Have you thought about how important it is to spotlight your strengths in your LinkedIn profile?

You may have hesitated about doing this, as you wonder which strengths to include. If you’re a job seeker, you might choose to vary the strengths depending on the types of jobs you are pursuing.

As a business owner, you may want to expand upon the strengths you list if the services or products you provide change.

 

How Can You Learn What Your Strengths Are?

I find the CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) assessment to be a helpful tool for discovering and/or validating personal strengths. Psychologist Donald Clifton based this tool on information from his research on people in leadership roles. Partnering with colleagues from Gallup over several decades, he conducted interviews with over 20,000 leaders.

In 2001, he and co-author Marcus Buckingham published Now, Discover Your Strengths. In it, they emphasize the value of focusing more time and energy on your strengths than on your weaknesses. You can watch videos that briefly describe each strength at https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/253715/34-cliftonstrengths-themes.aspx

 

 

My Own Experience with the CliftonStrengths Assessment 

I first learned about this powerful assessment tool after hearing Marcus Buckingham speak at the Toastmasters International convention in August 2005 when he was honored with the Golden Gavel award. Every year, Toastmasters bestows this award on someone outside of the organization who epitomizes excellence in communication and leadership.

Since I first took the assessment in 2005, I have taken it three more times. The book about this assessment that I recommend most often is Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0.

When you purchase this book or any others associated with this assessment, you have access to the online questionnaire. Your assessment reveals your top five strengths, but don’t stop there. An additional payment of approximately $25 releases a list of all 34 of your strengths in order. I’ve found that getting this information is enlightening, validating, humbling, and sometimes surprising.

My current top 10 strengths in order are Activator, Woo (Winning Others Over), Positivity, Communication, Connectedness, Includer, Strategic, Learner, Arranger, and Maximizer.

 

Spotlight Your Strengths in Your LinkedIn Profile

  • Weave your strengths into the narrative you use to write your About section. When you reference your strengths in a context, the reader will have a better sense of how you use them.
  • Consider listing your top strengths somewhere in your About section, typically toward the bottom of it. Since many people in business are familiar with this assessment, they may appreciate you sharing this information.
  • Include relevant strengths in the position descriptions for the positions where you drew upon these strengths. Do this for both the positions in the Experience section and in the Volunteer Experience section.
  • Select skills in the Skills and Endorsements section that have words which include your strengths. For example, if “strategic” is one of your strengths and you have marketing skills, select the skill “Strategic Marketing.”
  • When you ask people to write you a recommendation on LinkedIn, suggest that they include specific strengths in their recommendation.
  • The Accomplishments section is another part of your profile where you can include your strengths. Describing the nature of a project you did and your involvement in an organization are ways to add strengths.

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those ages 55 and older, to become more comfortable using social media, particularly Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

She works with business owners, business development professionals, leaders of nonprofit organizations, job seekers, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.