Picking LinkedIn skills for smart job seekers

Step 1: Start With a Basic SkillFirst, you want to start high level. Pick a Skill that is all encompassing for what you do. Using the skills’ pages’ auto-suggest, begin typing the name of  your Skill. LinkedIn will suggest the most commonly used version of that name.Open up that skills page and add it to your profile if its not already there.Step 2: Filter Down to More Targeted SkillsOnce you’re on the high-level skills page, there are a number of important research tools available to you.Next, look for the graph called Relative Growth on the top right of the page:This chart tells you which skills are growing, year over year, relative to other, related skills.Now pick a skill with a positive growth rate.You may find many skills with a negative growth rate, avoid these. Act like you didn’t see them.Next, tab over to the Size chart. You’ll see your high-level skill will devour it’s closest competitor, much like this: Click on the next one down to get a better view:Start pic king related skills but have a smaller size and a positive growth curve. For example, I found Creative Resourcing is a skill with relatively fewer  competitors (only 460 people use it) but with a very high growth curve (23% year over year growth).Jackpot.Step 3: Build Your Skills LibraryQuick Recap: We began with a high-level skill and added many related smaller, high-growth skills. This allows you to build a smarter skills library.This is what your skills library should look like:I                                   (Large size, low growth)I-I-I                            (Medium size, medium or level relative growth)I-I-I-I-I-I                 (Small size, high growth)Your last step is to add no more than 50 total skills. Then sit back and wait for your endorsements to trickle in.It’s a beautiful thing.Joshua Waldman, author of  Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies, is recognized as one of the nations top authorities in Social Media C areer Advancement. To learn Joshua’s secret strategies for shortening the  online job search  and getting the right job right away, watch his exclusive video training here to learn  How To Use Social Media Find a Job