Reference Your Credentials on LinkedIn

Do you have a certification or license that’s required for your field?

Perhaps you have certification, though not mandated for your field, still helps to enhance your professional credibility and expertise.

Be sure to include these credentials in the Licenses and Certifications section of your LinkedIn profile. This section displays just below the Education section.

Displaying these credentials will enhance your professional credibility.

Examples of licenses include those held by Realtors, mortgage consultants, and insurance professionals.

Certifications can include those achieved by educational training and/or passing a professional level exam, such as JDs, CPAs, Project Management Professionals (PMPs), and credentials in such fields as HR, IT and healing professions, such as massage therapists, chiropractors, and acupuncturists.

Another potential entry for this section are leadership programs that you have completed through a local chamber of commerce or other business organization.

An example of that would be the certificate pictured above that I got for completing the Leadership Jefferson County program, a 10-month leadership class for people who live and/or work in Jefferson County, which is just west of Denver, Colorado.

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How to Add a Certification or License

To populate this section, click on the words “Add Profile Section,” which you will see to the right of the “Open To” button toward the top of your profile. Click on the word “Recommended,” and then select “Add licenses & certifications.”?

The template has the following fields:

• ?Name of the certification or license.
• Name of the issuing organization. Most will have a company page on LinkedIn, so be sure to select that page in the drop down options as you type in the entity’s name.
• The month and year that you got the certification or license, and the month and year it expires. Some certifications don’t have an expiration date, as there are no continuing education requirements. Other certifications will have those requirements, and most licenses have such requirements. Please note that the items listed will be in order of when you got the certificate or license. However, if the certificate or license doesn’t expire, then it will be listed before a more recently gained one that does expire.
• The credential ID and credential URL. These are not mandated fields.

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Add Skills and Media

• To associate one or more skill with a license or certification, click on the button that says: “Add Skill.” Type in the name of the skill and click on the “Save” button. You can list as many skills as you wish as long as they are relevant to the license or certification.
• You might want to add a photo or other image of the license or certification. To do this, click on the button that says: “Add Media.” To add a photo or other image, click on “Add media,” and select the file on your computer that has the photo or other image. It needs to be a jpeg or png file.
• By clicking on “Add a link,” you can select a landing page on a website, a video on a YouTube channel, or other internet location that explains the nature of the certification or license.

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Update or Delete a License or Certification????

• ?Click on the pencil icon to the right of the words "Licenses & Certifications."
• Click on the pencil icon to the right of the license or certification that you want to update or delete.
• To update, make the change in the appropriate field(s), such as expiration month and expiration year. Click on the “Save” button.
• To delete, click on the words “Delete license or certification” and then click on the “Delete’ button.
• If you no longer hold a certificate or license, you technically could still list it in this section, especially if the knowledge and skills required for it are relevant to the line of work you do today.

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?I help people, especially those age 55 and up, to become more effective using social media, especially LinkedIn and Facebook. I work with business owners, business development professionals, business consultants, job seekers, and more. Learn more at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com

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