
Why am I being endorsed for skills and expertise I do not claim on my profile? - processing
http://community.linkedin.com/questions/16624/why-am-i-being-endorsed-for-skills-and-expertise-i.html?page=1&pageSize=10&sort=votes
======
columbo
I quickly realized how little value the endorsement system in linkedin was
when my uncle endorsed me for Groovy. In my mind I like to think he was
picking it as a personality trait and not a skillset.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
> my uncle endorsed me for Groovy (...) as a personality trait

I laughed harder than usual at that. I wonder what a "groovy" professional
would be? :)

~~~
b0b_d0e
When I read that I imagined LinkedIn is refering to the groovy programming
language [http://groovy.codehaus.org/](http://groovy.codehaus.org/)

Of course... that doesn't make a lot of sense for a personality trait
either... It makes as much sense as describing someone as C++. Maybe I'm
misunderstanding something here.

~~~
loganfrederick
Groovy (or, less common, "Groovie" or "Groovey") is a slang colloquialism
popular during the 1960s and 1970s. It is roughly synonymous with words such
as "cool", "excellent", "fashionable", or "amazing", depending on context.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy)

~~~
6cxs2hd6
That this needs to be explained makes me feel old.

~~~
LukeShu
I suspect that it is a geographical-cultural thing, not an age-culture thing.

edit: for clarity

~~~
YokoZar
Old people have different cultures.

------
neilk
Interestingly, "Murder" is a legitimate skill on LinkedIn. Not practitioners,
but criminal lawyers advertising their expertise.

[http://www.linkedin.com/skills/skill/Murder](http://www.linkedin.com/skills/skill/Murder)

The related skills sidebar is also hilarious.

~~~
mcv
I'll tell that to my brother-in-law. He writes thrillers featuring a
"corporate trouble shooter" specialized in "fortunate accidents" as
protagonist, and he pretends to be his main character on social networks. This
would be just perfect for him.

------
leeny
I don't think endorsements are meant to be true endorsements. If they were,
LinkedIn would have written a weighted endorsement system by now (where an
endorsement from someone with expertise in some field means more than, say, an
endorsement from your realtor about your JavaScript skills).

It's just crowdsourced tagging with a different name. This way, recruiters who
pay LinkedIn $10k/yr can more easily search profiles for keywords.

~~~
waster
I think this is absolutely right on. But a smart recruiter would realize that
some measurable chunk of endorsements are selected by people who have no clue
as to your skill set or level of ability in that particular area -- people
who, for example, logged in, saw four possible endorsements they could give
people in their network at the top of their screen, were feeling beneficent
that day, and clicked on all of them. Or someone who you just endorsed for a
skill, and they see that you did, and want to endorse you for something but
already endorsed you for the 10 skills you preloaded, and so they just pick
the first thing LinkedIn recommends.

Presumably LinkedIn has some algorithm by which they look at people with
similar skill set groupings, and say ah, statistically most of the people with
this set have these three additional skills, and then farm that out to your
network to see who endorses it. New endorsements tweak the skill set, which
feeds back into the algorithm. It's almost like a glorified, twisted game of
_The Game of Life_.

~~~
sliverstorm
_a smart recruiter would realize..._

Nobody said the smart recruiters are their target market.

~~~
philwelch
Sounds like a narrow niche to me.

------
incision
I'd think this is pretty straightforward.

The real business of LinkedIn is selling services to employers and space to
advertisers [0].

The more data points they have on each user, the more numerous results they
can return to recruiters and more specific targeting they can do with ads.

Endorsements are a way to easily, indirectly expand a user profile by turning
the additions into 1-click suggestions and consents rather than requiring real
action by the user.

If it were socially acceptable I expect they'd ask users to upload profile
photos and estimate salaries for their connections too.

0:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/08/01/linkedin-q...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/08/01/linkedin-q2-earnings-
revenue-beat-street/)

~~~
reinhardt
> The more data points they have on each user, the more numerous results they
> can return to recruiters and more specific targeting they can do with ads.

The thing is that endorsements at least are pretty noisy data. What's the
point of shooting for quantity at the expense of quality?

~~~
incision
_> "The thing is that endorsements at least are pretty noisy data. What's the
point of shooting for quantity at the expense of quality?"_

Personally, the endorsements I receive are fairly noisy, but I'm acting as the
second level of informed filter by choosing what to accept.

The endorsements which make it to my profile are accurate.

Unless I'm unique, I'd expect the resulting graph of accepted endorsements to
be reasonably useful.

~~~
reinhardt
Well the classic example of garbage data is all recruiters getting endorsed
for the two dozen technologies they are headhunting for.

------
TallGuyShort
I have a similar problem: I am endorsed for skills that I do claim on my
profile by people whose endorsement I do not want. You can remove individual
endorsements without removing the skill itself. Here are the instructions a
friend of mine found for this:

Login to LinkedIn; Hover over "Profile" and click on "Edit Profile"; Scroll
down to "Skills & Expertise"; Click on "Edit"; Click on “Manage Endorsements”.
It is not highlighted but it will accept a click when you hover.; Click on the
skill where you want to remove endorsers and then uncheck any endorser you
want to remove.; When you’re done, click on “Save”;

~~~
MikeCodeAwesome
Following the same procedure, you can also choose not to display your
endorsements in one shot: rather than click "Manage Endorsements" instead
click the down-arrow next to "Display your endorsements" and choose "No, do
not show my endorsements."

------
bherms
One of my friends had everyone endorse him for "knitting" and "problem
gambling"... The fact that these are even options is laughable.

~~~
colmvp
My friends colluded to endorse me as 'Mexican.' I'm not Mexican.

~~~
Narretz
Mexican ... ? I don't even ... only idea I have is that it's related to food.

------
thirdtruck
We actually had an "endorsement war" between my coworkers last week.

Some of the results: Memes, Poetry, Salads (ten endorsements!), Tree
Identification, Punk, Pickles (not to be confused with Cucumber), Shampoo,
Extortion, Glitter Tattoos.

~~~
ngoel36
Murder

------
jfb
I recently just bailed on Linkedin. I was getting zero utility from it, and
didn't see any possible future where I would. I ache to pull the trigger on
Facebook as well, but the longer I wait the more entrenched it becomes for my
family.

EDIT: removed superfluous "the".

~~~
adventureloop
I received a phone call at work from someone trying to sell JRebel, after all
the recruiters that call through to the office(doesn't look good) I had to
hide my linkedin profile.

------
skorgu
A former coworker of mine endorsed me for, among things I actually do know,
"lubrication", "flexibility" and "potatoes".

It took me a good while to notice and another good while to stop laughing. Of
course a tiny bit less observation on my part could have published that to my
actual profile.

------
AYBABTME
I was (friendly) trolling a colleague who's very entrenched into Java World.
The troll started as a genuine attempt to suggest a new tech he'd like; Scala.
Turned out he wasn't interested at all, but the gag kept rolling about him
learning Scala.

I got the idea that I could get a bunch of people to go and endorse him for
Scala on LinkedIn. The (far fetched) goal being that he'd inadvertently accept
the endorsement and end up returning in the top results for local Scala
experts.

So I went and endorsed him for that. He didn't fall for it. However I also
endorsed other colleagues. One of them caught on the troll and endorsed me
back for 'Genocide' and a bunch of atrocities.

Maybe people are just trolls like I am and endorse OP for the sake of lulz.

------
zmmmmm
The whole endorsement scam completely destroyed my trust in LinkedIn. I find
that they are out soliciting endorsements on my behalf from my professional
network _without my knowledge_ to be a heinous misrepresentation and a
horrible breach of trust. I haven't logged in there in more than a year.

------
tptacek
I endorse anyone who mentions these silly things to me for "Natural
Horsemanship".

~~~
pavel_lishin
My favorite was the paired endorsements "Free" "Colonoscopy".

------
ja27
New hobby: searching LinkedIn for developers that work at LinkedIn and
endorsing them for crazy stuff.

~~~
mattdeboard
Damn, and I JUST deleted my account this morning.

------
mratzloff
I turned off the ability for endorsements to automatically appear on my
LinkedIn profile. Instead, I highlight the skills I want to highlight.

The fact is your endorsements are going to trail your most recent skills by
years in most cases, and so unless you've been doing the same thing year in
and year out, endorsements present a distorted picture of your overall skill
set.

This is especially true in technology, where your most recent skills are
generally your most valuable ones.

~~~
bad_user
How do you turn it off?

~~~
donretag
You disable endorsements from appearing on your profile:
[http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/33198](http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/33198)

What you can't do is prevent getting endorsements in the first place. LinkedIn
will not let you disable receiving endorsements.

~~~
alok-g
Could someone confirm that this will still keep my existing endorsements just
in case I want to show them again later?

~~~
muloka
Yes your endorsements are always there. You will continue receiving
endorsements too. They just won't be displayed if you "disable" them.

~~~
alok-g
Thanks.

------
frostmatthew
Before I became a developer I was a banquet manager and I've had numerous
colleagues from my former career endorse me for software skills they can't
possibly know I have. Though I do get a chuckle when one endorses me for
'Java' as I always imagine them thinking "yeah, he knew a lot about coffee"

As presently implemented the endorsement system is rather pointless, but I do
think there's some potential for improvement in making it more meaningful.
Perhaps make it more like the recommendation system where you'd be required to
actually write something instead of just clicking a button.

------
theorique
They are the Facebook "Like" button for your career, and equally valuable.

------
macspoofing
I think the problem is that LinkedIn makes it too easy and the incentives are
out of whack. LinkedIn figures out what you may be good at, and then presents
it as a button to all your contacts. Brain dead simple. That's fine, but the
problem is that people are incentivized to endorse you, either because they
may think it's something nice they can do for you (and doesn't hurt them and
takes no effort), or because they may be looking for reciprocity. It's just a
terrible system.

------
erikj54
I joined Linked In 3 months ago. Personally I did it as I was starting a new
company and wanted to "discover" this magical sales and marketing tool I've
been disappointed by the noise, and general low level of barrier to entry on
most things. The fact that endorsements are so easy, or that making a good
profile, filled with content look attractive decreases the value of it as a
tool. I dislike Linked In, I wish I hadn't joined it.

~~~
owyn
It's gotten pretty bad now but it wasn't always that way. I think I've had an
account for 10? years. It used to be the professional Facebook, so everyone
joined. It wasn't as spammy as it was now and I definitely used it to keep in
touch with people that I used to work with and to research jobs. I guess they
are trying to be the actual Facebook now... I really only check it once every
month or two in order to delete invites from recruiters. It's not a social
destination, but it seems like they want people to log in every day. Bleah.

I already maintain a personal and a work facebook account (for example to add
someone as a facebook app developer on an app you own you have to be friends
with them, but I don't want to be "friends" with all my co-workers). There's
not much you can do about linked in at this point since it's ubiquitous. I
just try to avoid the spammy bits.

------
pjmorris
I deliberately, and almost ruthlessly enough, limit my LinkedIn connections to
people I've worked with closely enough to evaluate each other. I really want
it to be a career resource. The set of endorsements under the system as
currently implemented, bears little correspondence with what those people
would say about me if you asked them. This makes the data, and LinkedIn
itself, less useful.

~~~
mratzloff
I recently removed fully 1/3 of my connections. They were older connections
that didn't have much bearing on my career as it exists today.

------
temuze
Cached/mirror:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ql0v0ab...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ql0v0ab3FmkJ:community.linkedin.com/questions/16624/why-
am-i-being-endorsed-for-skills-and-expertise-i.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
alok-g
Here is what I would guess LinkedIn must have been thinking: Nearly everybody
boasts about their achievements in their profiles and CVs, making it hard for
readers to tell high performers apart from low performers. So what could be a
better way than to have others vouch for people </ironical>? This is very
similar to older days of websites trying to enhance their rankings by hook or
crook, and Google measuring a website's relevance by how many other websites
link to it (ultimately leading to the PageRank algorithm).

Unfortunately, this has not worked the way they may have intended. Any
widespread data-oriented company has to work hard to keep noise at low levels.
A means probably intended to reduce the noise in this case has become a source
of noise rather.

~~~
deckar01
missing opening tag on line 0 +1 parsing skill

------
chrisbennet
From the linked page comments: "Marla Collins Jun 21 at 04:50 PM I personally
think this is an intentional glitch LI has implemented to try and assimilate a
face book type of social interaction. _I can tell you that the people who have
allegedly endorsed me have done nothing of the kind any more than I have gone
to thier profile and endorsed them after years of not really interacting with
them on LI._ This is a violation of our trust and is turning LI into just
another annoying social networking site. "

Emphasis mine. If this is true, this is even worse than the spammy "would you
like to endorse?" stuff.

------
the_watcher
I got one endorsement for Ruby (I have it in my profile that I am learning)
despite not listing it as a skill, and I'm now occasionally getting messages
from recruiters.

------
hacknat
If you're relying on linkedin to actually get a good job (except maybe for
people just getting there first entry level job) then you need all the help
you can get...

------
crashoverdrive
The truth is, Does it really matter. People look at your skills or skills
people think you're good at, and it allows you more breadth and job
opportunities.

------
troels
People love to hate the endorsement system, but I have found that while I get
endorsements from people who clearly aren't qualified to asses my skills, it
still ends up such that my most-endorsed skills are actually fairly close to
reality. As a recruiter you'd be foolish to use this at face value, but for
doing a rough search to narrow down candidates, I don't think it's way off.

~~~
victoriap
Due to the way LinkedIn asks people about endorsing others, endorsers are
usually people who are very kind to you, like your mom, your close friends,
relatives.

~~~
troels
Sure, there's a lot of noise in there. What I mean is that given enough
endorsements, you kind of tend to get most endorsements in the skills you
actually work with. It does not say much about how well you perform in those,
but for searching out potential candidates, I imagine that it's fairly
accurate.

------
bmmayer1
"Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills." \- Napoleon Dynamite

~~~
quarterto
Please please please someone endorse me for "nunchuck skills"

------
jacquesm
Linked-in is a bit like craigslist in that it has huge network effects, lots
of flaws and is hard to attack.

Still, I believe that there is a window of opportunity for a determined group
to disrupt linked in in much the same way that Google attacked Altavista, by
offering substantially better quality combined with a different business
model.

------
gcb0
having spent some time during linkedin boom in a company that separates their
developers as frontend vs backend (which is moronic), i'm now labeled as
frontend just because that was what i was doing during said boom.

gladly my linkedin profile is as useless as my gplus one (which i have to have
to comment on youtube kitten videos)

------
robotjosh
Linkedin sent an invite to every person in my gmail account, hundreds of
people, and was then spammed with pages of people accepting my friend request.
I had no intention to do this, it was from a button that said "sign in with
your gmail" that I must have clicked because I thought I wasn't signed in.

------
scottcowley
I think it's great! I've got a dozen recommendations for PPC if I ever decide
to learn it.

Alright, the system's a joke.

------
JohnLBevan
How to fix endorsements - rather than asking if someone has a skill, take two
people in your circle claiming the same skill and ask who's more competent at
that. Repeat this for all people in your circle with that skill and you can
bubble sort people into who's best in your eyes. Next take those people's
standing within their respective circles, perhaps weighted by some measure
(e.g. people working in the same field's opinion counts more) and you start to
get a good idea of how people compare to one another for the skills you're
interested in. Even if those people don't have anyone in common you can use
the 6 degrees of separation to use their connections' connections to
approximate their standing compared to one another.

~~~
JohnLBevan
(of course, this assumes that you wish endorsements to have meaning; if you're
just using it to increase user engagement with your site the current method
works fine - until people get fed up with putting in redundant effort).

------
sbjustin
I've been actually trying to upgrade my skills as a software developer. I am
currently a level 5 Wizard.

[http://www.linkedin.com/pub/justin-
nash/26/7aa/163](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/justin-nash/26/7aa/163)

------
mindcrime
I just added "King of England" to my skills... I'm waiting to see how long it
takes somebody to endorse me for that.

In hindsight, I should have added something like "TARDIS Repair" or
"n-dimensional Temporal Hypergeography". :-)

------
lhnz
I am being endorsed for technologies that people in other departments think I
use (which I've often not touched), while corporate management are busy
endorsing each other for "Entrepreneurship." :)

My most endorsed skills I have not used for years.

------
ErikAugust
Does John Resig know about jQuery?

[https://twitter.com/notasausage/status/360788936282501120/ph...](https://twitter.com/notasausage/status/360788936282501120/photo/1)

~~~
benmanns
Is DHH interested in Rails opportunities?

[https://gist.github.com/dhh/1285068](https://gist.github.com/dhh/1285068)

------
jonnathanson
Push-button endorsement systems are meaningless without a corresponding
downvote mechanism. There have to be both sides of the coin, or else you get
nothing but meaningless and empty results.

Of course, if you had more of a "karma" style system, you'd have to implement
a way to mitigate abuses of the downvote mechanism. But I feel like that's an
easier task than trying to derive meaning from endorsements that cost the
endorser nothing, and hence mean nothing.

If the stakes aren't real, the results aren't real.

~~~
eru
> Push-button endorsement systems are meaningless without a corresponding
> downvote mechanism. There have to be both sides of the coin, or else you get
> nothing but meaningless and empty results.

Those are not the only techniques available. If you look at how Google's
PageRank works, a link is like an endorsement, but there's no downvoting
possible.

~~~
jonnathanson
Good point. There's probably a better way to do it than downvotes (also, now
that I think about it, who's ever going to downvote someone else on
LinkedIn?).

------
brokentone
I'm primarily "endorsed" for HTML5 and jQuery. While I'm good at those,
they're neither impressive to list, nor are they my core competency.

So I consider the whole thing a joke and endorse people for the most
ridiculous things I can. Here are some of my favorites: footprints,
sandwiches, trees, safety, anger, hunger, eating, money, typing, girls night,
walking, Goal-oriented individual with strong leadership capabilities, MS-DOS.

------
kfk
In my area linkedin is quite important. However, I have been frustrated with
their service for a while now.

One thing I really hate is that every change to my profile propagates to my
whole network and to the headhunters. I am ok with spamming the headhunters,
but I feel very weird having my friends receiving updates like this from me.
Sometimes you are just keeping a profile updated, you are not getting
promotions or something worth noting.

~~~
tymekpavel
You can turn off broadcast notifications in your settings.

------
sbjustin
In all seriousness though, I think it's a UI change they did. It didn't seem
to be this bad until lately. I've noticed whenever you login it asks you with
a one click button if you want to endorse these people for these skills,
_randomly_.

I think their goal was to create more 'value' in their product but in fact
made it less reliable and therefore less 'valuable'.

------
the_watcher
For some reason, everyone endorses me for SEO, when that is the really the
only type of online marketing I've never done.

~~~
thruflo
That is the incidental value in the system. You get to see what people think
you do for a living.

------
mirkules
If you were to read my profile and see my endorsements, you would think I am
the master of all that is, ever was and ever will be in software configuration
management using IBM ClearCase. I half-jokingly thought that my former
workplace mandated everyone to endorse someone they worked with in the past
for this particular skill.

------
alok-g
A related issue I have is that they limit the number of skills to 50. What are
included in "skills" these days are sometimes experience with very specific
tools here and there. For a multidisciplinary person like me, I am tired of
prioritizing what to keep and what not to within this limit of 50.

------
the_unknown
LinkedIn suggested that one of my friends should be endorsed for 'pregnancy'.
Well, I couldn't resist that suggestion so I went for it.

I called him up the next day and we both laughed about it. He then added it to
his profile. Since then he's been seconded on that skill by somebody else,
too.

------
unsignedint
What they ought to do is to give a different notation for being endorsed by
someone else with the same skill.

------
VeejayRampay
I would very much like for someone to explain to me what the point of LinkedIn
really is. I just don't get it. Aside from your colloquial spamming, stupid
recommendations and business "contacts", I really fail to see who benefits
from that platform aside from the investors.

------
kawadhiya21
I remember I once setup a js script which ran every 5 seconds and clicked the
'endorse-all' button. In this way within 30-45 minutes I endorsed many of my
friends of skills which they don't even know.

Was good return for me as many returned back favor thinking I spent time for
them.

------
snorkel
Perhaps LinkedIn will get the message when everyone endorses each other for
King of France.

------
mr_luc
I've noticed that people tend to endorse each other for not-so-cutting-edge
technologies as a joke.

"You have endorsed Coworker for SVN, Java and XSLT"

Where I work, I don't think a week has gone by without this happening. It's
all in good fun. :)

------
rco8786
I got endorsed for Javascript by one of my undergrad professors that teaching
business communication...among other equally as WTF endorsements.

I always sorta thought that LI was randomly generating these things somehow.

------
shurcooL
Can I just delete my LinkedIn account without performing professional suicide?
It's probably out of date, and I use it for less than 5% of what's actually
going on there.

------
Area12
I have a friend who endorses people for "Bikini Waxing".

------
brianbreslin
I find it odd when people I don't know but I must've hit accept on their
LinkedIn request at some point endorse me for stuff. Smh

------
SchizoDuckie
One of the most awesome skills I regularly get ensorsed for is "general
awesomeness" I believe there is not even a filter on it

------
jmcgough
I wrote a chrome extension for linkedin that (among other things) deletes
endorsements from the dom of any profile page

------
gesman
That's a good idea, linkedin! I should endorse few of my competitors for
midnight poll dancing or something ...

~~~
peterarmstrong
Using A/B testing to strip away bad requirements?

------
dferlemann
People endorse me for stuff they don't really know that I'm good at... I find
that oddly uncomfortable.

------
moubarak
whenever i received an endorsement for a certain skill from someone who has
never seen me perform that skill i quickly remove it. recently however, after
trying to remove endorsements several times, they still appear on my profile.
i've since given up on linkedin for not providing any integrity.

~~~
BhavdeepSethi
I've never updated my skill set on LinkedIn. Don't see any value to it. And
yet some of my friends who have no idea what I'm working on endorsed me for
random programming skill set. There should be a credibility factor when
someone endorses you. Say the person endorsing you for skill set x should have
been endorsed for that skill set x at least n times before being judged
credible. Right now, it's just a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours"
function.

------
jennita
I just realized I've been recently endorsed for "fly fishing" haha. That
system is quite a joke.

------
joshdance
I tried to endorse my friend for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Didn't work.
Useless I tell you.

------
cpursley
Yes! I have people who I've never worked with endorse me. The endorsement
thing should stop.

------
machinespit
I've gotten four endorsements for 'Butter', none for 'Balls' so far.

------
Simple1234
Somebody please endorse me with the "Dismissive of Linkedin Endorsements"
skill...

------
Randgalt
My brother-in-law (an insurance salesman) endorsed me for XML. There'ya'go.

------
kops
linkedin guys are either spammers or they just don't know how to build the
"email notification preference" thingy. I suspect they keep this feature
broken by design...

------
shearnie
i reckon linked in should have mandatory comments on an endorsement to explain
why or what experience that endorser had regarding your skill.

------
gte910h
linked in got really weird when it started suggesting to people to endorse
people.

------
shn
Good idea executed terribly.

------
kostyk
Linkedin sucks.

------
corresation
LinkedIn has become effectively useless as an actual talent/hiring tool, at
least in my area, though it remains a pretty decent contacts tool.

The recommendation system is just as fictitious as the endoresements: it has
been my experience that many recommendations are quid pro quo and have no
legitimacy. Many come in a circular fashion so when assessing talent you need
to walk through each of the players trying to figure out what their real
motivation was.

I've watched the sausage being made. I remember once when we had to choose a
team member to punt at one shop I worked, and there was universal agreement on
the target, the team long having grievances about their productivity, poor
quality product, etc. The deed gets done, and over the next week I see a
several of my peers, including his highly critical direct manager (who hands
out absurd recommendations like candy), author lengthy, lauding
recommendations for this person. They were trying to trade in a recommendation
to assuage their guilt, or for future considerations in return. This seemed
incredible to me because it should be professionally damaging to do something
like that, but in the real world it simply isn't: There are no consequences or
downsides to handing out ridiculous endorsements and fictional
recommendations.

