Thanks, but No Thanks...

Preserving LinkedIn's Effectiveness

Abridged version:

Throughout its 10 years, LinkedIn has continued to grow into one of the most effective resources available to us on the web; and it's been most evident in the past few years.  I personally find LinkedIn more useful for learning about a person than even the most well executed resume.  One of it's more recent features has been the ability to endorse a member's skills that are listed in their profile, and even suggest additional skills.  This could be one of the most powerful and useful features of LinkedIn, but only if used with care.  In order to maintain the value of endorsements, when LinkedIn asks you about another members skills, we need to be sure to ask ourselves whether or not we can honestly answer.  It's just as important to only accept endorsements from those who truly understand our skills and how we've used them.  Otherwise, another extremely effective tool will become worthless due to abuse.

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Though I have a diverse range of responsibilities in all of the jobs that I take on through my constantly evolving career, it appears that a good part of my day involves coaching, advising, and mentoring.  And while it started with advising individuals on how to move forward with their careers or how to effectively promote a product or service, it has led to broader life coaching - identifying what a person simply needs to focus on (through all of the static and distractions) in order to make a positive change.

The most interesting thing is, regardless of what kind of coaching I am providing, LinkedIn is often the most essential tool for the task at hand.  I began using the site in 2006, when “recommendations” were introduced and a former colleague asked if I would contribute to his profile by writing one for him.  Initially, I didn't put much effort into it.  I really had no idea how much potential there was in the site until a few years later when the types of industries and talents became more diverse, due to the fact that I already had a large network of contacts in my current industry prior to using LinkedIn.  As a result, the types of groups available became just as diverse, and in joining some, I soon became a moderator of one, and then identified that there was a need for a particular group that did not yet exist - so I even created my own.  The ability to better understand fields that I hadn't yet been a part of and build relationships with those already within them was a dream come true.

Unfortunately, there are many features of LinkedIn that can sometimes be abused.  At the core of LinkedIn is it's networking system.  While it does a pretty darn good job of making it difficult for a member to add another member to their network if they don't really know them, it occasionally happens.  Though it may be tempting to expand your network's reach and accept such an invitation, it's best to not accept the invite.  You never know what the intentions are of the requester, and it often leads to many more similar unknown invitations.  I've seen this happen to a couple of colleagues and their networks become much more difficult to manage, not to mention how embarrassing it is for them when someone asks, "So how do you know Sergio from Italy?"

More recently, LinkedIn supercharged its "Skills" feature to allow members to endorse others. These endorsements appeared to be a brilliant solution for members to more efficiently and effectively validate and confirm another member's abilities.  After all, writing a decent recommendation takes much more time.

The drawback is that it's very easy for members to endorse someone for a skill, even if they're not really sure how well that person performs that particular skill.  I've even seen people ask fellow members of an entire group to help them build their profile and endorse some of their skills.  Granted, these were creatives who had some proof of their abilities via their portfolios, but it still wasn't the most genuine way achieve an endorsement.

Ultimately, unless we all use our best judgement in how we send/accept invitations, write our recommendations, and endorse others, this great resource will lose much of its value and not be nearly as effective as it could be.  So the next time LinkedIn asks you, "Does Johnny know Wrestling Alligators?"  Be sure to ask yourself whether you really can answer that question.  And then for the even tougher assignment, if someone who's merely an acquaintance endorses you for a skill that they probably don't even understand, perhaps it would be best to politely ignore it and wait for the many others that will come from those who definitely know you really are the rock star in that category.