Why It’s Important to List Skills on Your LinkedIn Profile

As a talent professional, you have undoubtedly heard a lot of talk about skills over the last few years — upskilling, reskilling, skills sets, skills gaps, skills assessments, and skills-based hiring — to the point you have a skull full of skills. 

And you’ve probably come to see that a skills-approach to talent acquisition and talent development requires a lot of work. 

But as you’ve considered where skills might best fit into your organization’s approach to talent management, have you also thought about your own skills, about developing them and — just as importantly — showcasing them?

More pointedly, have you thought about whether your own LinkedIn profile accurately captures your skills?

Why it’s important to list your skills on your LinkedIn profile

Increasingly, skills — as much as schooling, previous companies, job titles, and work experience — are what get you a new job.

As a talent pro, you know that AI-powered tools used by recruiters to screen candidates will look to see how well a professional’s list of skills matches what’s needed for an open role. In addition, recruiters themselves will infer skills by looking at a candidate’s job experience, schooling, and activities, by asking the right questions in an interview, and by talking to references. Nearly half (48%) of hirers on LinkedIn now explicitly use skills data to fill their roles.

You make their job easier by listing your skills and accurately stack-ranking them. 

According to LinkedIn data, members who list at least one skill, receive up to 2x more profile views and connection requests and up to 4x more messages.

And as a talent professional, you need to model the importance of highlighting skills on your LinkedIn profile:

• If you’re a recruiter, having your own skills up to date gives you a platform from which to coach candidates who have loads of talent but aren’t showcasing it on their resume or profile. 
• If you’re a learning and development (L&D) professional, being current with your own skills gives you a chance to model for your colleagues how critical this is for charting their professional growth and career development.
  

Which skills — and how many — you should list

LinkedIn allows you to post up to 50 skills on your profile, enough that anyone will be able to see how talented and indispensable you are. You’ll be choosing from over 41,000 skill titles, so you do want to be thoughtful and selective. At the same time, you’ll want to be somehow comprehensive. So, make the most of your 50 opportunities.

Given that sea of opportunity — 41K choices — how should you focus? Start by thinking about what your next dream job would be: Director of technical recruiting? Talent development manager? Digital learning designer? 

And then hop on LinkedIn and see what skills are listed in postings for your dream job. If you’re a recruiter who’s recruited other recruiters, think about what you’ve asked for when you’ve written job posts. What did you want to see from job seekers?

Make sure you list the skills that you’ve mastered and that pop up like clockwork in job descriptions. Consider leveraging LinkedIn Learning or other professional development opportunities to acquire any critical ones that you’re missing. 

As you weigh which skills to list and which skills to develop, consider the skills that most frequently appear on LinkedIn profiles.

Top Overall Skills on LinkedIn

1. Communication
2. Teamwork
3. Problem-solving
4. Analytical skills
5. Leadership
6. Sales
7. Management
8. Data analysis
9. Team leadership
10. Organizational skills
    

Top Soft Skills on LinkedIn

1. Communication
2. Teamwork
3. Problem-solving
4. Analytical skills
5. Leadership
6. Management
7. Team leadership
8. Organizational skills
9. Interpersonal skills
10. Negotiation
    

Top Hard Skills on LInkedIn

1. Sales
2. Data analysis
3. Marketing
4. Customer relationship management (CRM)
5. Python (programming language)
6. Research skills
7. SQL
8. Business development
9. Training
10. Social media
    

Of course, the frequency with which these skills show up isn’t a perfect predictor of what recruiters and hiring managers are looking for. Neither is it an ideal guide to what learning leaders are trying to teach and develop. 

Every year, LinkedIn announces the most in-demand skills after looking at which skills turn up most frequently in job postings and the profiles of members who have either been hired recently or contacted by a recruiter. 

Most In-Demand Skills

1. Communication
2. Customer service
3. Leadership
4. Project management
5. Management
6. Analytics
7. Teamwork
8. Sales
9. Problem-solving
10. Research
    

LinkedIn has also produced a list of the most in-demand skills for recruiters and for L&D professionals.

Be as specific with your skills as possible

God, as they say, is in the details. Where appropriate, list specific skills rather than generic skills or umbrella terms. 

For example, you may have noted that communication is the most frequently listed skill on LinkedIn members’ profiles. To differentiate yourself, it will help to call out the specific skills you have that fall under that broad umbrella:

• Speechwriting 
• Executive comms 
• Internal comms 
• Blog writing 
• Copywriting 
• Visual communication
  

Perhaps you’re a recruiter, so your list of skills includes sourcing. But are there specific roles you’ve recruited for that require specialized knowledge and tactics? So, if you’ve been a recruiter in the tech sector, call that skill out. Better yet, if you were hiring software engineers from Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe, include that too.

List the hard skills that define you and what you can do

Hard skills are the technical skills you develop through hands-on experience, training, or education. They often involve using a machine, software, or tool. They range from Microsoft Excel and data analysis to SQL and digital marketing to sourcing and curriculum development. And they are usually top of mind when someone talks about skills gaps or skills-based hiring. 

You want to include the hard skills that are your strengths and that are what companies are looking for. These will give you credibility with recruiters, hiring managers, and even colleagues. Where possible, bolster your profile by pointing to training, education, and certifications that support your claims.

Make sure to include your soft skills too

As a talent pro, you may know the old saying: “Hard skills get you the interview but soft skills get you the job.”

And yet most professionals are much more likely to add hard skills to their profiles than soft skills. Some of that is about math: LinkedIn, for example, has a catalog of some 41,000 skills and the overwhelming majority of them are hard skills.

But the bigger challenge may be that most workers don’t know how to identify or assess their own soft skills.

Soft skills are the attributes and abilities that shape how you work, interact, and communicate with others and they are transferable across teams, organizations, and industries. They include talents like effective communication, collaboration, leadership, listening, and problem-solving. 

Soft skills are typically more subjective and more difficult to measure than hard skills. (Even the name “soft skills” is more squishy than its “hard skills” counterpart, with some people referring to them as “human skills,” “power skills,” or “people skills” instead.) Don’t push them aside.

LinkedIn members who list soft skills as well as hard skills get promoted 8% faster than members who list hard skills only. 

Carefully identify your signature soft skills

So how can you confidently identify your own soft skills?

In part, rely on others. Comb through your previous work reviews. Which soft skills have your bosses singled out? What have coworkers said about you in 360 reviews? Think about any courses or professional training you may have had in, say, leadership or management. Ask your family and friends what your soft skills are and zero in on the two or three that always come up.

You can also take an assessment. If your company asks candidates to take an assessment from a platform like Harver, Cappfinity, or The Predictive Index, take the same test and see what traits rise to the surface. If not, try an online self-assessment like the Skills Health Check offered by the National Careers Service in the U.K. 

Finally, think outside the box. Or, at least, outside the office. What about soft skills you’ve developed or leveraged in your hobbies or volunteer work? Remember the teamwork you developed playing junior college basketball; the communication skills you used as secretary of the PTA; or the problem-solving and negotiation it took to get your elderly parents out of your childhood home and into a senior living facility.

The skills you shouldn’t list on your LinkedIn profile

While adding skills to your LinkedIn profile will be helpful in most cases, there are some skills you don’t want to add.

1. Skills you don’t have or haven’t mastered

As a talent professional, it is particularly important for you to model honesty in your self-reported skills. An accurate assessment helps everyone: recruiters, hiring managers, L&D professionals, and you. You’re filling out a skills list, not a wish list. A list that is accurate helps ensure that you end up in a role where you can succeed (because you have the right skills) and from which you can grow (because your manager and your learning partners can see which skills you should develop).

2. Skills that aren’t relevant

You may have been an all-state oboe player in high school or worked your way through college as a magician, but it’s not likely that those skills are essential to the roles you’re hoping to land in marketing or finance. Stick to the relevant skills.

You don’t need to list professional skills that don’t pertain to the kinds of roles you’re working in or applying to. So, if you’re a curriculum development specialist who came to their work after a stint as a registered nurse, you don’t need to list your abilities to do medication management or CPR.

Here’s how you add skills to your profile

Fortunately, it doesn’t require a lot of skill to add a lot of skills to your LinkedIn profile: 

• Start by logging into your profile. 
• Find the Me icon on the top bar on your LinkedIn homepage. 
• Click on it and then click on the “View Profile” button in the dropdown. 
• Scroll down to the Skills section and simply click on the plus sign to add a new skill. 
  

On mobile, it’s just as easy:

• Open the LinkedIn app and tap on your photo. 
• Tap “View profile.” 
• Scroll down to Skills.
• Click on the plus sign. 

Voilà — you’re ready to add a skill anywhere you happen to be.

The LinkedIn platform will tee up a cluster of possible skills based on the current state of your profile. You can click on one of those or you can write a different one into the bar above the skills cluster. In either case, once you’ve identified the skill you’d like to add, click the box next to each of your current and previous roles where you had to use that skill. This gives recruiters and hiring managers a better sense of the kind of work and responsibility you had in previous roles.

Again, not every skill is created equal. So, you can highlight up to five skills that you think really define you in the About section of your LinkedIn profile. Open the About section and click on the pencil. The Top Skills will be preloaded with five based on the rest of your profile but you can choose any five that you deem most important. 

Show how you’ve used skills in your previous work

Of course, showcasing your skills only starts with listing them on your profile.

As much as possible, you also want people to see where and how you’ve used a skill and how proficient you are with it. Some 76% of candidates say they wish there was a way that hiring managers could verify their skills so they could stand out.

So, certainly include any certifications or valid assessments that have been done. 

And get those who know your work best to add endorsements on your profile. Endorsements not only validate your skills but they elevate your profile in LinkedIn Recruiter searches. You can ask managers and colleagues for endorsements. In some cases, you can also remind them that they’ve already given you a similar endorsement in an annual review or in 360 feedback. 

But don’t stop with certifications and your endorsements section. Consider clicking on the “Add a section to your profile” button and then find the “Projects” option. 

You can give the name of the project, detail your role on it, and list the five skills that were most critical for you while doing it. This is key — 75% of hirers around the world say context into how a skill was used is important. And because we all know the value of “show not tell,” you can add media too: 

• Case studies
• Blog posts
• E-books
• White papers
• Webinars, workshops, and classes
• Presentations, lectures, and speeches
  

Keep the skills on your LinkedIn profile up-to-date

As you develop new skills through classes, work experience, or life challenges, make sure to add them to your profile.

LinkedIn data shows that members who regularly add skills to their profiles receive promotions 11% faster than those members who add them infrequently. 

You’ll also want to rethink both the skills you list and the order you list them as your job changes or as you change jobs. To reorder skills:

• Click on the Me icon on your LinkedIn homepage and then click on View Profile. 
• Scroll down to the Skills section and click on the pencil icon. 
• Click on the three-dot More icon in the upper right corner and then click on the double-arrow reorder icon from the dropdown list. 
• Finally, in the pop-up window, drag the reorder icon to the right of the skill you’d like to move.
  

Final thoughts: Skills are your passport in the new world of work

As you and your talent colleagues usher in a new world of work that focuses more on skills and less on pedigree, the value of thoughtfully and honestly highlighting your skill set on your LinkedIn profile will become ever greater. Those skills, particularly when detailed or contextualized, are a powerful signal of what you have done and what you can do in the future.

Your current skill set can also chart a career map for you, pointing to places you can reach by developing certain mission-critical skills you lack at the moment and by strengthening and fine-tuning skills you already possess. Skills are the breadcrumbs that line the path to your dream job.