Should I use the "courses" section on LinkedIn?

October 22, 2012 7:57 PM

Should professionals use the new(ish) "courses" section on LinkedIn?

I'm a professional and a part-time graduate student. I have been using the LinkedIn "courses" section to list professional development courses so far (even though it's not optimal for this). I was even thinking of adding Coursera courses to it, even though they probably count for zilch.

Anyway...LinkedIn keeps prompting me to add my master's courses too. I'm not sure if I should...is this something only full-time university students should do? Does it matter what master's courses someone takes? I figured that the final result (the program name on the degree) is all employers care about.

Thoughts?

posted by snailparade to work & money (5 answers total)

What kind of professional are you? How relevant are the specific courses, rather than just the fact you're in grad program __? Are you employed? Is your goal to get a new job?

My thought is no, because I don't think this would help employability in my field, and why add empty filler.
posted by J. Wilson at 9:06 PM on October 22, 2012

I did just because I did a bit of coursework that isn't terribly standard for my degree (Ed.M). I figure it can't hurt.
posted by smirkette at 9:34 PM on October 22, 2012

LinkedIn has suffered design and feature creep to the point that is now very easy for a LinkedIn profile (especially as seen by a premium member) to be require a lot of scrolling and looking around to get relevant info. You need to counter that by keeping your entries CONCISE and by making very sparing use of features that generate content which appears higher on the page than your work and educational history, which is what 99% of LinkedIn users care about.
posted by MattD at 4:16 AM on October 23, 2012

@Mattd: You can control the order that sections are displayed, so that the most relevant things are at the top and potentially less relevant details are accessible only with scrolling. And that's absolutely a good thing to do if you're using a lot of LinkedIn features.

My thoughts on listing classes taken while matriculated in a degree program: no need unless it's a really unusual and amazing class.

My thoughts on listing classes taken outside a degree program: sure, if they're relevant to your professional goals.
posted by grudgebgon at 6:42 AM on October 23, 2012

Thanks for the input guys.
posted by snailparade at 7:49 PM on November 1, 2012