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Dave Jensen wrote:They say that the #1 way you can tell a spam linked-in request from a real one is when that person has ZERO endorsements for skill areas. If that's the case, it's likely a spammer.
Parker wrote:No LinkedIn has this funny feature where they suggest skills for you to endorse your contacts for. I routinely get endorsed for things I have never done by people I barely know (usually someone I met at a conference or networking event adds me on LinkedIn (or vice versa) endorses me for a technique that I've never performed in my life). I reject those but I wouldn't be surprised if some people's profiles are filled with such endorsements.
Rich Lemert wrote:Sorry, Dave, but I can't help feel this advice adds to the stereotype of the "lazy" recruiter. Rather than actually look at the quality of one's background, you fall back onto what's little more than a popularity contest.
I'm not a recruiter, nor am I a hiring manager. However, if I was I cannot see myself paying any attention to how many endorsements someone has received on LinkedIn because I've received too many myself from people who have no idea what my skills are. Show me a quality recommendation, though, and now you've got my attention.
Heck, I don't even accept most of the "please connect with me" requests I get. If it's LinkedIn's default request and comes from someone I don't know - even if I recognize the name, it's probably not going to get accepted. As a minimum, at least tell me why you want to connect with me.
Because you are selected for a call or request from employers (or their agents) based on the number of endorsements you have in the major fields of your expertise, I would suggest you accept them from anyone and everyone when they come your way. Nothing unethical about that -- of course, not if you haven't done that type of work! But seriously, if there are a hundred LI profiles in front of a recruiter looking for a Cell-Based Assay specialist, and you have 10 endorsements for that and someone else has 50, that other person gets the call. These "endorsements" are only to get you in front of someone -- then, you have to prove you know the field, so the fakers get dropped don't worry about that.
Dave
Parker wrote:Because you are selected for a call or request from employers (or their agents) based on the number of endorsements you have in the major fields of your expertise, I would suggest you accept them from anyone and everyone when they come your way. Nothing unethical about that -- of course, not if you haven't done that type of work! But seriously, if there are a hundred LI profiles in front of a recruiter looking for a Cell-Based Assay specialist, and you have 10 endorsements for that and someone else has 50, that other person gets the call. These "endorsements" are only to get you in front of someone -- then, you have to prove you know the field, so the fakers get dropped don't worry about that.
Dave
Thanks for pointing that out. I should state that what I don't want is to fill my profile with skills that I don't want to highlight because I don't want hiring managers or recruiters thinking I'm more suitable for a certain type of job that I'm not interested in (e.g. too many bench skills when what I'm looking for is something else). Like you said, people don't pay careful attention. I would rather draw their limited attention to a specific skill set that I want to highlight rather than the number of endorsements for something that I don't really care about. How much are 150+ endorsements for Western Blotting worth when I'm looking for a job in regulatory affairs? For this reason, I personally reject >50% of my endorsements because they are endorsing me for skills that I either don't have at all or don't want to highlight. But that's just me. I wouldn't be surprised if some people just randomly endorse everyone on their network for everything hoping that the favour is returned.
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