LinkedIn recently launched a new way for you to give your peeps some ‘ups’: Endorsements.
It’s my experience that, like your brain, most of us only use 10% of our LinkedIn potential. We spend five minutes creating a profile, and that’s just not enough. It’s an investment of time, yes, but it’s pretty much a one-time investment, other than updating. In order to create a really robust LinkedIn profile, you’ll need to set aside a couple of hours, but it’s really worth it.
One thing that many people don’t have enough of on their profiles is Recommendations. Recommendations are tough. I always feel weird asking people to recommend me, and it takes a bit of time, etc… I have several outstanding requests, currently (sorry, guys!). One great trick is to write a recommendation for someone. They will usually reciprocate when they see all the nice things you’ve written about them.
LinkedIn recently introduced a new thing: endorsements. Endorsements are like recommendations, but they’re shorter and easier to administer, so there’s a better chance you’ll get more of them. Think of endorsements like giving K+ on Klout. You basically give someone ‘ups’ on a specific topic that you think they are an ‘expert’ on.
How do you collect endorsements? Go to your LinkedIn profile and scroll down. LinkedIn has added a new section called “Skills and Expertise.” You can select which skills you possess, and people will endorse you for the ones they think you are best at.
Give it a go! And remember, karma is the best way to go–endorse someone else and they’ll endorse you.
Thanks for the posting on Endorsements, but I’m afraid they’re not my favourite thing! Because they’re shorter and easier to do I have found people endorsing me for skills that they have NO idea whether I’m any good at or not, which makes me doubt the validity of any endorsement now! I think it’s just a little TOO easy. Or maybe it’s just because it’s new and people are experimenting to see what it will do. Needless to say, I’ve discovered the ‘hide endorsement’ function and hidden many of my endorsements! Equally I will check to see if an endorser likely to be ‘qualified’ to endorse someone!
Thanks, Nicky!
They are new, so it’s normal to expect there will be a bit of a learning curve while everyone figures out how they work and what the etiquette around them is. But I’m actually really surprised at how many I’ve gotten, which I think is indicative of how easy they are to do.
I wonder if they will replace recommendations, which, of course, are more in-depth. Be interesting to see how things play out as time goes on…