# Skills > Picking skills, why suggestions appear, and the places on Revquix that read them when you are not looking. Source: https://www.revquix.com/docs/account/skills Last verified: 2026-09-03 --- Skills are picked from a shared list rather than typed freely, and the picker searches both skills and categories. ## Why a shared list A free-text field produces "JS", "Javascript", "JavaScript" and "java script" as four different things, and nothing can match across them. Picking from the list means your skills are comparable to everyone else's - which is what makes them usable for anything beyond display. Suggestions appear based on what you have already added and what your experience says. ## What reads your skills More than your profile page, which is why they are worth getting right: - **Discovery.** People searching for a skill find profiles that have it, when you are discoverable. - **Mentor matching**, if you mentor. - **Recommendations** across the product. > **Note** - Attach them to roles too > > The same skill on a role carries a date and a context that the profile-level list cannot. See [experience and education](https://www.revquix.com/docs/account/experience-and-education). ## How many Enough to be findable, few enough to be credible. A list of forty says you have not chosen; a reader scanning it cannot tell what you are actually good at, and neither can anything matching on it. The useful test: could you take a technical question on it right now? If not, it belongs in a role description as something you have touched, not in your skills. > **Warning** - Stale skills read worse than missing ones > > A skill you last used in 2019, with no role showing it, invites exactly the question you do not want. > Prune when you review the profile rather than only adding. - [Profile visibility](https://www.revquix.com/docs/account/profile-visibility) - Whether people can find you by skill. - [Your public profile](https://www.revquix.com/docs/account/your-public-profile) - How skills render publicly.