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Top Linked In Profile IT skills
Having spent some recent days helping colleagues with Linked In lately I took the time to review some of the lesser used features in Linked In.
Linked In Skills is one area that seems to have been overlooked by many people. Launched 9 months ago it is likely to come to the fore for those in the recruiting business seeking to filter out candidates early on with the right type of skills.
Whilst skills like ‘consulting’ and ‘presentation skills’ are featured, they’re not much use and not very focused. What are useful are more specific IT and marketing related skills. In addition, Linked In helps by showing what the year on year growth is in the profiles featuring these skills, giving a good indication of the popularity of each individual skill.
Below are the top growing IT related skills featured in Cloud, Digital Marketing, Social Media and Microsoft technologies. Microsoft Office 365 is still too low to feature, but expect fast growth in line with Windows Azure.
It’s interesting to see Salesforce.com in decline and perhaps surprising that Google related skills are growing so fast in Digital Marketing.
There are no real surprises in Social Media, but in the Microsoft technology space it’s interesting that SharePoint is growing well, followed by their CRM and Dynamics products
| Cloud Technologies | Growth |
| Windows Azure | 40% |
| Cloud Computing | 37% |
| PaaS | 35% |
| Amazon Web Services | 34% |
| Excel Services | 12% |
| SaaS | 9% |
| eCRM | 6% |
| Hosted Solutions | 6% |
| Google docs | 6% |
| Salesforce.com | -1% |
| Digital Marketing | Growth |
| Google website optimiser | 35% |
| Google webmaster tools | 26% |
| Digital Marketing | 24% |
| SEO | 18% |
| Enterprise Collaboration | 17% |
| Google Adwords | 14% |
| Online marketing | 13% |
| SEM | 10% |
| Web Development | 4% |
| Web Content Management | 3% |
| Social Media | Growth |
| 64% | |
| Social Media | 47% |
| Social media marketing | 43% |
| Linked In | 41% |
| Bing! | 41% |
| YouTube | 34% |
| Social Networking Sites | 29% |
| Skype | 15% |
| email marketing | 8% |
| Text messaging | 7% |
| Microsoft Technologies | Growth |
| SharePoint | 8% |
| Microsoft CRM | 6% |
| Microsoft Dynamics | 1% |
| .NET | -4% |
| SQL | -6% |
Office 365 versus Google docs
Providing Office 365 services to small and medium organisations
While both Office 365 and Google Apps offer similar features and functionality, the two cloud based applications are quite different. While they both make it easier for staff to communicate with one another and share documents, they vary widely in terms of the types of businesses they are suited to.
Office 365 is an enterprise proven solution and Google Apps falls short when it comes to offering different levels of security, compliance and support.
Some of the major differences between them include the following:
1) If you are seeking to get started, Office 365 is easier because it provides options as well as resources that are quite clear and task oriented. The difference is that in order for you to sign up for Google Apps for Business you require domain-ownership verification. This requirement therefore assumes that your company has an existing website and also that you work with the site administrator. This makes Office 365 easier to use when getting started.
2) With Office 365, it is possible to edit your documents offline as Word, PowerPoint and Excel require a separate subscription. However, you will realise that Google Apps are not usable offline. What this means is that with Office 365, if you have Microsoft office installed on your computer, you can work on your documents offline. However, with Google Apps, you can only edit documents and spreadsheets through your browser.
3) Office 365 makes use of familiar interfaces while Google Apps does not integrate other Microsoft apps or documents. With the Google option, you literally have to import most Microsoft office documents in addition to auto-saving them. This makes it rather difficult to use.
Microsoft’s cloud option gives businesses the opportunity to move to the cloud in their own time and on their terms, while Google does not. Google’s option is online only.
Since many organisations make use of Microsoft Office, Office 365 presents the best option since it makes use of tools that you are already familiar with. However, both options have made it possible for small companies to access tools that would otherwise have been out of reach to them because of the cost involved.
To sign up for a trial of Microsoft Office 365 go to http://www.my-office-365.com
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