When it comes to standing out among the masses on LinkedIn, which features set you apart from the 400 million other people on the platform? Besides a detailed resume and a good headshot, you need to identify what your strong suit is. Do you rock at research? Have you mastered Microsoft Office? Do you absolutely crush it on Canva? One of the most important sections in your LinkedIn profile is your Skills and Endorsements section. Why does this matter? LinkedIn says that members who list skills on their LinkedIn profiles receive an average of 13 times more profile views than those who don’t. Here are some ways to enhance your profile and boost your personal brand.
Think About Skills as Key Search Words
If you are looking for a job, consider what skills the job you want requires before adding them to your profile. Try to use common words and key phrases in case anyone is searching for them, but also remember to be as specific as possible. These keywords and strengths could set you apart from the others jockeying for your job. If you’re not entirely sure what to include in your skills, review a list here. Before you add a skill, keep in mind that you want to make sure that it matches the job responsibilities in your profile and on your resume. If you are not entirely sure what job you want, correlate your skills with your career goals and work from there.
Endorse Others and They’ll Endorse You
There’s a reason you connect with old colleagues and clients. They can talk about how great you are! Endorsements are helpful to building your LinkedIn profile, but start off by building a good base of connections. Once you have established those connections, people will begin endorsing you and then you will be in a position to choose which skills you would like to mention. LinkedIn is set up so that it will automatically filter your skills based on the number of endorsements. If you endorse others, they will likely endorse you. You can also ask your connections to endorse you for particular skills if you want to develop your profile further.
Create Content
Another good way to get noticed by potential employers is to be constantly creating content. If you are a blogger, share your passion for what you are writing about. If you aren’t familiar with it, check out LinkedIn Pulse. It’s easy to tell people what your skills are, but if they can read your content, and see how well you write, you position yourself to be more attractive to recruiters.
Behind the Scenes
LinkedIn analyzed all of the hiring and recruiting activity that happened on their website during 2015 and developed a list of the top 25 skills that were required and/or desired by potential employers. They created a feature on their website where you can add skill sets to your profile that filters what is wanted by most recruiters from 2015 into 2016.
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