I have a LinkedIn profile as all the other professionals who care about their online presence. It is like an online resume to show your education and professional background. LinkedIn is often used for job search for that reason.
LinkedIn has a feature called “Endorsements” where people can endorse your certain skill with a click of a button. You can add the skills yourself or other people can add the skills as they see fit for you. The one thing I hate about this feature is that anyone, even a stranger, can “endorse” any of the skills. Thankfully lot of my connections have endorsed several skills for me even if they never had my service.
I just received this message from someone who is supposedly a Chairman of certain financial institution. I call him Mr. Stranger because I have no clue who this person is and to protect his identity.
“Thanks for connecting with me. If you are not in my network,feel free to add me.My email is —.When you have a moment, would you please scroll to the bottom of my profile page and endorse All my skills including behind the more or less tag… Please click open….On completion confirm with me and I will do the same for you…LinkedIn says their search engines rely heavily upon endorsements to determine our ranking in search results. So, increasing the number of endorsements is important for visibility. Thank you in advance for your help! Let me know if there is anything I can do for you. Fastest way is to Click the Mouse on the +
* Please note that my endorsement of your skills may take a few days to register.
You can also follow me in Twitter. www.twitter.com/—
In Facebook my page is www.facebook.com/—
Take good care.
Kind Regards
Mr. Stranger”
This is a pretty gutsy move to someone who hates unethical business practices. He may be a very sincere person. I don’t know. However, this is a very bad introduction if that’s the case. I also found out how to “Endorsement Bomb” your friends on LinkedIn by adding skills such as “Pole Dancing” and “Using the F-bomb” on their profile. It is quite funny but this can be a disaster if they are seriously looking for a job. Luckily we can have the control. If you are concerned about your friends here’s how you can opt-out of Endorsements.
We love Yelp.com for the reviews. Whether they are 100% true or not, what other people say about your business is very accessible and important these days. I do not like or trust LinkedIn Endorsements because I know it does not reflect the reality. I will not endorse strangers on LinkedIn or anywhere. I only endorse someone I know for the skills that I believe the person has.