Monday, December 12, 2011

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
4%
2m
2
Higher Education
-5%
2m
3
Marketing and Advertising
-7%
2m
4
Information Technology and Services
-1%
2m
5
Media Production
-7%
2m
6
Telecommunications
-1%
2m
7
Retail
-9%
2m
8
Information Technology and Services
-4%
2m
9
Education Management
5%
2m
10
Information Technology and Services
-7%
1m
11
Construction
-4%
1m
12
Information Technology and Services
-4%
1m
13
Accounting
-4%
1m
14
Events Services
3%
1m
15
Human Resources
-9%
1m
16
Consumer Goods
-6%
1m
17
Oil & Energy
-4%
1m
18
Telecommunications
-8%
1m
19
Marketing and Advertising
1%
1m
20
Information Technology and Services
-5%
1m
21
Nonprofit Organization Management
-4%
1m
22
Retail
-5%
1m
23
Government Administration
-2%
1m
24
Writing and Editing
6%
1m
25
Telecommunications
-2%
1m
26
Information Technology and Services
-7%
1m
27
Real Estate
-4%
1m
28
Telecommunications
-3%
1m
29
Public Relations and Communications
1%
1m
30
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
-7%
1m
31
Marketing and Advertising
-2%
1m
32
Automotive
-6%
1m
33
Translation and Localization
5%
1m
34
Financial Services
7%
1m
35
Hospital & Health Care
5%
1m
36
Retail
-7%
1m
37
Telecommunications
-8%
960k
38
Financial Services
-4%
947k
39
Retail
-10%
945k
40
Information Technology and Services
-6%
914k
41
Construction
-6%
899k
42
Telecommunications
-3%
898k
43
Management Consulting
-2%
898k
44
Information Technology and Services
-6%
895k
45
Marketing and Advertising
4%
893k
46
Construction
-6%
884k
47
Education Management
8%
866k
48
Marketing and Advertising
7%
864k
49
Information Technology and Services
-4%
851k
50
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
Information Technology and Services
99%
151
2
Computer Software
86%
1k
3
Computer Games
86%
3k
4
Computer Games
82%
3k
5
Internet
78%
2k
6
Online Media
74%
805
7
Design
74%
406
8
Internet
74%
381
9
Computer Software
70%
2k
10
Computer Software
68%
949
11
Public Relations and Communications
68%
134k
12
Internet
67%
1k
13
Computer Games
65%
14k
14
Design
45%
962
15
Internet
65%
572
16
Law Practice
64%
5k
17
Internet
64%
1k
18
Program Development
64%
2k
19
Computer Software
64%
4k
20
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. :)

10 comments:

Mate said...

Victor

Of curiosity, how did you manage to get the above "top" lists?

italabre said...

Hi Mat.
This is professional secret:)
I could say that some Boolean Search technics were used.
Thanks!

habesz85 said...

Hi Victor!

I've checked your list, but it seems like the rank of skills are changing fast. Are you planning on uplating your list in the near future?

Jef said...

Can someone provide me with the entire list of LinkedIn Skills & Expertise?

Unknown said...

I have created an updated list of top Linkedin Skills if anyone interested
http://linkedinprofileservice.co/linkedin-profile/linkedin-profiles/linkedin-skills-list-top-linkedin-skills-examples/

Anonymous said...

where does LinkedIn get this skill list?

is there only self-verification of skills on linkedin?

Avrant said...

Hi Victor, I have made manually a partial list of the top 100 skills (it´s been pretty fun so far), however there is 13teen skills missing.

I used your list and it was helpful despite that many of the entries are now out of the top 100.

Would you help me identify those 13teen missing skills (or some of them) by its positions on the rank? If so, I,ll send the complete file to the email you give me.

My personal email is [ andres.velasquez@yahoo.com ]

...and the missing skills in the rank are:
21st
34st
35st
41st
44st
55st
56st
62st
78st
84st
85st
94st
99st

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