Recently LinkedIn introduced a new feature called Endorsements, where people in your network can acknowledge your skills, and you can return the favor. Endorsements appear at the bottom of your profile, alongside a list of your skills and expertise.
Essentially this feature allows others to easily validate your experience, based on keywords you’ve specified in the Skills and Expertise area of your LinkedIn profile, or they can suggest key terms that you haven’t yet defined.
IMPORTANT: Now would be a good time to go review the Skills and Expertise keywords you have on your profile and add any that may be missing. For example, if you’re a coach specializing in women’s issues, make sure that “Women’s Issues” is listed in your skill set. From LinkedIn, click on Profile, then Edit Profile. Scroll down to the Skills and Expertise area, then click Add a Skill.
Though this feature is still quite new, I consider it a sort of karma exchange. When you view a profile for one of your connections on LinkedIn, you can quickly click to endorse them for one or more skills. In return, they may also endorse you. LinkedIn also suggests people to endorse at the top of your profile when you login. Giving an endorsement is a quick and easy way to remind members of your network that you are paying attention, and they in turn can do the same for you.
Over time these endorsements will likely build on individual profiles, and will ultimately reflect your individual expertise in the various skills you have identified. LinkedIn hasn’t yet provided a way to request endorsements from your network (like can do with Recommendations), so for now the best way to get started is to contribute endorsements for others and hope they do the same for you.
By default, when you receive an endorsement LinkedIn sends you a notification message via email. This feature could quickly become annoying so here’s how to turn it off:
1. From your profile, click on your name in the upper right corner, then Settings.
2. Click on Email Preferences.
3. Click on Set the Frequency of Emails. Scroll down to locate Endorsements, choose No Email, then Save Changes.
Voila!
After getting tons of linkedin phishing emails recently, thought this might be another version.
Nope, it’s not a phishing scam, though it would have been nice if LinkedIn had notified us that these emails would be coming. I guess the good news is that means you’re getting lots of endorsements!
Thanks for clarifying how to turn this function off. I’ve been finding this new offering way too sycophantic for my liking.
How do I turn off endorsements, period? I don’t want anyone to be solicited for an endorsement for me. I NOT asking how to turn off the e-mail — that’s been explained. I want to stop the whole endorsement process.
I haven’t seen any way to turn off this feature completely. It appears to be baked into the system.
I decided to simply remove all my skills from my profile. Now there is nothing to endorse.
I do not want to ask for endorsements from anyone. How do I turn off the endorsement FUNCTION itself, not just the email notifications. This is an extremely deceptive tactic that LinkedIn used.
Thanks for showing me this. It was getting on my nerves! I have to say I think the Endorsement malarky is utterly worthless. Complete strangers whom I’ve never heard of are endorsing me for skills I don’t have (like construction).
I, too, dislike this new function. I’ve received endorsements from people who have never used my services and, now, they expect me to reciprocate when I’ve never used theirs.
I also don’t like endorsements. While in theory it would be a great way to validate your skill set, it was not implemented correctly– people who can’t judge whether I am good at, or can do a skill are endorsing me, while the ones who can accurately judge me are not. I would much rather see LinkedIn give the control to me as to whether I accept the endorsement or not. So far I haven’t endorsed anyone and I would prefer that no one endorse me. I don’t want to remove my skills like one of the commenters, but perhaps I’ll have to.
I work in the securities industry where endorsements are not allowed, so I would also like control over this function and have found that persons are endorsing me when they have not had experience with my work in hopes of getting a returned endorsement…how bogus! I do not wish to take down my skills either, but will probably be forced to in the future. Right now, I admit it is fun to see who endorses me…but not fun to have to run and hide it ASAP…
Like many others, I find the Endorsements functionality not only meaningless but damaging. I have been endorsed by contacts who clearly (to others in my network) are not qualified to comment on my skills. This damages my resumé. I sent this feedback to LinkedIn but did not get a reply. Unless they quickly come up with a way to disable this functionality I too will be removing all my skills.
I am really upset with this new “feature” because it’s actually damaging my effort to make a career change. I’m getting tons of endorsements for my “old” self, i.e., the editor. I do not want to remove “editing” from my list of skills because it IS a highly valuable skill and I will undoubtedly continue to use it in some capacity in my new career. But unfortunately, my former colleagues continue to identify me by that skill and it is thus dominating my Top 10 skills list to the detriment of all others.
I also echo the numerous complaints above, e.g., getting unsolicited endorsements from people whose skills I don’t want to endorse in return and who I don’t really wish to be endorsed by because I do not consider them talented! I, too, am getting skill endorsements from people who could not possibly have seen any of my work demonstrating that skill — which shows me that endorsements are not credible at all and should not be given any weight when viewing others’ profiles.
Sorry but this doesn’t work “Endorsements” is set to “no email” (I did this long ago) but the Skills Recommends keep coming in.
I too was frustrated by linkedin soliciting endorsements from my conatcts without my knowledge. When I inquired about this they told me how to turn off “receipts’ but acknowledged that they would still be spamming my contacts for endorsements on my behalf. I deleted my skills and that still did not stop it.
Linkedin MUST allow their useres to opt in or out of this process as it is ruining the only good networking site out there – but they don’t see the problem.
Yet another reason to leave LinkedIn. I find it hard to believe that LinkedIn didn’t consider that by spamming contacts that are merely *connected* to their members to endorse their members’ skills, they were going to :
1) Annoy the people being spammed for their opinion,
2) Annoy the subjects of the unsolicited endorsements, and
3) End up asking a hell of a lot of people that have no business endorsing skills for their opinion.
I have Endorsements turned off specifically because this system of soliciting uninformed opinions from disinterested and/or unqualified acquaintances has no credibility whatsoever. They might as well be asking my mother to endorse my skills as a rocket surgeon for all the good her opinion on that subject would do me, her or LinkedIn.