Best Skills to List on LinkedIn

With over 1 billion users in 200 countries, LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional social network, can help you connect with employers and recruiters when you're looking for a job. One of the most important parts of your profile is the skills section. In that section, you can list your skills, and other LinkedIn users can endorse you for those skills.

In this article, we'll look at the best skills to include when you're job-hunting, and how to add skills to your profile.

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

It's fairly easy to add skills to your LinkedIn profile and it's worth the effort. Why are the skills you include important?

• Your list of skills shows employers and recruiters at a glance what you are qualified to do.
• The more skills you list, the better your chances of getting contacted by hiring managers.
• LinkedIn can make your hiring status and expertise available to employers via Google search.

LinkedIn reports that members with five or more skills listed are contacted significantly more by recruiters and other LinkedIn members and receive significantly more profile views.

Best Skills to Include in Your LinkedIn Profile

These are among the top skills that employers across industries are looking for.

Analytical

Many jobs require employees to be able to understand and interpret complex information. Analytical skills are important in industries ranging from business to data architecture to marketing to law to medicine. Skills related to analysis include:

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

Business

Anyone working in a company needs 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

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
• Persuasion
• Presentation
• Writing
• Active listening

Technology

These skills are needed not only in technology companies but also in jobs across industries. Here is a list of tech skills that are important today:

• Blockchain
• Cloud computing
• Artificial intelligence
• UX design
• Business analysis
• Scientific computing

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. Skills related to marketing include:

• Affiliate marketing
• Channel marketing
• Content marketing
• Content strategy
• Digital media
• Digital marketing
• Market research
• Media planning
• Online marketing
• Public relations
• Social media
• Sales

People Skills

Today’s workplace is more collaborative—and more challenging—than ever before. To attract recruiters and hiring managers, your LinkedIn profile will need to show key soft skills including:

• Adaptability
• Collaboration
• Creativity
• Persuasion
• Time management
• Leadership
• Initiative taking

How to Manage the Skills on Your LinkedIn Profile

Using the LinkedIn profile editor, you can add, edit, and delete skills in your profile.

Adding Skills to LinkedIn

If you don't have any skills listed on your profile, you'll need to add the Skills section. You can do that by clicking on the "Me" icon at the top of your page, viewing your profile, then clicking "Add profile section." Click "Core," then choose "Add skills" from the dropdown menu. A window will pop up and you can:

• Type a skill name and then choose it from the dropdown menu, or choose a skill from "Suggested based on your profile." Once you choose one, it will show up in your skills list.
• Select checkboxes that explain where you used this skill.

Then click "Save." Repeat the above steps to add more skills to your profile.

Reordering Your Skills List

Once you create a list of skills for your LinkedIn profile, you can change the order in which the skills appear. Again, click on the "Me" icon and then click "View Profile." Scroll down to the Skills section, then click on the pencil icon to edit the section.

Click the three dots at the top of the section, then from the drop-down menu, choose "Reorder." You can reorder your skills by clicking and dragging the horizontal line icons on the right-hand side of the screen.

Deleting Skills

You can also delete skills. Once you've clicked the pencil icon to edit a skill, select "Delete skill" at the bottom of the edit window. 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 your profile stays up to date.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)