CTRL + Shift + F1... If you get it, you're officially "proficient" in Excel. LinkedIn just launched "Skills Assessments" (feedback: work on the name) to evaluate you on 75 skills your resumé softly implies, then knight your profile with a "verified" badge. LinkedIn quietly acquired a quiz startup last year to make Skills Assessments happen:
- You'll notice a prompt under your profile's "Skills & Endorsements" to validate the "Financial Modeling" capabilities claim.
- Pass the test? Get a badge.
- Fail the test? Wait 3 months to retake — or enjoy the conveniently placed LinkedIn training on the topic.
- Fyi, come back in a year — that's when you've got to retake the exam to keep the creds.
We endorse LinkedIn for "Smart Move"... The pro social network has a credibility problem — 650M users and a mess of unsubstantiated and embellished talents. Skills Assessments can fix that — and differentiate it from rivals ZipRecruiter and Indeed. That could earn LinkedIn more revenue from job recruiters searching for Excel's verified finest.
But has LinkedIn been a good acquisition by Microsoft?... It was acquired in 2016 to bring the "vibrant network" of LinkedIn to Microsoft's un-vibrant products (sorry, Outlook). Since then, we think Skills Assessments is the most relevant feature yet:
- For LinkedIn: It deepens engagement by gamifying your FOMO-desire to show you can actually do statistics.
- For Microsoft: It highlights Microsoft products by creating a hierarchy around using them.
- For the bottomline: Skills Assessments becomes its own revenue-generating feature head-hunters crave.