Connor Brooke
LINKEDIN HAS BEEN VERY BUSY LATELY
They just rolled out a new feature called Skills Endorsements that allows your 1st degree connections to “endorse” your skills and expertise with one click. It is an interesting feature as it allows the credibility that can come from others speaking up on your behalf.
Some might say it is a bit Klout-like in allowing others to say they think you’re good at one or more of your skills. These are skills that you have previously added to your Profile (more about that later in this post). This allows others to say they, too, think you have these skills.
LET’S TAKE A LOOK
Someone decides to endorse my skills in a particular area I have listed. Again, these are skills I have already chosen to add to my LinkedIn profile. If you haven’t done so, you should as they are all searchable by people who might be interested in those skills, not to mention it’s okay to help people know what you do for a living.
YOU’RE SUDDENLY GETTING ENDORSEMENT EMAILS FROM LINKEDIN
When someone endorses my skills, LinkedIn then sends me an email to let me know someone, or some people, have endorsed my skills.
Here’s an example of that email:
I then click Continue in my email to see what’s going on. I am taken to my Profile on LinkedIn, where I might see a blue box above my Profile that suggests others I can endorse, four at a time. I can choose to follow LinkedIn’s suggestions to endorse any or all of these four connections, and/or ask to see more as you can see in the bottom right corner of the blue box.
When your connections choose to endorse your skills, it then adds their very small avatar next to those skills in the Skills and Expertise section of your profile.
This is what that that looks like:
HOW DO I ENDORSE SOMEONE?
If you would like to endorse someone, but don’t see the aforementioned blue box at the top of your profile, you can scroll down to the Skills & Expertise section of your 1st degree connections, where you will be able to click on that skill, or click the + symbol next to the skill.
When you endorse others’ skills, your name and picture will then appear next to the skill on that person’s profile, and an update regarding the endorsement will appear in your network update stream, as well as the update stream of the connection you have endorsed.
As we discussed at the top of this post, an email will also be sent to the person you’ve endorsed.
One’s most endorsed skills will move to the top of their Skills & Expertise section.
Another way to endorse a connection’s skills is to go to their profile, where you may see a box above their photo that asks you if this person is skilled in particular areas. The skills listed in this box allow you to suggest and endorse multiple skills your connection hasn’t necessarily added to their profile. Suggested skills that you choose won’t appear on your connection’s profile until they approve them.
Here is what that section on your connection’s profile looks like:
TO HIDE OR REMOVE AN ENDORSEMENT
If you don’t want someone’s endorsement of your skills to show, you can hide it. Be careful when hiding someone’s endorsement of your skills because LinkedIn has not yet enabled us to unhide someone’s endorsement of us. When looking at your Skills & Expertise section, you will notice a small gray arrow below the avatars of a particular skill:
When you click on the gray arrow, a box pops up that allows you to then hide specific endorsements. Click on Hide Endorsement, then close the box.
YOU’VE CHANGED YOUR MIND
If you change your mind, and you want to remove your endorsement of someone’s skills, you can do so by going to their profile, finding the skill in the Skills & Expertise section where your avatar shows next to that skill you endorsed. When you hover over that skill, it will then give you the option to Undo your endorsement. The Undo doesn’t show below as it only works when hovering.
What do you think about the new Skills Endorsement feature?
Like?
Dislike?
Worried about ethical implications?
Follow-up: I’ve written Part 2 titled LinkedIn Skills’ Endorsements: Take Control Of Your Skills to address additional questions.
Read more: What Do LinkedIn Skill Endorsements Really Mean?
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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I think it’s a fun little feature, but not sure how much it’s worth beyond face value really. A lot of endorsements is going to look good, and it’s certainly easier to endorse than to write a recommendation. But then that extra effort is what I think makes a recommendation more valuable.
Great…more junk mail.
Hi Ahmed….thanks for reading my post. I agree, the long-form recommendations are valuable, but it seems people are so busy today, and don’t get around to writing them as much as we’d like. I’ve even heard some negative comments about the recommendations written by some, saying they are just writing them in hopes of reciprocation. There will always be negatives and positives, right?!
Nancy, you’re right about the time constraints definitely. But I think it comes down to quality vs quantity in the end. A good mix of both is probably the way to go.
How can I see who endorsed me for a skill which is not ranked enough?
Hi Jack:
If you go down to the Skills section of your Profile, underneath those that are highly listed, you will see a small link that says “View all xx skills.” You can view all of them, and even see how many have endorsed you, but it doesn’t appear as though LinkedIn is allowing us to view those who have recommended that skill. Are you getting the emails from LinkedIn when someone endorses you? That would be a longer, clumsier way to go back and see who is endorsing you in these areas. I will root around a little more to see if there is a way, but it doesn’t seem like it right now. Hopefully, they will change this. Thanks for your question.