Completing skills assessments and earning badges on LinkedIn is an excellent way to showcase your expertise to recruiters and hiring managers. LinkedIn skills assessments allow you to demonstrate your proficiency in various professional skills, programming languages, software programs, and more. Once you pass an assessment, LinkedIn awards you a digital badge to display on your profile and signify your capabilities in that area.
However, you may have noticed that after passing a LinkedIn skills assessment, the corresponding badge does not immediately appear on your profile. So you may be wondering – where is my LinkedIn assessment badge and why isn’t it showing up?
There are a few possible reasons why your LinkedIn assessment badge may not be visible right away after completing the test. Here are some common explanations and tips for troubleshooting a missing LinkedIn skills assessment badge:
Badge Display Can Be Delayed
The most common reason your LinkedIn assessment badge is not showing up is simply because there is a delay before the badge appears on your profile. It can take 24-48 hours after passing an assessment for the corresponding badge to be generated and displayed on your LinkedIn page.
LinkedIn badges have to go through a review process before they are published live to your profile. So even though you passed the test, the system still needs some time to process the results and approve the badge display. Be patient and check back the next day – chances are your skills assessment badge will be visible within a couple days.
Profile Settings Impact Visibility
Another potential factor is your profile visibility and share settings. LinkedIn assessment badges are considered a profile update, so they are subject to your configurations for who can see your activity and updates.
For example, if you have your profile visibility limited only to your direct connections, the skills assessment badge may only be visible to your 1st-degree connections rather than publicly. Or if you have disabled share notifications, the badge may not broadcast as an update.
To ensure your LinkedIn assessment badges are fully public, check your profile visibility is set to “Public” and your sharing options for activity broadcasts are enabled under Settings & Privacy.
Badge Display Varies By Assessment
It’s also important to note that not all LinkedIn skills assessments may award a badge immediately upon passing. Certain assessments are tied to LinkedIn Learning courses and may require completing the related course before the badge unlocks.
Additionally, LinkedIn is continually evaluating which skills assessments should have badges and which should not. There is not a 1:1 ratio of assessments to badges. So you may pass a test but not receive a badge, while badges are only displayed for assessments where LinkedIn determines they add value.
Check the assessment description before taking a test to see if a badge can be earned. If unsure, you can provide feedback directly to LinkedIn on which skills you believe should have digital badges.
Badge Visibility Depends on License Type
The type of LinkedIn account you have can also impact skills assessment badge visibility. Badges are only displayed to individual members with free Career or paid Premium Business, Sales, or Recruiter accounts.
Badges will not appear for Learning-only Premium subscriptions. And if you take a test using a free Business Plus account through your company, the badge will not display due to the account type restrictions.
So if you don’t see a badge after passing an assessment, check that you have an eligible individual LinkedIn account type for skills badges to appear.
Test Results May Need to Be Refreshed
In some cases, there may be a technical issue preventing your passed assessment status from refreshing properly to trigger the badge display. Or the test results didn’t process correctly from LinkedIn’s end.
Try manually refreshing your test results page – go back into the LinkedIn Skills assessment portal, view your test results, and click the refresh icon to reload the page. This should sync the latest data and may trigger an initially missing badge.
If the test still shows as incomplete even though you passed, you may need to take the assessment again or contact LinkedIn support to investigate and manually add the badge that you earned.
How to Troubleshoot a Missing LinkedIn Assessment Badge
If you’ve waited 48 hours, double-checked your profile settings, confirmed the assessment offers a badge, and refreshed your results, but your skills badge is still not appearing, here are some additional troubleshooting tips:
- Log out of LinkedIn completely, then log back in – this forces a refresh of your profile data and the badges.
- Update your profile thumbnail image – triggering a profile change can help resize and reload widget data like badges.
- View your profile in incognito/private browser mode – test if the badge appears when looking at your public profile anonymously.
- Check different LinkedIn platforms – toggle between mobile app, desktop site, etc. to see if badge displays differently.
- Contact LinkedIn Help Center – reach out to customer support if issue persists for help investigating.
How Long Do LinkedIn Assessment Badges Last?
Once your skills assessment badge is finally displayed on your profile, it will remain visible indefinitely, with no expiration. The badges have no time limit and do not need to be renewed. You can continue showcasing your LinkedIn assessment badges for as long as you have them on your profile.
Even if a skill becomes rusty or outdated over time, the badge reflecting your proficiency at the time you passed the assessment will persist. Of course, you can always opt to manually remove or hide a badge at any time if you no longer want to showcase a particular skill.
How Many LinkedIn Skill Assessment Badges Can You Earn?
There is no limit to the number of skill assessment badges you can earn from LinkedIn. You can take and pass as many eligible assessments as you would like to demonstrate your wide-ranging proficiencies.
Each unique assessment you pass will award a separate badge. If there are multiple levels for a particular skill, you can also earn progression badges for each tier achieved. This allows you to showcase a spectrum of beginner to expert skills.
Certain highly skilled individuals with extensive badges across LinkedIn assessment categories may be eligible for recognition as a LinkedIn Skill Master. This provides even more validation of your broad expertise.
What Skill Assessment Badges Should You Display?
With the ability to accumulate numerous assessment badges on LinkedIn, you’ll want to be selective about which ones you actually display on your profile. Here are some tips for determining the most strategic LinkedIn skills badges to showcase:
- Align with your target roles – highlight badges directly relevant to jobs you want.
- Demonstrate depth in your niche – show higher-level skills in your specialty.
- Balance hard and soft skills – technical and interpersonal abilities.
- Curate your top skills – pick your strongest skill badges to showcase.
- Update over time – rotate in new badges as you take more assessments.
Choose badges that communicate job-fit, competency, and professionalism rather than flooding your profile with every badge you have.
Top LinkedIn Skill Assessment Badges to Display by Category
Software | Microsoft Excel, SQL, Python, Tableau |
Business | Project Management, Strategic Planning, Business Development |
Design | Photoshop, Illustrator, AutoCAD, Adobe Creative Suite |
IT | Networking, Security, AWS, C, C++ |
Data | Excel, Data Analysis, Machine Learning, R, MATLAB |
Marketing | Google Analytics, Social Media Marketing, SEO/SEM |
Conclusion
Earning skills assessment badges provides concrete validation of abilities that catch hiring managers’ attention. But the badges don’t automatically appear instantaneously upon passing a test. Give LinkedIn up to 48 hours to generate and display your badge after verifying your results.
Check your profile visibility settings, account type access, and the specific assessments taken to troubleshoot a missing badge. Be proud of the LinkedIn skill badges you’ve earned and strategically showcase the most relevant ones that communicate your qualifications.