| Thanks to LinkedIn’s roll-out of the new Endorsements feature, I’ve had a busy week…lots of questions, some with answers and some with only my speculation. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions: Q: What are LinkedIn endorsements? A: Here’s what they’re saying on the LinkedIn blog:
“On LinkedIn, you have many smart, talented, and skilled professional connections. Starting today,
Basically, it’s the equivalent of a “like” on Facebook–not an endorsement of you as a person but just one individual skill you have.
Q: What is the difference between a LinkedIn endorsement and a LinkedIn recommendation?
A: With an endorsement you acknowledge someone’s specific skill (with just one click), and a recommendation is a written testimonial about a specific job or educational entry on a person’s LinkedIn profile.
Q: Which are more important, LinkedIn endorsements or LinkedIn recommendations?
A: This is the million-dollar question. Ultimately LinkedIn will reveal more about the benefits and uses of endorsements, and then you will be able to develop an endorsement strategy. But, rest assured, these changes will result in more $$$ for LinkedIn. I sure hope it also results in an improved platform for those of us who don’t pay the big bucks to be on LinkedIn.
Let me ask you this question: If you were searching for a service provider, would you give more credence to a well-written, results-oriented recommendation or an endorsement that resulted from one quick click? C’mon, LinkedIn. Is this really helpful? Sorry for that short rant.
Q: Will my current LinkedIn recommendations go away and should I really try to get more recommendations?
A: I am uncertain about the future of recommendations. I have always considered them to be one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and I still believe that. I suggest you continue to get and give recommendations. They are important social proof of who you are in the marketplace.
Action Step: Be sure to print or save your profile from time to time so you have a backup record of them just in case LinkedIn decides to eliminate them. You just never know.
Q: Should I ask for a LinkedIn recommendation or a LinkedIn endorsement?
A: My answer is both. Since the number of endorsements you receive will probably be used for search ranking, you would be foolish to ignore them, and you already know how much I value recommendations. To learn more about the important but little-known benefits of recommendations, see my blog post LinkedIn Recommendations: The Secrets Revealed.
Q: What is your speculation about why LinkedIn seems to be moving from recommendations to endorsements?
A: There is definitely a move away from recommendations. Do you remember when your total number of recommendations was in the top box on your profile and you used to need three recommendations to have a 100% complete profile?
It is obviously easier to endorse someone with one simple click than it is to take the time to write a detailed recommendation, and thus more people are likely to endorse than recommend. And since in our society more is usually viewed as better, the person with the most endorsements will probably be viewed more favorably.
I believe this new feature has a lot to do with the LinkedIn recruiter upgrade. A recruiter can now not only search for and find Java programmers in the Milwaukee area, but LinkedIn may rank them by number of endorsements. Any guesses about which candidates will win this game?
What should your endorsements strategy be?
First, make sure you have listed your most important skills in your Skills section. Then start seeking those endorsements!
Oh, by the way, if you feel my LinkedIn information has helped you, I would be honored to get an endorsement or two from you.
To learn more about improving your Skills section, check out this free resource:
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LinkedIn Endorsements: Your Questions Answered
September 30, 2012
we are introducing Endorsements, a new feature that makes it easier to recognize them for their skills and expertise. Categories: Uncategorized
Thanks for the answers. I hope that Linkedin won’t remove the recommendations because it is super important compared to Linkedin endorsement, from my point of view.
Wayne,
As usual great article! I have been experimenting with this section myself and I have a follow up question for you. Have you figured out why LinkedIn divides the section into skills and more skills? Is it based on number of endorsements?
I am sure it will become more clear as the section gets more use. I was just curious if you had any theories.
Thanks so much!
Lindsey Day
Your guess is as good as mine. Stay tuned.
I was viewing my one and only endorsement so far and accidentally clicked the Hide endorsement link. How do get it back so others and myself can see it?
Thank you for any assistance you may offer.
Go to profile edit. Go down to your Skills section. Find the skill. There should be an arrow that’s pointing to the right. Click the arrow, and you should be able to “unhide” it.
[…] LinkedIn Endorsements: Your Questions Answered […]
Thanks for keeping me up to date Wayne. Makes it easy to answer my client’s questions. I find the endorsements nice but clutters the Profile. I certainly hope LinkedIn does not eliminate Recommendations, as they are important of the job seeker and now LinkedIn Profile information is being used to Apply.
I agree with you 100%. Thanks for your comments.
Etiquette question–if you are given an unsolicited endorsement are you obligated to go see if you can return the favor, assuming you can? I did not intend to participate but now I wonder whether I need to. Thoughts?
Hey, Dan. This is new territory, but my feeling at this point is just because somebody endorsed you doesn’t mean you should endorse them back. I’ve never been a fan of the automatic reciprocity for recommendations and now for endorsements. Stay tuned.
Wayne, do you have any additional information regarding endorsements? The updates seem to be sporadic, at best. I endorsed several people last week; it appeared that the endorsements went through, but only one of them shows up in my updates (I don’t believe that person “accepted” it to make it show up). Someone endorsed me today, and I never received a LI message about it. I also endorsed someone else today, and I’m not sure if it went through or not.
I wish I had more answers, Joan, but things seem to be a little inconsistent with endorsements at this point.
I think the endorsements cheapen LinkedIn because they’re so easy to get, and I’m hearing lots of comments from friends who don’t even know the people who are endorsing them. I wrote about this in my newsletter yesterday. See item #1 at http://archive.aweber.com/pubhound_01/Jph2s/h/Publicity_Tips_Endorsements.htm
Personal Branding And Profiling Your People Skills:
The most important and the most highly paid form of intelligence in America is social intelligence, the ability to get along well with other people. Social intelligence is also known as human engineering or “your people skills”:
Example:
Imagineer, problem solver, open minded, change leadership, never considers failure, sense of urgency, unshakable optimist, open networker, takes initiative, encourages others, critical thinker, team synergy, shares knowledge…and the list keeps going.
“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” -~Pablo Picasso
“Even in lines such as technical engineering about 15% of ones financial success is due to technical knowledge and about 85% is due to one’s skill in human engineering.” ~ Dale Carnegie, Carnegie Institute, “How To Win Friends and Influence People.”
Most skills belong to skill sets. You have the ability to list up to 50 skills on your profile.
The “85%” or so of your people skills should be listed to highlight how you go about orchestrating your technical skills.
“True effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset (the goose).” ~Stephen Covey
Several months ago I discovered the “Suggest Connection” feature (see http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/28416) on LinkedIn. I was delighted to discover this feature because there are always people I’d like to put together via LinkedIn for the purposes of networking. Sadly as I scoured LI, I could only find one person with the Suggest Connection button on their profile, the person who originally suggested a connection for me.
I wrote LinkedIn and learned they allow account holders with less than 100 connections the benefit of this feature. As we are discovering, LinkedIn is expediting the use of certain features in their portfolio (namely Endorsements vs. Recommendations), I am wondering if now would be a good time for LI to open this feature up to its entire member base. Who has less than 100 contacts anymore on LinkedIn and who would not like a much easier solution to making an introduction than the current LI process?