MUST READ: Congress demands answers from Google over Glass privacy concerns

Topic: Social Enterprise

LinkedIn endorsements offer more credibility behind skill sets

Summary: LinkedIn rolls out Endorsements feature for boosting credibility to a user's skills and expertise.

Rachel King

By for Between the Lines |

LinkedIn has introduced a new feature dubbed "Endorsements" in which users can endorse members of their professional networks.

The Endorsements feature is essentially another form of offering a reference on a LinkedIn profile. It also gives more credibility to skills and expertise listed on a profile in comparison to what might be listed on a paper resume. Similar features exist on other sites that depend on social connections, such as Airbnb.

The professional social network has tried to make offering endorsements as easy and painless as possible. LinkedIn already has programmed recommended endorsements on profile pages, so at a base level, all you have to do is go in and confirm them with just one click.

If you want to be really proactive, you can suggest some more skills and expertise qualities for said contact on your own. From there, LinkedIn will both email you when you have received an endorsement as well as list who endorsed you on your profile.

LinkedIn touts that the benefits include being able to recommend the skills of contacts while building your own online professional identity at the same time.

Endorsements launches today on LinkedIn in English first across the United States, India, New Zealand, and Australia. The feature will be rolled out in all languages available on the social network to all members over the next few weeks.

Topics: Social Enterprise, Apps, Collaboration, Networking

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

8 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • Endorsements? Jobs?

    Relevant?
    LI is not yet a place for most to seek new employment at least INMO not in construction anyways perhaps in IT.. I do not have anything good to report in my search just shills trying to get you to represent them.... for nothing.
    Maybe others do have better luck?
    robbiejfergusson@...
    Reply Vote

  • Endorsements? Jobs?

    LI is not yet a place for most to seek new employment at least INMO not in construction anyways perhaps in IT..
    robbiejfergusson@...
    Reply Vote

  • relevent

    I do not have anything good to report in my search just shills trying to get you to represent them.... for nothing.
    Maybe others do have better luck?
    robbiejfergusson@...
    Reply Vote

  • Company Research

    Friends were discussing only yesterday how they have used LI to research prospective employers before they accept a job. Their employment process was still through the 'normal' channels but they were able to check with former employees in their network as to why they left the company. LI enabled them to identify those former employees.
    I assume the hiring companies use the same approach in reverse - and you may not even know about it!
    polymer.design@...
    Reply Vote

  • Oh please no

    Linkedin used to be a fairly good platform but for a couple of years now it has become a hangout of recruiters that name themselves " specialist" leaving out the "recruiter" tag which just causes more confusion and contact clutter. I decided that I will not accept any more connections with recruiters since I have my portfolio publicly visible anyway.

    Just recently I had some idiot in my network using Linkedin to tell a recruiter also in my network that I would reference him to a job, when we just had been connected as a result of an exchange of cards and the recruiter was just another contact clutter. Both removed.

    In real terms, I hardly get any valuable leads or introduced to useful contacts in Linkedin. I have been more successful with Twitter, Facebook and the recent TableCrowd. It also seems harder to follow messages sent via Linkedin as for some strange reason they get stacked up in Gmail.

    At the moment I just use it to store my clients' recommendations and endorsements, but I am really looking forward to moving to something new and fresh.
    Luis Morais
    Reply Vote

  • LinkedIn is a gold mine for Job Referrals

    LinkedIn is great for one major aspect of a job search... finding and researching connections and generating employee referrals. Employee Referrals as the #1 Source of new hires to companies in the US, and have been for at least the last decade (see "Source of Hire" report for CareerXRoads.com).

    When used in a strategic way, LinkedIn is great for attracting the right audience to your profile, and then delivering your professional brand.

    If you need contacts at a company... LinkedIn is a great place to start.
    If you need to build a professional network, and then maintain those relationships, LinkedIn is hard to beat.
    JonathanDuarte
    Reply Vote

  • LinkedIn Skill Endorsements. Should you care?

    While LinkedIn Recommendations (those brief little snippets of nice things that people say about you) add “social validity” to you as a person and tell others how you performed at a specific job, they don’t tell the whole story. Should you care about LinkedIn Skill Endorsements? If you want to give people a better sense of what you know and get found by people who will want to pay you more money than what you’re making now, the answer is “absolutely.” I just wrote a blog entry on how to maximize endorsements to get you more visible to recruiters. http://jobcircle.com/blog/?p=2839
    joe@...
    Reply Vote

  • Current mechanism of Endorsements does not Add to credibility, Kills it!

    I don't agree. In fact, I was so unnerved by this that I ended up writing a full blown post. I can't reproduce the whole post, but the key issue is that this whole game is akin to FB Likes or Twitter RTs. There's no responsibility or professional act, just a social gesture. And, of course there are other points that I mentioned in my blog, but this is a complete meltdown. I know lot of people like it because of the ease with which they can show their warmth or appreciation, but they like FB for the same reason, dont they! LinkedIn has professional implications!

    Here's my post: Dear LinkedIn, Rethink the Endorsements. You’re not Facebook or Twitter! http://ashishbhagwat.com/2012/10/04/dear-linkedin-rethink-the-endorsements-youre-not-facebook-or-twitter/

    I hope they do something about it, and not open a bottle of Champagne for the increased traffic & traction! One of those misleading marketing bursts!
    ashish_bhagwat
    Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close