Okay, admittedly, no one has ever LinkedIn endorsed me as a lingerie model. However, I do wonder about some of the LinkedIn endorsements I have recently received (and thank you if you have endorsed me), based on the talent that was being endorsed by the person endorsing it. So that got me to wondering…
Are people confused with how LinkedIn Endorsements work?
There are two parts to LinkedIn Endorsements. The first being how to endorse another person’s skills, and the second being making it easy for someone to endorse your skills. Let’s tackle endorsing others first.
A LinkedIn Endorsement is a service that LinkedIn offers that seems to be a reaction to Facebook “Likes.” When you view the profile of one of your first level LinkedIn connections, a number of words appear that are supposed to be skills that your connection possesses. (Note that this doesn’t always happen and I unfortunately cannot tell you why on some profiles this feature appears and on others it does not). You can endorse the skills associated with the person by clicking the “Endorse” button. You can even enter words and LinkedIn will suggest additional skills. However, whereby Facebook “likes” are rather intuitive and easy to use, I think a majority of LinkedIn users are confused by the endorsement feature.
For example, people who have heard me speak and who have even written a testimonial for my speaking programs, on LinkedIn, endorse me for “advertising” even though I’ve never done any advertising for that person. Yet they don’t endorse me for my speaking. I just doesn’t make logical sense.
The answer can most likely be found in how LinkedIn presents Endorsements. Again, if you view a first-level connection, at the top of your connection’s profile, a big and bold box appears with a large headline that states “Does XXXXXX have these skills or expertise?” In the box are the skill words.
The logical next step based on the headline question would be to click on the words corresponding with the skill you want to endorse. However, THE EXACT OPPOSITE HAPPENS. When you click on a skill word you are NOT endorsing that particular skill. Rather, you are removing that skill from the Endorsement list. Then when you click the “Endorse” button, the only skills you are endorsing are the ones that remain.This is completely non-intuitive.
So in my situation, I’m wondering if people are clicking the “Public Speaking” button thus removing it from the list, and when they click the “endorse” button, what I’m being endorsed for is the word(s) that remain, e.g., “advertising.”
Also note that when reviewing another person’s profile, you can scroll down and review all of the skill words that are associated with the profile. At this point, if you do click on a word, it does actually provide your endorsement for that skill. However, since most people come across endorsements when first viewing someone’s profile, this more intuitive way to provide a skill endorsement is largely missed.
So how can you control the skills that people endorse about you?
The good news is, it’s easy.
Once logged into your LinkedIn account, click the “Profile” tab on the upper navigation, and from the pull-down menu, choose “Edit Profile.” On your profile page, scroll down until you see the “Skills and Expertise” section. Click the small “Edit” link.
Once in the “Edit Skills & Expertise” section, you can delete skills that are not important to you to have endorsed, or add new skills. You can have a total of 50 skills. Unfortunately, there is no way to rank or prioritize your skills. Meaning, what shows up when someone looks at your profile is completely random, because only about a dozen of your chosen skills appear. So it may actually serve you better to limit the number of skills in your profile, so irrelevant ones don’t randomly appear.
For those who have read my book and/or attended my Know More! programs, you know I am a HUGE fan of LinkedIn. The Endorsement feature can be very powerful one, once you know how to effectively use it.
Now that you know how to correctly endorse someone on LinkedIn (and no, picture aside,…I will not be adding “lingerie model” to my LinkedIn profile anytime soon), I hope you take advantage of this cool service and promote those with whom you’ve had a positive business experience. And now that you know how to have some control on what others endorse about you, I hope your business contacts share their positive experiences. You can become a power endorser user…now that you Know More!
