Top Skills to List on LinkedIn

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Updated November 09, 2019

On social media channels, such as Facebook and Instagram, you enjoy making connections with friends, family, and maybe even new friends. You are also branding yourself, though not necessarily in a professional way. When it comes to building a professional brand for yourself, LinkedIn is currently the most important career-oriented social media channel.

Aside from keeping up with trends in your industry (and industries indirectly related to your field), you may be sought out by recruiters or other top companies looking to expand their talent pool when on LinkedIn, making it especially important for job seekers.

Why is it Important to List Key Skills on Your LinkedIn Profile?

One of the most important parts of your LinkedIn profile is the Featured Skills & Endorsements section. In that section, you can list your skills, and other LinkedIn users can endorse you for those skills.

Why are the skills you include important? First, your list of skills shows employers and recruiters at a glance what you are qualified to do. Second, the more skills you list, the better your chances of getting contacted by hiring managers. Third, LinkedIn can make your hirability and expertise available to employers via Google search.

LinkedIn reports that “members with five or more skills listed are contacted (messaged) up to 33 [times] more by recruiters and other LinkedIn members and receive up to 17 [times] more profile views.”

While you want to list a lot of skills, you also want to list the right skills.

Here's information on how to add skills to your profile, along with which ones to include to make your LinkedIn profile stand out.

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How to Manage the Skills on Your LinkedIn Profile

You can add skills to your profile by clicking on your profile, then scrolling down to the “Featured Skills & Endorsements” section. You can then click “Add a new skill” in the right-hand corner of that section.

Another way to add skills to your profile is to click on your profile, then click on “Add New Profile Section” in the top right corner of your profile. Click the “Skills” tab, and then click the plus sign to add a new skill.

Once you create a list of skills for your LinkedIn profile, you can edit that list. Click on your profile, scroll down to the “Featured Skills & Endorsements” section, then click on the pencil icon located on the right-hand side in order to edit the section.

You can reorder your skills by clicking and dragging skills on the right-hand side of the screen.

Put the skills that are most important to your career at the top of the list.

You can also delete skills by clicking the “X” on the left-hand side of the screen. You might want to do this if a LinkedIn connection endorses you for a skill that does not match your current expertise. Edit your skills regularly so that your profile stays up to date.

LinkedIn also has skills assessments you can take to measure your abilities. You'll be able to validate your skills and add them to your profile.

Analytical

Many jobs require employees to be able to interpret information and understand and help solve problems. This is important in industries ranging from business to data architecture to marketing to law to medicine. Skills related to analysis include:

Business

Anyone working in a company needs the business skills to understand his or her industry. However, business skills are particularly important for executives, managers, and administrators that help a company run smoothly. See several important skills related to business:

Communication

Communication skills are critical for almost any job. Employees need to be able to effectively share ideas with clients, colleagues, and employers. They need to be able to share these ideas in writing and speech. Employees also need to be good listeners, which is an important part of communication. Other communication skills are:

Editing
Newsletters
Nonverbal Communication
Presentation
Writing
Active Listening

Information Technology (IT)

In LinkedIn’s list of the top skills that can get you hired, most of the top ten were skills in information technology. Cloud computing is particularly popular, as are data mining and statistical analysis. These skills are needed not only in jobs focused on IT, but also in jobs across industries. Employees today need to be comfortable with IT in industries ranging from education to healthcare to marketing. Here is a list of IT skills that are important today:

Content Management
Data Presentation
Database Administration
Middleware and Integration Software
Mobile Development
Network and Information Security
Software Engineering
Software Management
Storage Systems and Management
Tech Support
UI/UX
User Interface Design
Web Architecture and Development Framework

Management

Anyone in a role that requires leadership of some kind needs management skills — they're important for leaders in all industries. Employers are eager to see these management skills in job candidates:

Coaching
Delegating Tasks
Leadership
Negotiation
Project Management
Relationship Management
Strategic Planning

Marketing

Marketing is a broad industry that includes advertising, market research, customer support, public relations, and more. Marketing involves explaining and promoting a company and its services to the public. Some marketing skills, including marketing campaign management and SEO/SEM marketing, are on LinkedIn’s list of the top skills that can get you hired. A number of skills related to marketing include: