Back in September, LinkedIn launched Endorsements, a way for people to endorse others in their network for specific skills, making them more attractive candidates for various positions and/or projects.
The company announced today that it has seen over 550 million endorsements given out since the feature launched. Not bad for just a few short months.
LinkedIn also shared some tips in a blog post for making your endorsements count.
“It’s important to be thoughtful about what skill you endorse,” says LinkedIn’s Prachi Gupta. “We encourage you to focus on skills and expertise you can personally attest to or have experienced first hand. If you think your connection is being too humble for their own good, suggest a skill they may not have listed yet on their profile. Just remember, the endorsee must accept the suggested skill before it appears on their profile.”
“Use this as an opportunity to keep in touch with your network,” she adds. “When you visit a connection’s profile page, you may see a module up top suggesting relevant skills you can endorse. Use this as an opportunity to reconnect with an old connection by endorsing them for work you’ve done together at your last company. Don’t see the skill you had in mind? Just ‘X’ out the suggested one and type in the skill you’d like to recommend.”
She goes on to recommend that users “flex their best assets,” or in other words, manage your endorsements to select the ones you want to show or not show. You can always add or remove skills from your profile, of course.