Got skills? Adding skills and getting endorsed - LinkedIn Tutorial

- Who are some of your favorite superheroes? Maybe it's Wonder Woman, Batman, or the Black Panther. Superheroes have superpowers, things they can do really well that no other superhero can. Well, you have these, too, and they're called skills. So, why is it important to add key skills to your LinkedIn profile? Adding skills to your profile allows you to highlight your abilities, strengths, and expertise, and to build your credibility among peers, colleagues, managers, and even recruiters. Why? Because a third party validating the skillsets you say you have helps to build trust in your professional experience, and adding key skills lets others find you more easily. In fact, members with five or more skills listed are discovered up to 27 times more in searches on LinkedIn, and receive up to 17 times more profile views. Now let's talk about endorsements. Once you add a skill to your profile, that skill can be endorsed by your professional community. Keep in mind, only your first-degree connections can endorse you for a skill. So, why do endorsements matter to you? When a connection endorses you for a skill, it strengthens your profile and increases the likelihood that you'll be discovered for opportunities related to your skills. Pretty great, right? On LinkedIn, you're in full control of all the skills and endorsements within your profile. Let's go ahead and check our endorsement settings to make sure they're adjusted to your liking. Let's dive into James's profile so we can see how endorsements show up. First, we'll scroll down to the Skills and Endorsements section of his profile. Next, James will need to make sure that his endorsement settings are adjusted to his liking. He'll do this by simply clicking into the pencil to edit, clicking on Adjust endorsement settings, and switching the toggle to make sure that the settings are adjusted to how he wants. For James, he wants to see suggestions to endorse his connections, so he'll simply flip the toggle on, then he'll X out. Did you know that LinkedIn automatically pulls the top three skills you've received the most endorsements on and displays them within your profile? That's what you're seeing here in James's profile. If you want to see more skills at any time, simply click Show more and you'll see all the different skills that you've received endorsement on and that you've listed within your profile. You can adjust your top three at any time, and James would like to change the top three skills that he has listed in his profile. To do this, he'll simply click into the pencil to edit and either unpin the skill or pin it back up if that's what he wants to see listed within his top skills, and then click Save. As you evolve in your career, make sure you update your top three skills to reflect the new skillsets you've acquired. Also, did you know that you don't have to accept endorsements that don't support your career journey? To hide a skill endorsement, simply click into the skill on your profile and switch the visibility toggle off for any people who you don't want endorsing you for that skill. For James, he doesn't want to see this endorsement from Daniel, so he'll simply switch the visibility toggle off and save. This will make it so that endorsement doesn't appear on his profile from Daniel. Lastly, here's some final nuggets for you. When adding skills to your profile, make sure to add a broad range of hard and soft skills that support your professional brand. Have awesome Microsoft PowerPoint skills? Add that. What about the fact that you have skills in robotics or Python? That can be added to your profile, too. Maybe you have incredible leadership or coaching skills. Add that as well. Don't forget, LinkedIn will categorize your skills into expertise areas based on industry knowledge, tools and technology, interpersonal skills, languages, and other skills you have. You can add a maximum of 50 skills to your profile that represent you. Start building credibility and add five or more skills that represent the amazing professional that is you.