Revealed: Top 10 Skills That Led To Hiring In 2013

LinkedIn has released a list of top 10 skills among professionals that got its members hired in 2013, with the most popular skill being social media marketing.

Other top skills that led to LinkedIn members’ recruitment included mobile development, cloud and distributed computing, statistical analysis, digital marketing and recruiting.

The list indicated that technology skills were highly valued in 2013 as they featured prominently in the top five skills that led to recruitment.

“We live in a data-driven world,” said Sohan Murthy, a research consultant at LinkedIn in the networking site’s official blog.

“Cloud and distributed computing (#3), data mining (#5), and data engineering (#12) being highly ranked on our list paints a picture of a world overwhelmed with information, with businesses scrambling to store, retrieve, and make sense of it all.”

Though technology and digital expertise dominated LinkedIn’s hottest skills list, business management and communication skills too were in demand.

“Businesses are looking to grow,” said Murthy. “Recruiting (#8), business development (#9), and strategic planning (#24) are all skills that help businesses hire more employees and find new sources of revenue.”

The professional networking site analysed the skills and employment history of more than 259 million LinkedIn member profiles in order to compile the list.

LinkedIn, which has more than 10 million users in the Middle East and North Africa region, did not release country specific information.

The site had previously released its annual buzzword list, which revealed the most overused words in LinkedIn. The most popular buzzwords among UAE members were ‘responsible’, ‘effective’ and ‘strategic’.

LinkedIn’s 10 Hottest Skills In 2013

1. Social Media Marketing
2. Mobile Development
3. Cloud and Distributed Computing
4. Perl/Python/Ruby
5. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining
6. User Interface Design
7. Digital and Online marketing
8. Recruiting
9. Business development/ Relationship
10. Retail management and information systems