3 LinkedIn Features You May not Know About; The world has changed, and so has LinkedIn!

Most of us know by now that LinkedIn is a business and job search-oriented social media platform. We can set up a profile, connect with others, and search for work on LinkedIn. But, have you kept up with the constant changes to LinkedIn’s functionality? Here are just a few surprising things we’ve found by exploring the menus, speaking with recruiters, and reading help screens:

1. LinkedIn skills assessments are gone,
2. You can add more skills than ever to your profile, and
3. Market recent “career breaks” in a positive way.

As we observed last year in another post, at least 77 jobseekers per second apply for employment on LinkedIn. This means the competition is fierce, even in an era of labor shortages. Every edge you can get in the job market will help.

More than 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn. The recruiting tools LinkedIn offers are so valuable to hiring teams that the platform has reportedly doubled its prices. Although jobseekers can purchase premium accounts, they can get many functions for free because their information is so important to recruiters and other businesses that pay for specialized tools.

Let’s look at a few important updates for 2024.

LinkedIn skill assessments are gone! What now?

Many of us have been asked to take skill tests as part of job application processes. The function recruiters and internal hiring teams use to find you on LinkedIn, known as LinkedIn Recruiter, allowed recruiters to request skill assessment results when you applied for their jobs until recently.

We found that the skills assessment function is no longer available. Instead, when we clicked on specific skills, LinkedIn asked us to “demonstrate my skills” by checking the job, education, volunteer, or project entries where we used each skill.

LinkedIn claims that employers really want to know where you used your skills. There may be another reason, too. Specifically, a recruiter told us the answers to skills tests became available online. As a result, the tests may have lost credibility.

There were 96 technical, business, and design software skill assessments available at one time, according to LinkedIn Help. Jobseekers were able to take assessments that were relevant for them so they would be ready if asked about assessment results.

Expect employers and recruiters to use skills assessments of their own, or skills assessment services they contract with for testing candidates. So, only include skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile that you can demonstrate proficiency in.

Add relevant skills to your profile!

For years, LinkedIn has allowed us to list up to 50 skills in our skills section but this has changed. Now, we are permitted to list up to 100 skills.

As always, when you start typing a skill, LinkedIn will suggest a skill from its database. Use skills that are in the database to increase the chances that employers will search for skills you have listed.

While you don’t need to fill all 100 slots, this means you have plenty of space to include soft skills, such as presentation skills, that employers want, but don’t necessarily use as search criteria. (Nearly every jobseeker claims soft skills so they tend not to be a differentiator.)

We recommend you remove obsolete skills and skills in fields you no longer work in. For example, if you work with computer software, you may not want to list skills in obsolete technologies such as MS-DOS unless you are applying to places that still use them. Do not use outdated or irrelevant skills just to fill 100 slots.

Continue to avoid the “career break” option.

A tempting feature we pointed out last year is the career break option. LinkedIn will offer this option when you choose to add a work experience block to your profile. Jobseekers that took career breaks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and those that have been impacted by a recent round of layoffs may be inclined to use the career break option.

Career breaks do not show up in profile information recruiters receive. As a result, recruiters that use LinkedIn recruiting software would not see what you did during your break. They will see a blank time period in your experience,

Instead, fill in the part-time, volunteer, professional enrichment, or other relevant activities you engaged in on your break using a regular work experience entry, such as self-employment. Then, recruiters and hiring managers will see that you were not idle.

The “career break” option may have been intended to offer privacy for time away from the workforce. In our opinion, this would not work to your advantage because employers do not like to see gaps in employment—even gaps that were not your fault.

For additional details on this strategy, click here.

Upload your resume to be found faster.

Last year, LinkedIn rolled out a setting that allows you to be found based on data in the resumes you upload. Career coaches have told me that some clients have been found based on data in their resume even though there is very little information in their LinkedIn profile.

We have been advising jobseekers not to attach resumes to their profiles as media documents, so it’s understandable if you are confused. Media that you upload to sections of your profile is not searchable. Resumes that you upload and store in the job application function are searchable when you turn on the setting that makes the data visible for recruiters.

Not everyone wants their resumes to be “in the cloud” for anyone to see. Fortunately, only the data in the resume is searchable. In other words, your profile will be found in searches based on keywords in resumes you have uploaded for use in job applications, not just the keywords in your LinkedIn profile.

Check your settings page periodically if you cannot find this setting now because it may not have been rolled-out to you yet. (My “make resume available” setting is turned off because I have not uploaded a resume.)

Concluding comments

LinkedIn continues to be useful, widely trusted, and fun to explore because its features and functions change often. Remember that LinkedIn is not a panacea, and should not take up most of your job search time, although it is worthwhile to be active on the platform. Don’t just post a profile and forget it.