How to Add Skills and Endorsements on LinkedIn

Okay, let’s be honest for a second: the skills section is the part of your LinkedIn profile you probably filled in once, three jobs ago, and never looked at again. So here’s how to add skills and endorsements on LinkedIn the right way. Go to your profile, scroll to (or add) the Skills section, tap Add a new skill, type the skill, associate it with a job, and save it. Endorsements come from your connections vouching for those skills, and you can reorder, pin, hide, or remove any of them whenever you like. That’s the whole mechanic. The strategy behind it, though, is where the real magic happens, and that’s what I want to walk you through, gently and completely.

Why the skills section matters more than you think

Here’s the part nobody tells you: the skills section isn’t just a tidy little list of adjectives. It’s one of the ways LinkedIn’s search actually understands what you do. When a recruiter, a hiring manager, or a potential client types a term into the search bar, LinkedIn is matching that term against your headline, your experience, and yes, your listed skills. If “content strategy” isn’t anywhere on your profile, you’re basically invisible to the person searching for exactly that.

So think of your skills as keywords with a purpose. They tell the algorithm who to show you to, and they tell a human, at a glance, whether you’re the person they’ve been looking for. Treating this section as an afterthought is like building a beautiful storefront and then forgetting to put up a sign. I promise this gets easier once you see it that way — you’re not decorating, you’re getting found. And getting found is the whole point of being on the platform in the first place.

How to add skills and endorsements on LinkedIn, step by step

Let’s do the mechanics first, because once your hands know the buttons, the strategy is the fun part. These steps work on both desktop and the mobile app, with only tiny wording differences that I’ll flag as we go.

Adding a new skill

• Go to your profile and scroll to the Skills section. If you don’t have one yet, use Add profile section → Core → Add skills.
• Click Add a new skill (the pencil or the plus, depending on your view).
• Start typing. LinkedIn suggests standardized skills as you go — pick from those suggestions when you can, because standardized skills are the ones search recognizes cleanly.
• You can associate the skill with a specific job in your Experience, with your education, or with a license. Do this. It adds credibility and helps the skill show up in context where it means something.
• Save. Repeat for each skill, up to LinkedIn’s limit of 100.

Reordering and pinning your top skills

This is the step most people skip, and it’s the highest-leverage one. LinkedIn shows a handful of skills prominently and tucks the rest behind a “show more” click. You want your most strategic skills sitting at the very top, greeting every visitor first.

• Open the edit view for your Skills section (the pencil icon).
• Look for the reorder handles — the little grid of dots beside each skill.
• Drag your three or four most important, most-searched skills to the top.
• Save. That’s it. Those pinned skills are now the first thing a visitor’s eye lands on, and the first thing that shapes their impression of you.

Getting and managing endorsements

An endorsement is simply one of your connections clicking to confirm, “yep, she really can do this.” You don’t add endorsements to yourself — other people give them — but you have full control over how they appear on your profile.

• To earn them: the fastest, kindest way is to endorse people you genuinely respect. Reciprocity is real and human; when you vouch for a colleague’s copywriting, they often think to vouch for yours.
• To hide one: open a skill’s detail, find the endorsement, and toggle its visibility off. Great for when a well-meaning acquaintance endorses you for something off-brand.
• To manage them all: in the Skills edit view you can turn endorsements on or off entirely, and choose whether to be notified when you receive one.

A quick, warm note: don’t obsess over the endorsement count. A skill with a modest number of endorsements from relevant, credible people quietly outperforms one with a big pile from folks who’ve never seen you work. Quality of source beats quantity of clicks, every time.

And if you ever want to nudge an endorsement along, a warm, specific message works far better than a mass request. Something like, “Hey, I really valued working with you on that launch — would you feel comfortable endorsing me for campaign strategy?” is honest, easy to say yes to, and it reminds the person exactly what they’re vouching for. People are usually glad to help when you make it simple and sincere.

A note on the mobile app

If you’re doing all this from your phone, the flow is nearly identical — tap your profile photo, go to View profile, scroll to Skills, and use the pencil to edit or the plus to add. The reorder handles are there too; you just press and drag. I mention this because so many people tell themselves they’ll “do LinkedIn properly at a computer someday” and then never do. You can genuinely fix your top three from the couch tonight. That’s the whole point of walking you through how to add skills and endorsements on LinkedIn in a way that fits real life.

How do you choose which skills to feature?

This is the heart of it, and it’s genuinely a strategy question, not a memory test. Your instinct is probably to list everything you’ve ever touched. Resist that. The goal isn’t to prove you’re a Swiss Army knife; it’s to make one crisp, confident argument about who you are.

Here’s the framework I come back to again and again. Sort every possible skill into three buckets:

• Signature skills — the two or three things you want to be known for, the ones tied to the roles or clients you’re chasing next. These go up top, pinned, no exceptions.
• Supporting skills — the credible, adjacent abilities that round out the picture and back up your signature story. These live in the middle.
• Nice-to-haves — real skills that just aren’t part of the story you’re telling right now. Keep a few for depth; cut the rest so they don’t dilute the signal.

The trick to filling these buckets well is to write toward the future, not the past. Pull up three or four job posts or client briefs for the work you actually want, and notice which phrases keep showing up. Those recurring terms are the skills worth featuring, in the exact wording the people hiring already use. You’re not guessing — you’re reading the room and answering it.

What good skill sets actually look like

Sometimes it’s easier to see the shape of it with real examples. Notice how, in each case, the signature skills are specific and searchable rather than vague:

• A social media manager: signature — Social Media Strategy, Content Creation, Community Management; supporting — Copywriting, Analytics, Paid Social.
• A software developer: signature — the two or three languages or frameworks they want their next role in; supporting — testing, version control, the databases they actually use.
• A freelance designer: signature — Brand Identity, UI Design, the core tool they’re hired for; supporting — illustration, prototyping, client communication.

See the pattern? “Leadership” and “Teamwork” are lovely traits, but almost nobody searches for them, so they make weak signature skills. Trade them for the concrete, in-demand terms that describe your actual craft, and let the soft skills live quietly in your recommendations instead.

How many skills should you actually add?

LinkedIn lets you list up to 100, but “can” and “should” are very different animals. The honest answer: enough to be discoverable, few enough to be focused. For most people that lands somewhere in the range of a dozen to a couple dozen genuinely relevant skills, with the top three doing the heavy lifting.

Rather than chase a magic number, run a simple test on each skill: Does this help the right person find me, or does it help them understand me faster? If a skill does neither, it’s just noise. Clarity beats completeness every single time, and a lean, intentional list reads as confidence.

Skill tier	What belongs here	Where it lives
Signature	The 2–3 things you want to be hired for	Pinned at the very top
Supporting	Credible, adjacent abilities that back you up	The middle of the list
Nice-to-have	Real but off-story skills, kept for depth	A short tail, or cut entirely

How to make your skills work with the rest of your profile

Your skills don’t live on an island. They’re strongest when they echo the story your whole profile is already telling. Think of it as a chorus — the same key themes showing up in your headline, your About section, your experience bullets, and your skills, all singing together.

So if “social media strategy” is a signature skill, it should also appear, in natural language, in your headline and in the way you describe your recent roles. When those elements agree with each other, both the algorithm and the human reader feel a lovely sense of coherence — this person knows exactly who she is. That consistency is the same muscle you use everywhere online, and if you want to go deeper on presenting yourself well across platforms, our guide to social media management tips pulls the whole picture together.

It also helps to think about proof. A skill sitting alone is a claim; a skill supported by a matching experience bullet, a featured post, or a recommendation is a demonstrated fact. Whenever you can, attach a skill to the job where you actually used it, and let your endorsements and recommendations quietly corroborate the story. Little touches of evidence turn a list into a case.

Should you bother with LinkedIn skill assessments?

LinkedIn offers short quizzes for certain skills, and passing one earns you a small badge next to that skill. Are they worth your time? For skills where a verified badge genuinely reassures a hiring manager — think concrete, testable tools and languages — a badge can be a nice, honest signal that costs you a few minutes. For softer or strategic skills, they matter far less, and your real work speaks louder. My take: grab a badge or two for your most technical signature skills if it’s easy, and don’t lose a wink of sleep over the rest.

A simple monthly workflow you can start today

Here’s the kind gift you can give your future self: a tiny, repeatable routine so your profile never goes stale again. It takes maybe fifteen minutes a month.

• Reread your top three. Do they still match the work you want next month? Careers drift; your pinned skills should drift with them.
• Add anything new. Finished a project, learned a tool, ran a campaign? Add the skill while it’s fresh and attach it to the relevant role.
• Prune the noise. Hide or remove one skill or endorsement that no longer fits the story you’re telling.
• Give one genuine endorsement. Vouch for someone whose work you truly admire. It’s generous, it’s honest, and it keeps the reciprocity flowing.

Because your LinkedIn presence is part of a bigger content and posting rhythm, it pays to bundle this little audit into the same cadence you use for the rest of your channels. If scheduling that consistency is your struggle, our walkthrough on how to schedule social media posts shows you how to set a rhythm you’ll actually keep — and a rhythm is exactly what turns a good profile into a magnetic one.

Common mistakes (and the gentle fix for each)

None of these are character flaws, promise — they’re just easy traps. Here’s how to sidestep them.

• Listing skills nobody searches for. Cute, vague labels feel personal but don’t match how people search. Fix: use LinkedIn’s standardized suggestions and the exact terms from real job posts.
• Leaving the default order. If you never reorder, your most important skill might be buried on page two. Fix: pin your signature three today.
• Endorsement farming. Trading endorsements with strangers for a big number fools no one. Fix: prioritize a few credible endorsements over many hollow ones.
• Set-and-forget syndrome. A profile frozen years ago tells a story that’s no longer true. Fix: the fifteen-minute monthly routine above.
• Ignoring the data. You can see how people find your profile; if that’s a mystery, you’re flying blind. Fix: pay attention to what’s working, the same way you’d track any channel.

That last one matters more than people realize. Knowing which terms bring the right people to you is exactly the mindset behind good measurement everywhere — and if you want to build that habit, our rundown of the key social media metrics to track will help you think in signals instead of vanity numbers.

Do endorsements really matter?

Yes and no, and I’ll be straight with you about it. Endorsements add a layer of social proof — a quick, human signal that other people back up your claim. A skill that several respected colleagues have endorsed simply reads as more believable than a bare one. That’s a real, if soft, advantage.

But endorsements are not a leaderboard, and chasing raw numbers is a distraction. What actually moves the needle is relevance and credibility: the right skills, endorsed by people whose opinion carries weight in your field. One thoughtful endorsement from a manager who watched you deliver is worth more than a dozen from people who clicked out of politeness. So welcome endorsements warmly, curate them honestly, and then get back to doing the work that earns them.

How to add skills and endorsements on LinkedIn the smart way

Before we wrap, let me pull the strategy into one clean picture, because there’s a smart way to do this and a busy-work way, and the difference is mostly in what you choose to leave out. The busy-work way is adding fifty skills, collecting endorsements from anyone who’ll click, and hoping volume wins. The smart way is quieter and far more effective: a small, deliberate set of skills that all point in the same direction.

When you approach how to add skills and endorsements on LinkedIn as an editor rather than a collector, a few things fall into place. Your top three become a headline in miniature, telling a visitor in one glance what you’re for. Your supporting skills read like evidence rather than clutter. And your endorsements, chosen and curated with a little care, become genuine social proof instead of background noise. Editing is the skill under the skill.

There’s also a mindset shift worth naming out loud. You’re not filling in a form for LinkedIn; you’re writing a tiny, honest pitch for the person who hasn’t met you yet. Every skill you pin is you saying, warmly and confidently, “this is what I’d love to be trusted with next.” When you frame it that way, the choices get easier, because you stop asking “what have I done?” and start asking “where am I going?” — and that second question is a much better compass.

One last encouragement: perfect is not the goal, and you don’t have to get this exactly right on the first pass. Profiles are living things. You’ll add a skill, watch how the right people start to find you, tweak your top three, and slowly tune the whole section until it feels like an accurate, generous introduction. Give it a season of gentle attention and it’ll pay you back for years.

Bringing it all together

Let’s tie the bow on this. Knowing how to add skills and endorsements on LinkedIn is genuinely a two-minute skill — add, reorder, pin, manage — and now you’ve got it. The lasting difference comes from treating that little section as a deliberate argument about who you are and who you want to work with. Choose signature skills that point at your future, back them with credible endorsements, keep them echoing across your whole profile, and refresh the lot for fifteen minutes a month.

Do that, and your profile stops being a dusty resume and starts being a quiet, always-on introduction working on your behalf while you sleep. Once you’ve got LinkedIn humming, it’s worth measuring the payoff with the right tools — our guide to the best social media analytics tools will help you see what’s landing so you can do more of it. You’ve got this, and honestly, it gets easier every single month.

Frequently asked questions

How do I add a skill on LinkedIn?

Go to your profile, scroll to the Skills section (or add it via Add profile section → Core → Add skills), click Add a new skill, and type it in. Pick from LinkedIn’s standardized suggestions when possible, associate the skill with a relevant job or education entry, and save.

How do I get endorsements on LinkedIn?

Endorsements come from your connections, not from you. The most natural way to earn them is to endorse people whose work you genuinely respect, which often prompts reciprocity. You can also gently mention your key skills in your posts and conversations so the right people are reminded of what you do well.

Can I remove or hide an endorsement I don’t want?

Yes. Open the skill’s detail view, find the specific endorsement, and toggle its visibility off, or remove it entirely. You can also turn endorsements off across your whole profile from the Skills edit view if you’d rather manage the section differently.

How many skills should I list on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn allows up to 100, but focus beats volume. Most people do well with a lean, intentional list where the top three are pinned and strategic. Keep a skill only if it helps the right person find you or understand you faster; cut anything that’s just noise.

Do endorsements actually help my profile?

They add credibility as a form of social proof, so relevant endorsements from respected connections can make your claims more believable. That said, the raw number matters far less than the relevance and quality of the skills and the people endorsing them. Curate honestly rather than chasing a high count.