From the course: Finding a Job on LinkedIn

Add skills to your profile - LinkedIn Tutorial

From the course: Finding a Job on LinkedIn

Add skills to your profile

- [Instructor] Another important part of your LinkedIn profile, especially for job seekers, is the skill section. LinkedIn allows you to add up to 50 skills on your profile, and I recommend taking advantage of this. Right now, I'm inside of Julie's account, and I'm going to navigate down to the skills section. And here you can see that she has three skills: marketing, project management, and program management. But that's only three of them. So I want to add new skills, and I can do that by going up here and clicking on add a new skill. When working with people on their profiles, many of them only have a few skills like this listed. And I think that is a mistake. Remember that people such as hiring managers and recruiters are looking to find you. Also, when they look at your account to learn more about you that's your chance to tell your story, to tell them what you can do, what skills you have, and why you're a qualified candidate. I recommend taking some time and creating a list of the skills that you possess. I bet the list is longer than you think it is. Now, this could be things like software. For example, in here, Julie knows how to use Microsoft Excel, so I'm going to go ahead and select Microsoft Excel. Also, she knows how to use Salesforce. So I'll select salesforce.com as one of her skills. This could also be skills such as leadership or public speaking. I'll go ahead and add those in here, leadership, as well as public speaking. Now again, I would go on here and continue to add more skills. You can see down below that they have suggested skills based off your profile. And when you look at this, it can often give you some good ideas that you wouldn't have thought about. Maybe she says, "Oh yeah, I do have operations management as a skill," and she can click and then add that as well. Now when you're done, you can go ahead and click add, and then those skills will be added to your profile. You can see them right here. Now, I think you should add any skills that you feel you possess that would help you to stand out for this position. However, just be honest, you don't want to say you know how to use Excel only to get to the job and then have no clue how to use it. Over time, your connections will then be able to endorse you for these skills, making them stand out even more. The main takeaway here is to add skills to your profile so that your profile is discoverable, and that you're showcasing the skills that you do have. Don't sell yourself short. Also, be purposeful with the skills that you add. Add skills that will help you qualify for the types of jobs that you're looking for.

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