First global rating of LinkedIn Skills

What makes LinkedIn different from other social networks? First of all it is the professional focus. We use it to find new business connections, communicate with our colleagues and partners, and discover new opportunities.

On February 3, 2011 LinkedIn announced the launch of a new Skills section. This was a logical and quite expected move since the network members act as experts in certain areas. To a great extent it is skills and competence that play a key role in the contemporary business environment – they make us successful and ensure our promotion, or they can help start our own business or develop cutting-edge technologies. One of the most topical tasks of the modern business environment is to quickly understand where people with certain qualifications are concentrated and what they are currently doing.

Based on this I presume that the Skills section will become one of the most valuable sources of information in the future – both for making business decisions and doing research. Just imagine – you are choosing a location for your new office, and within just several minutes you can get information on the number of experts with necessary competence in a certain area, names of the universities they attended, and the companies they are working for. Or another situation – you are planning a conference on a dedicated issue in another country, and you want to learn names of the local experts on the issue you are going to elaborate on. Or perhaps you need to set up a dream team within a very limited timeframe – to develop an innovation product based on Salesforce.com. Or… In fact there can be numerous examples. All we can do now is to wait when these LinkedIn resources become real and we would be able to use them for solving out tasks. :)

Skills & Expertise section was introduced by LinkedIn over 10 months ago but it still remains at beta-testing stage. The service is still being tested and updated – that means we can expect new opportunities and surprises.

But let’s have a look at the resources available today.

The main aspect is that you can add or remove skills from your profile (the only limitation – they are limited by 50). Thus you can reveal your qualification and competence to other users.

You can also see additional information on certain skills. Let’s take Java programming language as an example.

Here is the information available about it:

• Brief description;
• Related Skills – a list of similar skills;
• Diagrams based in 3 criteria – Relative Growth, Size, Age;
• Place which this skill has among the most popular LinkedIn skills (in our case it is 96);
• Java Professionals – a list of 15 experts with such competence (algorithm for this list compilation still remains unknown);
• Java Groups – the list of the most popular groups related to this skill;
• Related Companies – companies where most experts in this area are working;
• Java Jobs – a list of vacancies related to the skill;
• Related Locations – a list of locations where such experts live and work.

So this is pretty much it… So far LinkedIn users do not have a possibility to single out the most popular or dynamic skills, or to have a look at the overall rating of skills. Still I think this has been merely a first move, and soon we shall experience the possibilities mentioned at the beginning of the article.

And while we are waiting let me share information on the current LinkedIn Skills statistics which can help up draw certain conclusions about the distribution of skills among LinkedIn users.

As far as I know this information has not been published on the Internet before, and it is also unavailable to the users through standard LinkedIn resources, which makes it even more interesting.

So the rating of the most popular LinkedIn skills.

Are you surprised by the leading three? Let’s have a look at the full picture.*

Most popular LinkedIn skills
№	Name	Primary Industry	Growth y/y	Size
1	Research	Research	4%	2m
2	Microsoft Office	Higher Education	-5%	2m
3	Budgeting	Marketing and Advertising	-7%	2m
4	Analysis	Information Technology and Services	-1%	2m
5	Production	Media Production	-7%	2m
6	Planning	Telecommunications	-1%	2m
7	Customer Service	Retail	-9%	2m
8	Customer Relations	Information Technology and Services	-4%	2m
9	Education	Education Management	5%	2m
10	Testing	Information Technology and Services	-7%	1m
11	Contract Negotiation	Construction	-4%	1m
12	Administration	Information Technology and Services	-4%	1m
13	Accounting	Accounting	-4%	1m
14	Event Management	Events Services	3%	1m
15	Employment	Human Resources	-9%	1m
16	Product Development	Consumer Goods	-6%	1m
17	Engineering	Oil & Energy	-4%	1m
18	Vendor	Telecommunications	-8%	1m
19	Promotions	Marketing and Advertising	1%	1m
20	Requirements Analysis	Information Technology and Services	-5%	1m
21	Organizing	Nonprofit Organization Management	-4%	1m
22	Retail	Retail	-5%	1m
23	Policy	Government Administration	-2%	1m
24	Writing	Writing and Editing	6%	1m
25	LAN	Telecommunications	-2%	1m
26	Databases	Information Technology and Services	-7%	1m
27	Negotiation	Real Estate	-4%	1m
28	Coordination	Telecommunications	-3%	1m
29	Public Relations	Public Relations and Communications	1%	1m
30	Manufacturing	Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing	-7%	1m
31	Advertising	Marketing and Advertising	-2%	1m
32	Cost	Automotive	-6%	1m
33	English	Translation and Localization	5%	1m
34	Economics	Financial Services	7%	1m
35	Healthcare	Hospital & Health Care	5%	1m
36	Excel	Retail	-7%	1m
37	Revenue	Telecommunications	-8%	960k
38	Compliance	Financial Services	-4%	947k
39	Inventory Management	Retail	-10%	945k
40	Documentation	Information Technology and Services	-6%	914k
41	Materials	Construction	-6%	899k
42	Telecommunications	Telecommunications	-3%	898k
43	Strategic Planning	Management Consulting	-2%	898k
44	Problem Solving	Information Technology and Services	-6%	895k
45	Small Business	Marketing and Advertising	4%	893k
46	Construction	Construction	-6%	884k
47	Teaching	Education Management	8%	866k
48	Innovation	Marketing and Advertising	7%	864k
49	Operating Systems	Information Technology and Services	-4%	851k
50	Mergers	Investment Banking	-6%	826k

* As of December 11, 2011.

And here is TOP 20 of the «fastest growing» LinkedIn skills**.

Fastest growing LinkedIn skills
№	Name	Primary Industry	Growth y/y	Size
1	Common Type System	Information Technology and Services	99%	151
2	Interface Builder	Computer Software	86%	1k
3	Unity3D	Computer Games	86%	3k
4	Social Games	Computer Games	82%	3k
5	SASS	Internet	78%	2k
6	Ad Exchanges	Online Media	74%	805
7	OpenFrameworks	Design	74%	406
8	CiviCRM	Internet	74%	381
9	Talend	Computer Software	70%	2k
10	Clojure	Computer Software	68%	949
11	Twitter	Public Relations and Communications	68%	134k
12	Sinatra	Internet	67%	1k
13	iPhone development	Computer Games	65%	14k
14	Hypershot	Design	45%	962
15	YAML	Internet	65%	572
16	Receiverships	Law Practice	64%	5k
17	CouchDB	Internet	64%	1k
18	Redmine	Program Development	64%	2k
19	Google App Engine	Computer Software	64%	4k
20	Tumblr	Online Media	63%	6k

** As of December 11, 2011. Skills with small user databases are in the lead so quick changes can be expected.

What conclusions can be drawn from these two ratings? I think this is a topic for another article. Today I wanted to share some “inside” information on LinkedIn «Skills & Expertise» section, and draw your attention to this promising feature of the world’s most popular professional network. :)