Back in 2012, the professional social network LinkedIn introduced an endorsement feature, allowing its users to write quick testimonials about the skills and expertise of their LinkedIn connections. The feature can help LinkedIn users get more interesting insights on their profiles, but it can also help them get more easily discovered in search results as the company claims that people with at least five skills listed get up to 17x more views on their profiles.
However, dedicated LinkedIn users may be also be aware that this endorsement feature has always been slightly flawed, or even a subject of fun. Indeed, there is no quality control system and your contacts are free to write endorsements that have no relevancy to your skills. It seems that the company finally realized it, as it announced today a revamp of LinkedIn endorsements to make them more useful with a twist of machine learning.
According to LinkedIn, more than 10 billion endorsements have been shared by LinkedIn users so far, which is quite impressive considering that the professional network only has 450 million members. But to make endorsements more valuable, the company will now highlight those that are more interesting to the viewer including the ones made by mutual connections, colleagues and people with knowledge of a person’s skills.
Additionally, LinkedIn has improved targeting to suggest to LinkedIn users that visit your profile to endorse you if you have common skills and experiences. However, LinkedIn’s targeting will work better if you previously listed your most important skills on your profile.
“With more than a third of hiring managers spending more than 60 seconds browsing your skills and endorsements, we want to make sure they’re seeing skills and endorsements that best represent your aspirations and help you stay ahead in your career,” explained the company. LinkedIn’s new endorsements features have started rolling out today to users of the mobile app and should be available later in the upcoming redesigned desktop experience.
