1. Guide to
Linkedin Endorsements

2. Linkedin Endorsements
A fantastic new feature has been added to Linkedin profiles, which you can use to
develop and share your reputation, called ‘Endorsements’.
The concept behind these is a bit like ‘Recommendations’, but rather than the
potentially complex process of asking, waiting, reminding, receiving and then finally
writing or rewriting the end result until both parties are happy. Endorsements are a
lot simpler and easier to use.
Endorsements also hold much potential, as they are able to flow across our social
audience, as opposed to the existing text based recommendations, which often
need direct interaction from a visitor.
Linkedin also recently moved the ‘Recommendation Summary’ from the main
profile box meaning much less visibility of these on your profile.
Although a simple concept, ‘Skills & expertise ’ and ‘Endorsements’ don’t always
work as you would first imagine, so we put together this basic guide to help.
Skills & Expertise
The ‘Skills & Expertise’ section on Linkedin has been around for a while and can
easily be added to your personal Linkedin profile.
You can find the right section under the ‘More...’ heading at the top the page as in
the image below.
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3. Adding Skills and Expertise to your Profile
You can add up to 50 ‘Skills and Expertise’ categories to your profile. Simply type
them in the box and it will offer some suggestions for relevant skills.
As you will see later, it may make sense to start small and add the main areas you
feel would like to be endorsed for first.
Once you have built up some endorsements, you can add more skills later.
What is appearing in my profile when people visit?
This is difficult to assess for yourself, as when you visit your own profile, you aren’t
given the option to endorse yourself, so there are three ways we have discovered
to find out.
1. Set up another profile, connect to yourself and then see what is listed in the
‘Blue box’ when you visit your own profile.
2. Ask your connections to visit your profile and then feed back what they are
being shown.
3. Wait until people start endorsing the skills they are offered and Linkedin will
then ask then you if you want to accept these.
The third method is risky and wasteful, as you may have to refuse endorsements to
avoid becoming ‘over-endorsed’ in a skill you don’t want to prioritise.
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4. Here is an example of what is shown when you visit my profile.
Although I do have all of the above skills, currently, I would rather not be primarily
known for my ‘Data Admin’ skills or ‘Telemarketing’ expertise, as they are based on
previous experience and not a priority right now. Herein lies the potential problem.
As far as I can tell, by using method 1 and 2 above, this box is being shown to all
new visitors to my profile. You may also notice the big yellow ‘Endorse’ button.
When visitors press the big yellow button, it endorses all of these skills at once. As
Linkedin had selected these skills for me, I was rapidly becoming the world’s
leading Data Admin, so I took some immediate action and deleted ‘Data Admin’
from my list of skills.
Which did nothing to stop it appearing!
In fact, as far as I can tell, it is still recommending this skill to my visitors (as you can
see above). One week after I deleted it completely from my profile, it is still one of
my ‘default five’. Maybe it’s my destiny.
I have contacted Linkedin support asking them if they plan to amend this but
unless they change it, it may be better to choose the skills & expertise you want to
prioritise before you start asking for endorsements.
In an extreme case, you may end up being the leading expert in balloon folding,
morris dancing or ear wiggling.
Admittedly, these are great skills to have, but not when applying for a role as a
cardiac surgeon.
What if I don’t choose any skills?
If you don’t have any ‘Skills & Expertise’ defined, it appears that Linkedin may try to
guess which of these you have might.
Our research seems to indicate that their guesses are based on your connections
and their own skills, as well as other factors.
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5. Depending on your connections, this could mean the skills that are being shown to
your visitors, are not necessarily those which you would choose.
If that is the case, ideally, you need to define the skills & expertise you actually want
to be recognised for.
As you can see below, this is Peter. He has no skills; in fact he also has no history or
connections.
That is because we just
created him to test what
happens and see how it
works.
Linkedin seems to be inferring his skills, based on either the company he is working
for or his connections – in this case just me. (If that is the case, I am a bit surprised
he isn’t a ‘Data Admin’ though).
On the basis of our thoroughly unscientific research, we would recommend adding
at least 5 skills to your profile to give the ‘Blue Box’ a head start.
Ok, now we have some skills added and we have requested some endorsements
from our connections – what next?
Moving mountains
A great, little known or used feature of Linkedin, is the ability to move the different
sections of your profile page around.
If you want to make your new endorsements more visible, simply click on ‘Edit
Profile’ which you can find on the ‘Profile’ menu.
Once here simply hover over the section header, as in the image below, and the
cursor will change to a cross shaped arrow like this
Drag and Drop
Drag the ‘Skills & Expertise’
section to the top of your
profile and then everyone who
visits your profile can revel in
your skills and expertise ‘face
mountain.’
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6. Can I remove some endorsements from my profile?
Linkedin thought of that too.
The good news is that like Recommendations, Linkedin have added the ability to
hide specific endorsements. This means that you can always change them and hide
them after you have been given them.
In a scenario where you are looking at a new role with specific skill requirements,
this could be very powerful for showing your specialism in that area while keeping
all of your other endorsements for another time, without deleting them.
It is also handy for removing the likes of starcraft, cheese rolling or microwaiting
from your skills platoon.
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7. Deleting a skill or expertise completely.
If you really don’t want a skill to be listed and you don’t want to hide it from view,
you can completely delete skills and expertise from your profile.
Simply return to the ‘Edit Skills and Endorsements’ page and click the cross inside
the blue box.
Be aware that there is no confirmation box, it just gets removed instantly from your
profile.
Summary
Linkedin Endorsements are a great feature for building your personal reputation.
Using this guide, hopefully, you can make this work for you and your business.
Many people feel a little uncomfortable asking for full recommendations, so this
could provide a much simpler and easier way to enhance your profile.
NB This isn’t intended to be a complete guide to Linkedin Skills & Expertise or
Endorsements and no doubt these may also develop and change in the coming
months, so we will try to update this when those changes occur.
If you want to know more about other Linkedin features you can also visit
www.Linkedin.com and learn more from the experts.
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8. About the author
Omnisocial is the Social Media and Digital Marketing division of KnowledgeBank
providing measurable marketing consultancy, strategy and training solutions across
direct, digital and social media.
You can visit their Linkedin Company Profile page here.
For more information you can also visit www.omnisocial.co.uk or contact them at
enquire@knowledge-bank.co.uk
You can also join them on the social networks by clicking below!
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