Using Skills & Endorsements on LinkedIn: Optimize your Profile with this Under-appreciated Tool!

At CareerToolboxUSA, our mantra is that success is simply many little things done well consistently over time. In walking our talk, we pay attention to the little actions and details that are easy to pass by in your daily “skim, scan, scroll” of LinkedIn, but can have tremendous impact on your personal brand.

One of those little things is effectively utilizing the Skills & Endorsements section of your profile. 

Before reading any further, you must be willing to release these limiting and cynical beliefs:

• No one looks at my Skills section or cares about Endorsements
• People endorse me who have never met me, so it’s meaningless
• I’m not going to get a job simply because 80 people endorsed me for a skill, so I should focus all my time on job applications and reaching out to recruiters and hiring managers directly.
• LinkedIn sends me those annoying notifications about sending birthday, work anniversary, and thanks messages. I don’t see how any of that helps me advance my career so I don’t bother.

If you are ready to question and potentially release these unhelpful beliefs and activate your digital ambassador more impactfully, then read on!

My husband and I love to go on adventures. So much so in fact, a promise to adventure together was part of our wedding vows. We enjoy hiking, climbing, swimming, kayaking, long power-walks, running, camping and traveling. We don’t always plan ahead for these excursions, we often just go with the flow of life (and the will of our adventurous kids), and decide on the fly what we want to go and do. In between adventures, we spend time several times a week working out to stay healthy and ready for whatever adventure comes our way.

There are a lot of days that I don’t want to to work out though. I feel too tired, lazy, or can’t figure out how to squeeze it into my day. But when we go adventuring, I can always tell whether I’ve been investing enough in my strength, endurance, and flexibility. And on those days when I have hiked and summitted a literal mountain, conquered a tricky climbing route, kept up with the kids swimming and playing in a river for two hours, hiked five or six miles, or even just biked to the store to run errands, I appreciate my ability to do so, and I am motivated to continue that daily discipline of healthier eating and physical activity, and to make the time for it so that I can continue to engage in spontaneous adventures and be ready for whatever fun activity comes our way.

In a very real sense, paying attention to your Skills & Endorsements requires a similar mindset. One short walk every now and then isn’t enough to fuel your health or keep you ready for whatever opportunity for adventure comes your way, and skipping endorsements or missing out on receiving them won’t allow as many opportunities for career development to come your way. Think of this discipline as your digital ambassador’s regular workout routine, 3-5 days/week. Below are our best practices for optimizing Skills & Endorsements in your career journey!

Best Practices for Your Skills Section

In your profile, beneath your Experience and Education sections, is the space for Skills & Endorsements. You can select from thousands of Skills and add up to 50 to your profile. We always make sure all 50 skills are filled up. To add skills, click on the words “Add a new skill” in the top right corner of this section. The system will tell you how many skills you have already added, and how many more you can add. Consider adding skills across technical, interpersonal, leadership, and unique expertise areas. Think about the phrases that people might use in their search terms, and don’t be afraid to use different versions of similar skills, e.g. Business Management and Strategic Business Management.

Within this section, you an also identify 3 skills you want to highlight. Pinning these to the top of your section will enhance SEO to your profile for these terms, as well as encouraging your connections to endorse you for these three particular skills. It’s a great idea to rotate your top 3 skills every few months so that your profile remains fresh and all of your skills are endorsed.

And now the big questions - Why and How to use Endorsements

Why to Endorse? It’s the same idea as eating 5 servings of fruits and veggies, and getting 30 minutes of physical activity daily to stay healthy. It’s the same as stopping at the gas station to fill up your car, or making sure you get regular oil changes. Giving and receiving endorsements fuels the LinkedIn system, sending your profile out to more people, and driving more views to your profile. When giving and receiving endorsements, 2nd level connections are more likely to see your name come up as a suggested connection (which helps grow your network), and your posts are more likely to show up in the endorser/endorsee's feed. 

How to Endorse? With intention. Endorsing a connection is easy. Review their profile, identify 2-5 skills that you are comfortable endorsing based on what you read, and click the plus sign (+) next to those skills. That connection will receive a note that you endorsed them, and LinkedIn will encourage them to send a note of thanks. Use endorsements as one of those daily R.A.N.K. (Random Act of Networking Kindness) activities to build your social and digital capital with your existing and future connections. I endorse people I’ve had a networking conversation with, or those who reach out to me personally to connect, as well as people that I specifically want to speak to regarding an opportunity.

Endorsements are a little thing that you can do every single day to leverage the power of LinkedIn and get noticed by more people. But don’t just take my word for it. Try it. Spend one week and do nothing else except asking for and offering endorsements. Watch your profile views to see what difference it makes week to week. 

If this sounds like a lot of to-dos, and you simply don’t have the time or energy to tend to it, contact us at CareerToolboxUSA. It’s only one of the many activities we do to amplify our clients’ profiles and exponentially increase their incoming opportunities. We have packages that will service your profile and do the heavy lifting for you. We can’t eat healthy for you, or work out for you, but we CAN manage and maintain the health and vitality of your digital ambassador. This is all we do, and we do it really well. 

Katherine Olson, M.Ed. is a dynamic organizational transformationalist on a mission to recognize, activate, and grow the strengths of individuals and organizations to create exceptional outcomes for humanity. Katherine is an executive coach and director of service delivery for CareerToolboxUSA. Contact her at: [email protected]