Top Skills to List on LinkedIn

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.

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.”

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

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.

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.

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:

• Consulting
• Critical thinking
• Data analysis
• Problem-solving
• Research

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:

• Administrative
• Business analysis
• Business development
• Business intelligence
• Business management
• Business storytelling
• Economics

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

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

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 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:

• Channel Marketing 
• Content Marketing
• Content Strategy
• Digital Media
• Market Research
• Media Planning
• Online Marketing
• Public Relations
• Social Media

A LinkedIn report on the skills companies need the most in 2019 lists both hard and soft skills that employers are looking for. Here are a few more top skills.

• Adaptability
• Analytical Reasoning
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Cloud Computing
• Collaboration
• Creativity
• People Management
• Persuasion
• Time Management
• UX Design
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
• Mobile Application Development
• Translation
• Video Production
• Corporate Communications
• Industrial Design
• Competitive Strategies
• Digital Marketing
• Animation
• Journalism
• Natural Language Processing
• Sales Leadership
• Software Testing
• Customer Service Systems
• Computer Graphics
• Scientific Computing