The timing of reading Erika Napoletano’s post on Linkedin endorsements and seeing an aspect of it in action was perfect this morning. While I went through my social media related emails I noticed I’d gotten a connect request on Linkedin from a local journalist. My interest was piqued despite it being a bland, default connect request, so I viewed her profile.
To my amusement under her skills she’d listed “Social Media Marketing” and had gotten a few endorsements for it, but her Linkedin profile had neither an intro, a headline, nor any information about any of her previous jobs. Everything was quickly listed out as though she’d thrown the profile together in five minutes.
I find it sadly ironic that a person would brag about their prowess at something on the same platform that disproves their claim.
The fact that she had endorsements for these types of skills is proof of Erika’s point — most endorsements are hollow and likely little more than pandering for an equally useless endorsement in return (I’ve blogged about this in the past as well).
It got even more amusing a second later when I realized her position title was “Inside Sales” while she listed copywriting and journalism as core skills. I would think if you were a skilled writer you’d probably be, ya know, writing for the magazine and not selling it. It’s like a Ferrari salesman defining himself as a professional stunt driver just because he happens to be around cars a lot and happens to know a bit about them.
Sigh.
If you’re as sick of the empty gestures as it seems a lot of people are, you might be interested in turning endorsements off (hiding them). Click my first link above and find out how.
Brian C. Watkins is a writer, SEO strategist, photographer, and YouTuber who’s spent nearly two decades helping businesses grow through better words and clearer ideas. His work lives at the intersection of creative instinct and technical precision, shaped early on by a childhood split between IT-heavy surroundings and a love for writing and visual storytelling. Today, he writes about clarity, discipline, and doing work that actually matters.