Product
May 19, 2020

Sift Feature Updates: Skill Levels to More Easily Identify Your Internal Experts

Sift’s user profiles are a one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about your colleagues. A vital part of these profiles is the skills section, where you can learn more about the internal experts of your organization. In fact, one of the most common searches on Sift is a “skill + a filter” (check out our Data Report for more fun usage stats like these)!

Given how integral skills are to employee profiles, and how often users search for skills, there hasn’t been a way for users to self-describe their skill levels and highlight the skills they’d like to be featured. With many skills on a given profile, it can be difficult to understand who’s the expert you’re looking for from a list of search results.

This is where Skills Levels come in! This new feature adds a layer of depth to employee profiles by allowing everyone to better understand the levels of expertise of their colleagues. Use Skills Levels to add nuance to your skillset, as well as to quickly identify and tap the subject matter experts that you need. It may seem like a simple upgrade, but our hope is that it sheds some light on the superpowers that your team holds.

Why did we build Skills Levels?

Our original skills section allowed you to add a multitude of skills, but the more skills that a user added to their profile, the harder it became to identify a person’s “superpowers”. That’s why we've implemented Skills Levels. By beefing up our skills section, we want to help you understand your team members on a deeper level, and help you filter through large search result queries to find the people who can help you get your job done.

This is a perfect capability for everyone, but especially for Operations leaders, HR professionals, and even Marketing & Communications users to help you find and connect with team members who have the right expertise. Find out more about how people in these areas use Sift today.


Level up

So how do you use Skills Levels?

1. Skill Proficiency Levels

When adding a new skill, or updating a current skill, you can now add proficiency levels, which include:

  • Beginner: You’ve got the basics down, but haven’t used the skill professionally.
  • Intermediate: You’ve passed the learning stage, but refer to materials to back you up.
  • Advanced: You use the skill on a daily basis, almost never referring to documentation.
  • Expert: You know all the ins and outs, even acting as a reference to others.


2. "Featured" (Top Skills)

For your top skills, you can add a star to feature them at the top of your skills section. These skills are the ones that your team can rely on you to bring your expertise.


We’re excited for you to start using Skills Levels to learn more about your team, and to help your coworkers learn more about you. Happy Sifting!

Want to learn more about how Skills fit into our user profiles? Learn more about our employee directory.