Linkedin Skills Endorsements Bogus and Funny

A lot of people are disillusioned about the value of 'Skills and Endorsements' on LinkedIN. I've seen a lot of negative reaction about them lately as people vent about them being "stupid", "irrelevant" or "useless."

LinkedIn endorsements may or may not be "stupid" but they are far from "useless." I'd argue there's a certain upside about endorsements but I'd also say that if you ignore your endorsements, they are likely hurting you.

The main argument around endorsements is that they are arbitrary. Many of us have received endorsements from strangers, family friends or nearly-forgotten salespeople that have no way of knowing if we possess any specific skill. Sometimes we're endorsed for skills that we didn't even know that we had. And sometimes we get votes for a skill that is actually a deficit.

Those are all legitimate flaws of the endorsement system here. I'll share actions that you can take to overcome the flaws in a moment. But let's start with why you should even bother.

LinkedIn is an amazing search engine. Although many people limit their searches to the names of people they know, you can search for many other criteria. I often use it to search words like "Marketing" or "Gamification" to see a list of my first-degree connections who can help me with a specific project or task.

I'm often amazed at how accurate LinkedIn is at finding the true experts in individual fields. For example, when I search "Gamification" I see that I have 21 first-party connections who appear. Given that Gamification is a niche skill I can subjectively rank my 21 contacts in their knowledge (it ranges from an Industry Leader through to people curious about the topic) and my subjective rating is almost identical to LinkedIN's ranking in my search results. The absolute experts are at the top and the curious onlookers are at the bottom. Of the 21 people listed, my unscientific prediction agrees with 100% of the top 10 it choose.

I can't prove that Skills and Endorsements impact search ranking (LinkedIN doesn't share it's algorithm) but why wouldn't it? A quick search shows I'm not the only one who thinks this.

How Endorsements Can Hurt You

How to endorsements hurt you? Imagine this:

• My friend decides to be silly and endorse me for "Clowning around."
• I leave it on my wall.
• LinkedIN randomly suggests endorsements of my skills to other people in my first-degree connections. 3 friends see the skill called "Clowning around" and they add their endorsement. This causes two problems: more people are likely to see "Clowning around" as a skill I possess and asked to validate it - and less people see my actual skills.
• Since my actual skills are offered to others less than "Clowning around", my actual skills will be endorsed less - and it's less likely that I'll be found for skills I actually have (and the potential business/ life impacts that come with them).
• Further, I'll be found when someone is looking for someone skilled at "Clowning around." The attention I do attract is the wrong kind.

You can dislike endorsements - but that doesn't mean they aren't impacting you. By accepting endorsements for skills you don't have you are lowering your chance of being found for skills and interests that you do have.

What to do about endorsements

Here's a 3-step plan:

1. If you don't care about being found or networking, opt out of them. This option will stop people from endorsing you and stop you from being asked for endorsements. But ask yourself - if you don't care about being found or networking, why are you here? I'm sure there's legitimate answers to that but for most of us..
2. Delete/hide endorsements for skills that you don't have. This is like weeding a garden or changing the oil on your car. If you wouldn't accept a false compliment in real life, why accept one here? Especially if that endorsement of an unrelated skill can prevent people from finding you in the first place.
3. Start using and benefiting from them. Endorse others that you legitimately feel have certain skills and let them know why you did/ how it helps.

Of course you could also share this article to show to help encourage others to help you be found too!

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Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140617164540-14686499-are-skills-and-endorsements-on-linkedin-hurting-you

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