This week, LinkedIn launched a new ‘Future of Skills’ data tool, enabling users to dig into the latest skills trends for almost any job role. LinkedIn launched this initiative in hopes of gleaning more insight into what employers are looking for, as well as what people listen to on their LinkedIn profiles.
Tomorrow’s Skills
The new tool, which you can test-drive here, allows you to select a country, industry, and job title, each of which can be searched by entering keywords into the respective field. Each search then yields an overview based on the listings other members have of such on their profiles.
The tool also allows for easy viewing of trends, allowing you to scroll through multiple profiles that have similar parameters by simply hovering over listed skills (if any). Some indicators prompt you of changes made over time, kind of like log files or patch notes on computers.
It’s worth noting that the skills listed are based on what LinkedIn members are displaying on their profiles, and not explicitly on job listings. As such, it’s not a direct indicator of jobs that are truly ‘in demand’. Then again, you would assume those in each industry would also update their profiles over time, effectively impacting overall trends and industry shifts in the process. In a way, there’s some sort of dissonance between what people would hope this program gives them and what it really is, which isn’t an exact representation of what businesses are looking for in their job ads.
Nonetheless, it could prove to be a useful research tool for both job seekers and marketers alike. The insights provided could also be used to aid those performing audience research, highlighting potential new opportunities in each sector, based on constantly fluctuating shifts that are influenced by user activity. Taking a look at it this way, it does kind of now represent what in-demand jobs are but is not representative of an ‘average’ value. Instead, ‘in demand’ here is based on cumulative aggregations over time and is thus better dictated by long-lasting trends, as opposed to real-time transitions that can potentially create large demand even for relatively new jobs.
The Wrap
Think of it this way, imagine you’re marketing to artists – you can sort of get an idea of what key skill trends would likely belong in that sector, but not know directly what core skills an artist must have to do their job. It’s that intuition that LinkedIn is banking on, potentially highlighting new opportunities to reach certain consumers with more focused campaigns.
Again, we see the ingenuity of LinkedIn when it comes to promotions and campaigns. Their pushes are unorthodox and highly introspective, banking on the description that LinkedIn truly is a platform for thought-leaders. Furthermore, if you look at most of the data presented, you’ll see that comparisons made were within the last six years between 2015 and 2021. At the very least, it’ll be interesting to map out what trends and job selections you find.
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