LinkedIn skills: how the Skills section works, and how sales people should choose, tag and order their skills.

What are LinkedIn skills?

LinkedIn skills are the abilities you list in the Skills section of your LinkedIn profile, such as Negotiation, Account Management or the CRM you work in every day. Each skill is a short, standard label that people can read at a glance and that search can match.

LinkedIn Help describes the purpose plainly: a relevant list of skills helps others understand your strengths and improves your likelihood of being found in other members' searches. That makes the section part profile content and part keyword field.

For people in sales and business development, the audience is wider than recruiters. Buyers check your profile before a first call, partners check it before an introduction, and managers check it before they hire. The skills they see should describe the job you do now, in the words they use.

The LinkedIn skills rules, from LinkedIn Help

These are the limits and behaviors LinkedIn states in its Help Center. Everything else on this page is advice, not a platform rule.

Where skills show up on your LinkedIn profile

Skills are not only a list at the bottom of the page. LinkedIn lets you attach them to the rest of your profile, which gives each skill context: where you used it, and for how long.

The flow below is the order that works for most profiles: build the list, attach it to real work, sort it, then choose the five that lead.

Why LinkedIn skills matter for sales and business development

A seller's LinkedIn profile does double duty. It is a resume for the next employer and a credibility check for the next buyer. The Skills section serves both, because it is short, structured and easy to scan.

• Search: LinkedIn Help says a relevant skills list improves your likelihood of being found in others' searches, including by people who have never met you.
• Buyer trust: a prospect who checks your profile before a meeting sees whether you know their industry and their tools.
• Hiring: sales leaders compare candidates on the same terms they use in job posts, such as pipeline management or enterprise sales.
• Context: skills tied to positions show where each ability was used, which a plain list cannot do.
• Consistency: skills that match your headline and About section make the whole profile tell one story.

How to add skills on LinkedIn

These steps follow LinkedIn Help for desktop. The mobile app uses the same path: tap your profile picture, then View profile, then Add section.

1. Open your profile

   Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then View Profile. On mobile, tap your profile picture, then View profile.

2. Open the skills form

   Click Add profile section in your introduction section, click Core, and select Add skills from the dropdown.

3. Choose the skill

   Type the skill name and pick it from the dropdown, or select one from the list of skills suggested based on your profile.

4. Tag where you used it

   Select the checkboxes for the positions, education or other entries where you put this skill to use, then click Save.

5. Repeat and reorder

   Add the rest of your list, then open the Skills section, click Edit, then More, then Reorder, and drag your strongest skills to the top.

The same Add skill window also offers a checkbox to follow that skill's collaborative articles page. It does not change your profile, so leave it unticked unless you want those articles in your feed.

If you are building a profile from nothing, do the skills after your positions are in. Our guide on how to create a LinkedIn profile covers every other section in order.

How to add skills to a position

LinkedIn Help says you can add different skills to each experience entry, and those skills also appear in the Skills section. Open the Experience section, click the Edit icon next to the position, add the skills you used there, and save.

For sales roles this is the most useful habit on the page. "Negotiation" under an enterprise account executive role at a named employer says more than the same word in a list with no context.

How to remove or edit a LinkedIn skill

To delete a skill, go to your profile, scroll to the Skills section and click the Edit icon. On the Skills page, click the Edit icon next to the skill, then Delete skill at the lower left, and confirm Delete.

Endorsements sit under the skill they belong to, so treat deletion as final. Before you clear out an old skill with many endorsements, decide whether it still describes work you want to be found for. If it does, move it down instead.

You also cannot switch a skill to another language. LinkedIn Help says you must remove it and add it again in the new language, which permanently deletes all its endorsements.

How to reorder skills on LinkedIn

Order matters because visitors see the top of the list first. LinkedIn Help notes that when a profile lists more than three skills, visitors click Show more to see the rest, so the top three do most of the work.

To reorder on desktop, open the Skills section and click the Edit icon, click the More icon at the upper right, choose Reorder, and drag each skill by its sort icon. On mobile, tap and hold the reorder icon and drag.

LinkedIn Help adds three points. Your skills are grouped into Industry Knowledge, Tools & Technologies and Interpersonal Skills once you list more than three. You cannot move a skill from one category to another. And hiding all the endorsements on a skill may move it to the bottom of the list.

Top skills in the About section

Separate from the Skills list, the About section has a Top skills field. LinkedIn's Talent Blog says you can highlight up to five skills there, that LinkedIn preloads five based on the rest of your profile, and that you can replace them with any five you choose.

To change them, open the About section and click the Edit icon. Pick five that answer the question a buyer or hiring manager has when they land on your profile: what does this person do, for whom, and with what.

A good top five for a seller mixes one core selling skill, one industry, one tool and one or two skills specific to the motion you run. Do not spend all five on soft skills that every candidate lists.

How many skills should you add on LinkedIn?

The limit is 100, but the limit is not a target. A long list dilutes the skills that matter, and endorsements spread thinly across dozens of vague labels. For most sales and business development profiles, a focused list works better than a full one.

A practical way to decide: every skill should pass one test. Could you describe a deal, a result or a project where you used it? If not, leave it off. Then make sure the ones that pass are ordered by relevance to the role you want next.

How to choose the right LinkedIn skills

Good skill choices come from the outside in. Start with what your buyers, managers and target employers search for, then check it against what you can prove.

• Use the searcher's words. Read three or four job posts for the role you want, or the titles your buyers hold, and note the terms they repeat.
• Pick from the dropdown. Choose the closest skill name LinkedIn suggests rather than a phrase of your own, so it matches what others type.
• Be specific. "Enterprise Software Sales" tells a buyer more than "Sales". Keep one broad skill and let the rest be precise.
• Balance hard and soft skills. Hard skills such as forecasting or a CRM prove capability; soft skills such as negotiation or relationship building show how you work.
• Cover the three categories. Industry knowledge, tools and technologies, and interpersonal skills are how LinkedIn groups your list, so give each a few strong entries.
• Drop what is out of date. Tools you no longer use and industries you left pull attention away from where you are going.

If you sell to a defined market, your ideal customer profile is a good source of industry skills. The industries and buyer roles in it are the ones that should appear on your profile.

LinkedIn skills for sales professionals, by role

The lists below were written for this page. They are starting points, not a ranking. Use the exact names LinkedIn suggests when you type them, which may differ slightly from the wording here.

Add your industry to every row: the vertical you sell into, such as healthcare or manufacturing, and the kind of product, such as SaaS or professional services. Industry knowledge is often what separates two sellers with otherwise identical lists.

If you prospect on LinkedIn, the skills should match the story you tell in messages. Our guide to LinkedIn prospecting covers what prospects check on your profile before they reply.

An example skill order for an account executive

This example was written for this page. It is for a fictional account executive who sells software to manufacturers and wants to move into enterprise deals.

The order moves the target role and the industry above generic selling skills. A buyer from a manufacturing company sees in seconds that this seller knows their world.

LinkedIn skills, your resume and recruiters

When you are looking for your next sales job, your LinkedIn profile and your resume should tell the same career story. Recruiters often read both, and a skill that is important on the resume but missing from LinkedIn raises a question you do not want in a screening call.

• Mirror the key skills. The hard skills and soft skills at the top of your resume should also sit near the top of your LinkedIn skills list.
• Use the job description. Recruiters search for the terms in their own job posts, so the professional skills they name are the ones worth listing first.
• Add examples on both. A resume bullet with a result and a LinkedIn skill tagged to the same job support each other.
• Keep LinkedIn wider. Your profile can hold more skills than one resume page, so it can show industry knowledge and tools a resume has no room for.

For visibility to recruiters, LinkedIn's Talent Blog also says endorsements elevate your profile in LinkedIn Recruiter searches. That is LinkedIn's own statement about its own product, with no number attached, and it is one more reason to ask the right people.

Communication, leadership and problem solving are common soft skills in job posts for sales roles. List them if they are true, but pair them with hard skills and industry knowledge, because every candidate for the same job lists the same soft skills.

How LinkedIn skill endorsements work

An endorsement is a 1st-degree connection confirming a skill already on your profile. LinkedIn Help says endorsements reinforce the weighting of a skill, add to the strength of your profile, and increase the likelihood you will be discovered for opportunities related to that skill.

• Who can endorse: only 1st-degree connections, and only for skills you listed. The difference between degrees is explained in what 3rd means on LinkedIn.
• No request needed: connections can endorse you without being asked, and you get a notification by default.
• Visible: the endorser's name and picture appear next to the skill.
• Order: LinkedIn Help says the most endorsed skills move to the top of the section when others view it.
• Not a recommendation: recommendations are written statements; endorsements are one click.

How to get endorsements that mean something

Endorsements carry weight when they come from people who saw the work. A skill endorsed by a former manager and two customers says more than one endorsed by fifty people you met once.

• Ask for specific skills. Name one or two skills and the work the person saw, instead of a general "please endorse me".
• Ask the right people. Managers, peers on the same team, partners and customers you worked with closely.
• Endorse honestly first. Endorsing a colleague for a skill you have seen them use is a natural moment to ask, but never trade endorsements you cannot stand behind.
• Keep your network relevant. Endorsements come only from 1st-degree connections, so good LinkedIn networking habits feed this section too.

What happened to LinkedIn Skill Assessments?

LinkedIn Skill Assessments were short tests that could earn a badge on your profile. LinkedIn Help now states they are no longer available, and that badges from completed assessments were removed from member profiles in 2024, along with the related data.

LinkedIn gives the reason as feedback from hirers: examples of how a candidate applied a skill are more useful than a test. Its replacement is the tagging described above, where you connect skills to jobs, projects, education and credentials. Any article telling you to take an assessment is out of date.

Skill suggestions and Premium key skills

When you add a skill, LinkedIn shows a list suggested based on your profile. Treat it as a reminder, not a recommendation. Accept what fits the role you want and skip the rest, especially skills from jobs you have left behind.

LinkedIn Help also describes a Premium feature that suggests key skills from your desired job title and experience. At the time of checking, the Help page said it was available only through that Help Center article, not inside the product.

Keeping your LinkedIn skills current

A skills section drifts. New tools arrive, markets change, and a list built for your first sales job no longer fits a manager role. Review it at a few natural moments.

• When you change jobs: add the new position, tag the skills you use there, and move the new industry up.
• When you change tools: add the new CRM or platform and move the old one down or out.
• Before a job search: compare your top ten with the job posts you are targeting.
• Before a big prospecting push: make sure the industry and problem your outreach mentions are visible near the top.

If you use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find buyers, remember they can look at you too. A current Skills section is part of the same first impression as your headline and photo.

Common LinkedIn skills mistakes

• Filling all 100 slots with vague labels, so the relevant skills get lost.
• Listing skills you cannot back up with a deal, a project or a role.
• Leaving the default order, so an old or generic skill sits at the top.
• Using only soft skills and no industry or tool skills.
• Keeping skills from a career you have left, which confuses buyers and recruiters.
• Deleting a heavily endorsed skill without deciding whether you still want to be found for it.
• Never tagging skills to positions, so none of them has context.
• Following advice about Skill Assessments or a 50 skill limit from articles that are out of date.

A message to ask for skill endorsements

The template below was written for this page. Send it to someone who saw you use the skills you name, one person at a time, and only after the profile itself is in order.

Hi {{firstName}},

I am tidying up the skills on my LinkedIn profile. You saw me do {{specificWork}} at {{company}}, so if you think it fits, an endorsement for {{skill1}} or {{skill2}} would mean a lot.

Only if it matches what you actually saw. And if there is a skill of yours I can speak to, tell me which one.

{{senderName}}

Frequently asked questions