If you’re wondering ‘How Skilled Do I Have to be to Say Something is a Skill on Linkedin?” then imagine being the reader you want to attract to your Linkedin profile and ask yourself: “What skills would they want to see and what level of proficiency/use/experience would they expect?”
Trust your instinct and promote yourself truthfully. It’s always easier in future conversations when people may ask for examples of using a Skill you have listed.
Linkedin offers 50 skills so update your Linkedin skills section with those you want to be recognised for. Linkedin is great at helping you along with skills so start typing words and look for what Linkedin recommends.
Add skills you want to be recognised for – especially ‘up-and-coming’ skills that you’re currently learning/gaining. Remember projects you’ve worked on, work-relevant skills you use on the weekend,… list those that you have used and that could help your Linkedin reader to want to know more about you.
Move your favourite skills and those you want to be known to the top of your list. Even if you’re yet to have people’s photos to the right (showing they’ve endorsed you for this skill), it shows important skills to you.
Remove skills that you don’t want to be known for – e.g. if you’re quite senior, listing “Microsoft Word” may not be useful to your reader.
If you have generic skills that a lot of people have endorsed and you’re thinking of deleting them, double check before you do by asking: “do these skills apply well to the work I want to do in the future?”. For example, “Communication”, “Communication Skills”, “Marketing” and “Advertising” are applicable across many roles.
Check how your Skills look by scrolling to the top of your profile while you’re in editing mode and click the blue button “View profile as” to the right of your photo. Do your skills look good? Are they in a great order? If not, edit again!
It’s great to update skills and then look at your Summary. Oftentimes I’m reminded of new skills that then help with strengthening the Summary.
Make sure the basics of your Linkedin profile are up to date and have a bit of mystery too! Here’s our Linkedin basics cheatsheet.
~
Go beyond your current discomfort with your Linkedin presence and feel comfortable with your Linkedin profile and promotion:
