The “Skills” section allows you to list out your top skills .
People you’re connected to “Endorse” you, which is a quick way of indicating that they vouch for your competence in these areas .
A quick note: I don’t think this section is as important as others because it’s all about “telling” rather than “showing,” but there’s nothing wrong with identifying your top 10 or 15 skills, especially if you’re trying to get noticed for these abilities
How to update your “Skills” section: on your profile page, click the blue box that says “Add Profile” section. You’ll get a drop-down menu where the third option is “Skills.” Click on that, then add up to 50 skills. LinkedIn will make recommendations to you based on your profile, but again, you can be strategically based on what you’d like people to find or potentially hire you for.
Extra credit: I believe one of the most important aspects of using LinkedIn is treating it like a community. You’re not just there to share your own perspective or voice – you’re there to support others. That’s why it’s a great practice to endorse people in your network. You don’t need to go overboard, but try to spend about 5-10 minutes endorsing the people in your network for their skills. It’s a really simple way to help out your network.
The “Accomplishments” section is your time to shine! This is where you can really build out your portfolio and show off your work.
Ideally, you’ll be using this section to show the work you’ve done for previous clients or employers.
You can also show off work you’ve done for your own blog, a school project, or through a course that you’ve taken. The important thing is to give potential clients a clear idea of what you can do.
“Accomplishments” are divided into the following subsections: “Publication”, “Patent”, “Course”, “Project”, “Honor” or “Award”, “Test Score Language”, and “Organization”.
Personally, I find “Publication” and “Project” are the sections that I update the most.
I try to make a habit of updating “My Publications” section about once a month.
This way if anyone contacts me and wants to see recent samples of my work, I can easily pull them (or just direct people to my LinkedIn profile!)
How to update your “Skills” section: on your profile page, click the blue box that says “Add Profile” section. You’ll get a drop-down menu where “Accomplishments” is the 4th item on the list. Select it, then choose which type of accomplishment you’d like to add. LinkedIn will prompt you to add in relevant information such as URLs, dates, and descriptions.
Extra credit: create a recurring calendar reminder for yourself so that you remember to keep your “Accomplishments” section up to date!
A Brief Interlude about Building Habits
We’re now done with the basics of building out your profile – great job!
I want to take a moment to encourage you to build some good habits on LinkedIn to get the most out of the platform.
This means periodically reviewing your profile to make sure it’s up to date, adding in new information and projects frequently, engaging with other people by endorsing their skills, liking and commenting on their posts, and connecting with new contacts soon after you’ve met them.
You might find it helpful to create a recurring calendar event. Set aside 10 minutes every Monday or one hour on the last Friday of the month – whatever works for you!
Just remember that you want to make a regular habit of using LinkedIn – the more you use it, the more you’ll get out of it!
