Thoughts on Skill Endorsements on Linkedin

What are your thoughts on the recently added "endorsing of skills" on Linkedin? Will it become another way to self publish recommendations? I personally have not asked for endorsements, do you think recruiters and employers will look for these when seeking a potential employee or is it another flash in the pan?

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Leary on October 16, 2012 at 11:49am

Same here. I receive endorsements daily. I appreciate them but I am not too sure that an employer will look at these endorsements as genuine.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on October 16, 2012 at 6:41pm

Recruiters who get recommendations from HR people and hiring managers at companies might as well publish their client list. It's a nice source of where to go with a candidate one is trying to place.

The skill set endorsement is the silliest thing i have seen in many moons. It is making Linkedin look more like facebook. Why not just put a "like" button on the profile. Means nothing to me except something else to navigate around.

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Permalink Reply by Rohaan Shukla on October 17, 2012 at 7:31am

I Agree with Elise,

I am a recruiter & recently one guy endorsed me for some Hardware skills :P obviously I skipped it. I would see that in my profile I'll list my skills out. I would not accept any random skill endorsement thrown at me unless it matches my profile. I think most of the people on linkedin will do the same. And its not about bunch of names of folks endorsing but having right skills on your profile.
Eg: I was in search for a niche skill " Windows Internals" in software programming people. I got one guy who had this skill listed on his profile. And I clicked on it and got few more names of people having same skills on their profile. I did not care about the number of people endorsed them for that particular skill. Today one of the guy from that list is in the interview process with my company.

Endorsement of skill seems to be silly option but listing of skills seems to be fine.

Elise Reynolds said:

I think if the feature motivates people to list their skills out as we have been seeing that will make recruiting easier instead of just cutting and pasting resume text. Still that skill needs to be verified but before people did not very often fill out the skill portion of their profile.

Tiffany Branch said:

How do you know if it's legit? I think that is the problem. It's nice to see but it's just like references, who is going to provide a list of folks who will give them a bad reference? I'll believe you are an EXCEL guru when you pass my Excel test. Seeing a bunch of names of folks "endorsing" your excel skills is worthless. How do I know these people even know what your skills are? I had two people endorse me for my knowledge of immigration law and I never even worked with them in that area.

Rohaan Shukla said:

I think the main catch is having the relevant skills attached to ones profile, rather than number of endorsement on them.

The feature of getting a list of people under a particular skill once we click on it is a nice one. It may help recruiters find people with niche skill set.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Webster on October 17, 2012 at 10:39am

I actually found myself frustrated by the endorsements at first. I'm thinking, "I've worked hard to have a solid profile, and now I'm that much further away again". Then I take a step back and figured this out for what it is...a way to increase user engagement.

Think about it. LinkedIn has mastered the process of getting people to openly share their workplace information. They make money by indexing this information, and making it searchable. They need to keep this information fresh, so keeping users engaged is critical. Not only will you see this with endorsements, but also with the new profiles coming soon.

To be clear, I like LinkedIn and use it every day. I just find the constant drive for engagement being a hindrance for them long-term. I really don't want to see these endorsements crushing my news feed every day because I don't think they really matter...it's noise.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Lagos on October 17, 2012 at 11:02am

Don’t like the new “Linkedin Endorsements”. I believe users will simply “endorse all” just to get passed the obstructive “pop-up”, and the law of reciprocity will dilute perceived value.

What credence will we assign fairly meaningless endorsements as profiles inflate with frivolous “likes”?

At least written endorsements (Linkedin’s old method) require some reflection on the part of the endorser and typically include specifics readers can assess within a relative framework. Not just “I endorse Will’s skills in XYZ because… well, because… well he’s a nice guy and I like him and he endorsed me… see his picture???"

The only part I don’t feel is frivolous is Linkedin’s tendency here to be cheapening the Brand, with “Facebook like” antics. Worse yet, references to SEO criteria discussed in the past based on these endorsements scare me (GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)).

Put me in the “Not a Fan” category.

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Permalink Reply by Elise Reynolds on October 17, 2012 at 11:10am

I think we all agree the endorsements are really without value. The only possible value is it better indexes skills for easier searches. But that is probably not true because as Nick said I don't assume people are particularly thoughtful or serious about which skill they endorse. Now that I think of it I believe I have been endorsed for skills like Project Management and I don't consider myself at all skilled in that area.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Hanneman on October 17, 2012 at 11:35am

Hey I am always surprised of the number of candidates who supply names and numbers for references and those people do not like them or tell us they fired them etc. I guess it goes back to the idea that you are supposed to only connect with people you know...which is kind of a farce in and of itself, but anyways, interesting.

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Permalink Reply by heather haynes on October 17, 2012 at 1:14pm

The endorsements have no validity and are completely unnecessary. What a waste of time and space on your "professional" networking profile. If I wanted to know how many random people liked…I mean endorsed your profile, I would be on FB.

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Permalink Reply by Angela R. Furbee on October 17, 2012 at 3:34pm

It's another gimmick. The real testimonials come from clients on their letterhead. Call me old fashioned, but this is something you will always have from them in a personal written letter about you and what you have done for them. Second would be actual testimonials on Linked In. My guess is the reason they offered the "endorsement" is that it can still be a challenge getting an actual testimonial from someone, and an "endorsement" is better than nothing. Well, by reading the comments so far, these endorsements can be percieved in several ways.

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Permalink Reply by Suresh on October 17, 2012 at 3:45pm

Hey, social media is here to stay and everyone is going to play these games oh sorry create social media tools. For Linkedin, my guess is they are a little boring and had to spruce it up to attract the younger demographics.

As long as everyone understands its just a little hype game, we are all good. Don't take it seriously.

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Eaton on October 17, 2012 at 5:49pm

I don't pay any attention to LinkedIn endorsements at all.

I have worked directly with one of my LinkedIn connections for 4 years. On the job, she was a "slacker." On many occasions, she tried to pass her work off to others. She consistently failed to respond to phone calls and e-mails in a timely manner. When her clients asked questions that she didn't have the answer to, she'd say 'I don't know" instead of researching the answer and following up with them. I've heard her say "I don't care" more time than I can count, regarding her responsibilities.

She has a LinkedIn endorsement that says she is a hard-worker, dependable, committed to her work, and has an exceptional work ethic. I honestly thought I was reading someone else's profile, and had to scroll to the top of the page and make sure.

From that moment on, I don't trust endorsements. There is no way for me to decipher whether the person who wrote the endorsement has personal knowledge of someone's work and skills, of if they are simply doing a favor for a friend.

I'm sure some endorsements, are truly legit.. but how do I know which ones are and which are not.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Schultz on October 17, 2012 at 7:18pm

@ Sandra- you're right about the endorsements.

@ Victoria- you'll notice the dates on a lot of linkedin endorsements coincide with the person's termination date. It's managers and peers trying to soften the blow by writing something good about the person.