primarily value soft skills such as:
- Creativity
- Ability to persuade
- Teamwork
- Adaptability
- Emotional intelligence
As for hard skills, it’s not so simple. There are no specific skills that are universal for all occupations, so everyone adds hard skills depending on work experience. But while filling out this section, you can analyze which skills are more in demand by employers.
Related: Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What’s the Difference?
As you can see, it will take some time for your Skills and Endorsements section to bring results and make your profile more popular. To stay at the top, you need to fill in information about yourself more than once. That is constantly working on yourself and your profile to have relevant skills.
ResumeEdge offers LinkedIn writing services to help you optimize your profile. With our help, you will always be in demand.
