LinkedIn has been rolling out a new feature in the UK over the past few weeks which now means you can endorse your connections for their Skills & Expertise.
Great you might think, this will help to show your worth and build your credibility. But sadly it has a bit of a flaw in the system.
We are being encouraged by LinkedIn to endorse our connections but sadly it only shows approximately four or five Skills and these are not always the ones we’d like to be our highest ranking.
Let me explain!
You can add up to 50 Skills & Expertise in your LinkedIn Profile. Some of which you’re going to want to feature higher than others.
For example one of the Skills & Expertise in my LinkedIn Profile is Customer Service. I have a wealth of experience and knowledge of Customer Service. It features right throughout my career but I don’t necessarily want people to find me and think “yep, she’s really into Customer Service, just what we’re looking for”. Yet LinkedIn is prompting my connections to endorse me in this skill because I have the words ‘Customer Service’ multiple times in my profile.
Equally so I’d like to be able to rank high if someone was looking for a Social Media Specialist but as this is a relatively new area of expertise for everyone (including me) it doesn’t feature right throughout my career history and as such it’s not a prompt for people to endorse me for this skill.
So how do we make LinkedIn work smarter for ourselves & our connections?
It’s simple really, if you truly know the worth of an individual and would like to endorse them for their talent then go to their LinkedIn Profile, scroll down to the Skills & Expertise section, take a look at all their skills and ask yourself “Which Skill/s do I know them to be good at?”, “Do I have first-hand knowledge of this?” If you do then click on the + sign next to the Skill or Skills to endorse them.
If someone has endorsed you for a Skill but you think there are others which reflect your ‘added value’ more then you could always send them a message to thank them for taking the time & trouble to endorse you but also ask if they’d mind endorsing you for your specialist Skill/s.
Which skills are ranking high for you but are not necessarily the ones you’d like to be known for?
Leave your comments below…..