LinkedIn has become one of the most important platforms for professionals to build their personal brand and showcase their skills to potential employers or clients. With over 690 million users worldwide, LinkedIn offers a great opportunity to display your abilities in your industry and connect with the right people.
However, simply having a LinkedIn profile is no longer enough. You need to optimize your profile and use all the features available to highlight your talents, accomplishments, and expertise. This allows you to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by recruiters or prospective clients searching the platform.
Why Showcase Skills on LinkedIn?
Here are some key reasons you should make sure to showcase your skills properly on your LinkedIn profile:
- Recruiters and hiring managers use LinkedIn to search for potential candidates. Displaying your skills clearly allows them to quickly see if you have the abilities they are looking for.
- Your LinkedIn profile can rank highly in search engines when people search for your skills and experience. This gives you broader visibility.
- LinkedIn displays suggested skills on profiles. Properly showcasing your capabilities ensures your profile displays the right skill recommendations.
- Skills allow you to be discovered by industry professionals with similar abilities. They can then connect with you for collaborations or advice.
- Demonstrating expertise builds your professional brand and trust. This attracts more opportunities and interest from companies and clients.
How to Showcase Skills on LinkedIn
Follow these tips to effectively highlight your skills on your LinkedIn profile:
Complete the Skills Section
The Skills section is one of the first places hiring managers and recruiters will look on your profile. You can list up to 50 skills that relate to your experience and expertise. Make sure to include:
- Technical skills: Proficiencies like programming languages, software, tools, and methodologies that apply to your work.
- Transferrable skills: Abilities like communication, leadership, teamwork, problem-solving and time management.
- Specialized knowledge: Industry-specific expertise like regulations, systems or certifications in your field.
Review profiles of leaders in your industry to get ideas for relevant skills to add. Keep this section updated as you gain proficiencies.
Back Up Skills with Your Experience
Simply listing out skills is not enough. You need to back up your capabilities by demonstrating how you apply them through your work experience. When describing your roles:
- Mention specific examples of how you utilized each skill or expertise.
- Use metrics or results to quantify your capabilities. For example, “Increased website traffic by 200% through SEO optimization.”
- List projects where you applied certain skills, along with the outcome.
This validation builds trust and shows you truly possess the abilities listed.
Get Endorsements
Ask colleagues, clients or managers you’ve worked with to endorse you for your top skills. Endorsements act as social proof and verify that others see you as an expert in those areas.
You can return the favor by endorsing connections for skills where you’ve directly witnessed their capabilities. This strengthens your professional network.
Earn Badges to Verify Skills
LinkedIn offers over 50 skill assessment tests you can take to get a badge verifying your proficiency. Badges appear next to the skill and are a powerful way to showcase abilities.
Focus on earning badges for your most important or specialized skills. Be sure you can confidently demonstrate that expertise before taking the test.
Join Relevant Groups
Become an active member in LinkedIn Groups related to your skills and interests. You can showcase knowledge by:
- Posting thoughtful discussions and helping answer questions.
- Sharing useful articles, resources and tips.
- Offering advice, insights and ideas.
Position yourself as an expert and engage with the Group to build connections.
Use Rich Media
Leverage options like images, videos, SlideShare presentations and custom links. These allow you to vividly demonstrate your skills in action. For example:
- A designer can display an online portfolio of projects.
- An accountant can link to a financial forecasting template they created.
- A marketer can share a video of a successful ad campaign.
Multimedia stands out and provides tangible evidence of what you can do.
Showcasing Skills in LinkedIn Profile Sections
Beyond the Skills section, there are several other parts of your LinkedIn profile perfect for highlighting your capabilities. Take advantage of them with these tips:
Headline
Your LinkedIn headline appears right below your name and photo. It has valuable real estate at the top of your profile. Use it to showcase your most impressive or relevant skills and expertise. For example:
“Digital Marketing Specialist | Social Media Strategy | SEO | Email Marketing”
About Section
The About section has space for you to provide a professional summary. Focus on:
- Skills and experience highlights that make you uniquely qualified.
- Key career accomplishments that demonstrate skills in action.
- Notable projects you led or participated in.
Keep it concise and impactful.
Experience Entries
Under each role in your Experience section, mention the specific skills you leveraged or gained. Weave in examples and metrics that exhibit your capabilities, as suggested earlier.
Education
Include relevant coursework, certifications, academic projects or involvement in societies/clubs. Tailor it to skills that align with your target role. For example, a Computer Science major can list programming languages and systems learned.
Licenses & Certifications
Display professional certs that required significant skill training and expertise to obtain. For sought-after skills like project management or agile, a certification can give you a competitive edge.
Recommendations
Ask managers, colleagues and clients who’ve seen you demonstrate certain skills to provide a recommendation. Their endorsements of your capabilities add to your credibility.
Featured & Portfolio
Use sections like Featured and Portfolio to highlight impactful examples of your skills in action through case studies, projects, presentations and publications.
Keywords in LinkedIn Profile
Given how extensively recruiters and employers use LinkedIn to identify talent, it’s vital to optimize your profile with relevant keywords. Follow these tips:
- Research keywords commonly used in LinkedIn profiles and job postings for your target role.
- Incorporate them naturally into your profile sections, not just Skills. But avoid overusing them.
- Include variations like acronyms, synonyms and related terms.
- Place key skills in your LinkedIn URL to make it easy to share.
This allows your ideal opportunities to surface your profile more easily in searches.
Measure Profile Views
You can check who has viewed your LinkedIn profile in the last 90 days. Monitor this to see if showcasing your skills leads to more profile views, especially from target companies you want to work for.
Premium Subscribers can see more detail on viewers and leverage tools like analytics to optimize their profile.
Conclusion
Showcasing your skills properly on your LinkedIn profile is essential for enhancing your professional brand and opportunities. By following the strategies above, you can craft an engaging profile that convinces recruiters and connections you have the right abilities to contribute value in your industry.
Keep your profile updated as you expand your skills. The more comprehensive and compelling your LinkedIn presence, the more it will boost your career advancement.
