Peter Takes A Quiz

LinkedIn has been pushing the skill assessments for quite some time now, and I have been ignoring them until recently. The assessments are advertised as timed 15-20 question quizzes covering a specific skill set.

On a whim, I decided to try a few of them out. They were not what I expected. So far every quiz consisted of 15 multiple choice questions. The passing score for each quiz is 70% (or 11 questions for the quizzes that I took). The presumption is that by passing the quiz you demonstrate mastery of the skill.

Unfortunately, I ran into issues with my very first quiz. I was a few questions into the Bash quiz, and my internet connection dropped. The quiz timed out before my internet connection came back up. Although I'm pretty confident in my Bash scripting skills, I need to wait 90 days before I can retake the quiz. I tried a few other familiar topics once my internet connection was stable.

The other quizzes were a bit more enlightening.  I tried the Microsoft Outlook assessment. Although I use Outlook nearly everyday, I can tell from the quiz that I only routinely touch a few areas of the Outlook client. The quiz asked questions about the shortest way to perform an action or how to find certain options. I moved on to HTML, PHP, and WordPress, and I passed each of those. The Amazon Web Services (AWS), MongoDB, NodeJS, and Android quizzes had a few challenging questions, but I made it past these as well. The language quizzes do ask syntax, and you definitely need to know where parenthesis and brackets are used in each language. There are also questions of the "which code block does this" and "what does this code block do" varieties, and the quiz authors were kind enough to swap key works from other languages.

So what do I think of the LinkedIn skill assessments? It doesn't hurt to take the quizzes. The quizzes are free, and the time investment is minimal. I would recommend brushing up on the syntax and keywords for the programming languages. The entrance page for each quiz does list the high level topics for each skill set. I do think that the badges show that you have a basic understanding of the skill. As LinkedIn refines the quizzes and the process, the badges may become valuable elements on your LinkedIn profile.