Yes! Finally some sanity has been brought to the Endorsements feature on LinkedIn. It took over a year and a half, but I think we are now starting to gain some much needed control over what is going on here.

Truthfully, this crazy feature has been causing me to pull my hair out. And you know that I don't have much hair left to pull!

To get a full discussion of the overall strategy behind this confusing LinkedIn feature, you can reread my previous article "10 Tips to Help You Maximize LinkedIn Endorsements."

Two Big Changes

The bulk of the information in my previous article is still spot on, but there's two big changes:

1.  You can now take control of that annoying big blue box that shows up when you view your profile or someone else's profile.

2.  You can reorder your skills to make sure your most important skills appear at the top of the list.

Keep in mind, however, that endorsements are:

  • Important to LinkedIn
  • Affect the search ranking on LinkedIn
  • Akin to "Yelping" of people
  • Social proof of just how good we are at something
  • May just be the reason someone picks you over someone else who has fewer endorsements for the skill they are looking for.

4 Ways to Capitalize on the Endorsements Feature

To accomplish the following tasks, you will need to be in Edit Profile mode. Then go to the Skills & Endorsements section and click Edit.

1.  Unclick the "Show me suggestions to endorse my connections" box. This will eliminate aggravation and save time.
No more annoying big blue box popping up at the top of everyone's profile!

But if you turn this off, don't forget to occasionally take the time to endorse people for their skills.

2.  Do not under any circumstances choose to not be endorsed. This will cost you. Trust me.

3.  Reorder your 50 Skills. Yes, I said 50. These are your best keywords, and they'll improve your search ranking. Drag them into the order you want, from most important to least important.

Then your connections will be encouraged to tick off endorsements for the skills you think are important, and within a short period of time they'll be the most endorsed skills on your profile. This will help you get closer to the top of a search for those critical skills.

4.  Type your most important keywords into the search box. See what words LinkedIn prompts you with. These will be the most searched skills on LinkedIn that include that word. Grab the ones that are applicable to you.

Follow these steps, and you should soon see more endorsements of your most important skills.