Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
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Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
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Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#2In their quest to copy Facebook's formula for professional networking, LI's growth/engagement team makes a huge effort in promoting users to endorse their connections.
As a result, nearly all the endorsements on my LI have come from non-technical folks who just know buzzwords (e.g. python was my most-endorsed skill even even though this isn't my most used language by far, and any engineer taking a quick glance at my projects -- almost all native C/C++/ObjC -- would realize it. Now I'm getting lots of pitches for python gigs...)
If there was a way to (optionally) approve an endorsement beforehand, that would help.
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#3Amen
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#4I've been endorsed for sarcasm on linked in. When friends want to tease, we endorse each other for things like ms-dos and j2ee it's beautiful.
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#5When writing LinkedIn profiles for my resume and coaching clients, I advise them to turn endorsements "off". Under the Skills section is a "Adjust Endorsement Settings" listing that you can click to turn it off.
Endorsements tend to be just extra noise with all those pictures, and on many profiles there is rather important information (education, projects, etc.) below the skills section. You don't want your reader getting lost in the endorsements before getting to some useful info.
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#6In their quest to copy Facebook's formula for professional networking, LI's growth/engagement team makes a huge effort in promoting users to endorse their connections. As a result, nearly all the endorsements on my LI have come from non-technical folks who just know buzzwords (e.g. python was my most-endorsed skill even even though this isn't my most used language by far, and any engineer taking a quick glance at my…
Yeah but I bet you still endorsed Cindy/Bob from accounting for Excel. It's a noisy metric but it survives through social and professional motivations.
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#7I wonder if they are useful at all just as: number of endorsements / number of connections.
Even if the tag is wrong, that someone vouched for you in some minor way might be statistically significant.
Of course, it could be that the UI encourages mindless tagging, therefore it's all cruft.
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#8I've been considering just deleting my LI account. It essentially has just been a sink for terrible recruiter mail; in 12 years of having an account I don't think I've once received any sort of actionable message through it.
I've also turned off the endorsements because I was just getting driveby endorsements for things like J2EE.
Is there a job-search downside to deleting your account, provided you have a decent Google cross section otherwise via conference talks, blog, github, etc?
I can't tell if LinkedIn has marketed itself into an actual perception that not having an account means you don't care about career or the like.
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#9Yeah, the endorsement stuff is just tag spam.
They encourage people to endorse their friends, and they give us some tags. Lots of people will, on the theory they're somehow helping their friends, do this thing.
But the tags they offer have a tenuous relationship with reality.
Re: Data on the uselessness of LinkedIn endorsements
#10Not sure linkedin really cares if the endorsements are accurate or not. I heard endorsements were / are massively successful at re engaging users, which is the real aim of the product.