How to Endorse on LinkedIn?

As you know by now, LinkedIn is the biggest professional network there is (yes it has millions of members). I bet you’re wondering how to endorse on LinkedIn, and why it’s relevant to improve your profile visibility. 👀

In this article, I will give you the guidelines and examples of key skills you can use in order to make your profile stand-out from the crowd. Whether you’re a jobseeker or recruiter, or looking for potential customers, I’ve got you covered! 🙌

What is skill endorsement on LinkedIn?

Skill & endorsements on LinkedIn, are a quick way for people to approve of the skills and experiences you have in your professional profile. Social network is all about the reliability of the LinkedIn account you have in front of you.  🔍

Certainly, it’s very easy to create a fake profile, on any social media platform. As a matter of fact, we even have an article to help you create your fake LinkedIn profiles to prospect more quickly! 🙊

However, the ideal scenario is that you use your own profile and resources in order to attract potential customers, followers and grow your online profile.

Why LinkedIn endorsements are important?

Okay, so you’ve managed to create the perfect scenario for optimizing your brand image on LinkedIn.

But do you know why recommendations are important ⚡ for a profile on LinkedIn?

The answer is very simple: you will be able to value your skills. If they are valued by other people, then it is normal that they will be noticed. If you see that several people recommend a skill for a Darrin, then you will be more inclined to trust his field of expertise and therefore potentially to buy services from him. Doesn’t that make sense?

In fact, very concretely, recommendations on the LinkedIn platform allow you to add value 💓 to your profile. It’s just like leaving a referral on a product. In general, you’ll be more inclined to trust it if the product has good reviews, right?

Let’s say you’re a job-seeker, if a recruiter comes across your profile, he or she is likely to :

• See or review your online resume (this seems logical).
• Look at your education and experience.
• Check your skills.
• Look at recommendations to see what people are saying about you.

If the information you have please him, he or she is more likely to contact you.

And this is the same if you are offering a product or service. LinkedIn members will look at what they say about you.

The advantages of recommendations on your profile

In your prospecting strategy, whether it is BtoB or BtoC, recommendations will bring you a significant advantage 🔥, it will allow you to highlight your skills. Indeed, the more recommendations you have on your profile, the more credible you will be in your field and the more positive your image will be. Here are the main benefits we’ve discovered:

• Recommendations support your abilities as an expert in your field (they therefore contribute to your personal brand).
• They are public, so can be viewed by everyone, even those outside your network.
• They improve your relation with your contacts (since other users will give them to you).
• They optimize your LinkedIn profile.
• They participate in the social media marketing and inbound marketing (bringing customers to you).
• They reassure professionally your potential prospects because you have good qualifications.
• Reach-out other professionals in your area of activity.

All of this ensures that you gain visibility 👀, so why deprive yourself?

How to add a section to your LinkedIn profile?

On the other hand, it’s possible that your profile page doesn’t have a “Skill & endorsement” section yet, in which case you can add it this way :

• Click on “Add section” at the top of your bio,
• Then select the skills section and “Save”.

That’s it! 🎉

After that, you can start giving and receiving endorsements from a colleague, friend etc. Therefore, it’s important to keep your profile updated, and adding this section can be a real game changer. 💪🏻

Improve your LinkedIn profile

Before getting into the thick of it, you need to make sure your LinkedIn profile is fully optimized (with your profile image, profile url…) 💯

Why, you ask? 🤔

Because, having a complete profile on LinkedIn will make the visitors know more about you, and you will start to build your profile and e-reputation this way. ✔️

It will also allow you to stand more among all the social profiles that exists on this professional social network.

The more you publish, the more your profile will be noticed! The more information you have about you, the more people will trust you!

That’s why having a polished profile, includes having a good profile picture and cover photo. Likewise, having the current job title and a profile summary of your experiences in your profile “About” section.

Here’s an article we have created for you, to know the best tips and tricks of an attractive LinkedIn profile. 🔥

Once this step is completed, you can start adding your skills and expertise into your profile, alright?

Write and publish content on LinkedIn

Moreover, like I explained before, another great way to improve your profile is to publish posts regularly. Find your editorial strategy.That way, you will start building an audience, and create a community where you can exchange brand ideas, business opportunities and more! 🏹 You will get noticed !

For instance, you can pull in qualified prospects easily by joining pods on LinkedIn. Pods are groups of people who share the same interests, and thus when you publish, they will comment and like your posts automatically.

It’s pretty amazing! 🤩

You can test our automation tool, Podawaa, in order to capitalize on this marketing strategy. I assure you it will be a win-win situation for you and the people you connect with, on one hand they will receive value content and in return, you will receive thousands of views on your LinkedIn profile.

 

 

How to add endorsement skills on LinkedIn?

Now let’s find out how to endorse on LinkedIn and how to use the “Skills & endorsements” section in your LinkedIn profile. But, you’re probably wondering “What is it for?”, “What does it do?” 😵

Well, it’s very simple, actually.

You just have to “Add a new skill” that you think you have, and that are relevant skills to your career-development, and then people who visit your profile can vote on it to back you up. 👍

The minimum skills you can add is 5 and the maximum is 50, although I would recommend that you put only the most important ones to keep it efficient. For example, between 10-20 skills would be ideal.

 

Here are the steps on how to add a new skill to your LinkedIn profile:

• Under the “Skill & endorsements” section, click on “Add new skill” button.

 

• Then, type a skill in the LinkedIn search bar or use the ones suggested, and click on “Add” to save the selection.

 

Further, you can arrange your top 3 skills so that they appear first as the suggested skills for the people who visit your profile. 🧐
Visitors can also click on “Show more” in this section in order to see the full list of skills that you have.

If you want to select your top skills, you can follow these steps:

• Click on the little pencil icon next to “Add a new skill”,

 

• There, you have the option to delete a top skill using the “garbage bin” button, or reorder them using the horizontal lines. Afterwards, click “Save” to update your skills & endorsements.

There you have it! 💥

Now, you can add as many skills as you want. Just remember to keep it coherent with your work-experience. It’s important to mantain your credibility, instead of doing too much…

What skills & endorsements should I put in my LinkedIn profile?

Above, we saw how to add skills & endorsements to your profile. However, sometimes it can be a little tricky to decide which skills to showcase to attract the visits you want…

No worries ! 🌈

Here’s a list of the top hard and soft-skills to feature in your LinkedIn profile, in order to stay competitive and in the know of the current trends. 📈

According to LinkedIn itself, the most requested soft skills in 2020 were :

• Creativity,
• Persuasion,
• Collaboration,
• Adaptability,
• Emotional intelligence.

And the top 10 hard skills were :

• Blockchain,
• Cloud computing,
• Analytical reasoning,
• Artificial intelligence,
• UX design,
• Business analysis,
• Affiliate marketing,
• Sales,
• Scientific computing,
• Video production.

Interesting, don’t you think? 💡

I hope these suggestions can help you add your own skill set! For example, you could have 1 soft skill, and 2 hard skills in your 3 “Top skills” pinned in your LinkedIn profile.

Keep in mind, that this list can change every year, so it’s up to you to choose the ones that make more sense for your professional experiences. 👷

How to get endorsements on LinkedIn?

Getting endorsements on LinkedIn, is pretty easy, too. 👌

You don’t believe me?

Below are some templates you can use to send direct messages to your first degree connections on LinkedIn, and ask them to up vote your skills.

Did you know that you can get 17 times more views on your profile, if you have skills and endorsements? According to LinkedIn experts, this is the way to go! 🚀

That’s because LinkedIn has a special algorithm called SSI or Social Selling Index for all profiles, and the ones that are more optimized will appear first in the searches and suggested profiles.

Asking this simple favor to your connections will help increase your social proof, and therefore get you more potential clients, or headhunters coming your way!

How to write an endorsement request on LinkedIn?

If you’re asking somebody outside your company :

“Hi there {first_name},

Do you want to have 17x more views on your profile? Here’s a tip for you, if you add at least 5 skills and get endorsements in your LinkedIn profile it will do the trick!

This simple action will boost your LinkedIn Social Selling Index. Therefore, I was hoping that you can vote for my skills and I will do the same for you.

Sounds good?

Let me know what you think.”

Three days later :

“What do you think, {first_name}?

If you’re interested, you can endorse my top skills directly, and I’ll do the same for you.

It will take 2 minutes maximum, I promise.”

Seven days later :

“Did you have the chance to take a look?

I’ll be glad to hear from you on this.”

If you’re asking someone you work with :

“Hi there,

I was just passing by to tell you how much I appreciate working with you! I would love if you could give me a little feedback on my skills and experiences.

Likewise, I’d be happy to return the favor, no pressure of course.

Have a nice day {first_name}!”

In my opinion, no need to send them an automatic reminder haha, you could just come up to them during the coffee break !

If you’re asking someone you used to work with :

“Hi {first_name},

I hope you’re doing great since the last time I saw you! How’s the new job going?

I’m updating my LinkedIn profile, and I thought that you could be a good fit to support my skills & endorsements, as we worked together on X project.

If it’s okay with you, I would be glad to return the favor as well.

Let’s catch up soon!”

Three days later :

“Did you have a chance to take a look, {first_name}?

Feel free to get back to me any time.”

 

I told you it was going to be easy, right?

You just have to ask to action the machine and remember to always return the favor, of course! It would look bad if you didn’t give an endorsement back. 🤲

The best tool to increase your endorsements on LinkedIn

Now that you’re starting to receive endorsements, you might be wondering how to endorse via LinkedIn more efficiently? And which B2b tool to use in order to do it?

I have the answer for you…

It’s called Waalaxy, and the benefits of using this marketing automation tool are out of this world! 👽 We will explain how to create personalized endorsements.

You just have to create a Campaign with your 1st degree connections, then you can create sequences using the messages in the above templates. Lastly, you can set up the delay between each message of the automated sequence to make it as natural and personalized as possible.

Here’s an article, for more information on how the Waalaxy sequences work. ⚡️

I’m sure you’ll love it! ❣️

How to endorse someone on LinkedIn?

The time has come to return the favor, remember? ⚠️

You’ll be happy to know that giving endorsements to someone is a piece of cake, too! 🍰

There are two ways of doing it, the first one is to go directly to the “Skills & endorsements” section of their LinkedIn profile, and selecting the skills you want to vote for.

At this point, you can say how good they are at that skill in particular. From “Good” to “Highly skilled”. Then, you have to choose the relationship you have with that person and “Submit” your vote.

 

 

Another way, is going to their profile as well. But, this time, it’s LinkedIn that will suggest you to endorse them directly. So, it depends on the similarities this profile might have to yours, and the level of interactions you have with other users. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧

In this example, I have the option to choose the top skill for one of my colleagues!

 

In addition, in this article, you will find more details about the way LinkedIn chooses to feature the endorsements of your 1st degree connections. 🥇

Consequently, it will show you the people you have in common and the skills they have already endorsed for them, so you’ll see the same suggestions.

 

How to give endorsements on LinkedIn?

As you saw, it takes less than 5 minutes to learn how to endorse on LinkedIn, so go ahead and the take the lead if you want to! 🤸‍♂️

You can always start by giving endorsements and hope they’ll give you one back. 🤝

Therefore, you could use a sequence like this one :

• First, send them a profile Visit using the Waalaxy campaigns, as explained in this quick video tutorial.
• Then, send them this couple of automated messages after 1 day :

“Hi there {first_name},

I just visited your profile, and I supported the skills you have! I was hoping you could do the same for me too?

If you’re wondering why? It’s to improve our LinkedIn Social Selling Index.
I’m here if you want to chat a bit more about this.

Thanks for your help.”

Three days later :

“How’s it going, {first_name}?

I hope you had the chance to look at my endorsements.

Give me a little heads up when you do, I’ll be glad to hear from you.”

 

To sum up, it’s something easy you can do to help boost your personal profile! 😜

 

Skills & endorsements vs. Recommendations

“Skills & endorsements” are not the same thing as “Recommendations”, endorsements are a specific skill that your colleagues or friends can vote on, and support you. You are the one choosing the skills you want to feature in your LinkedIn profile. 😎

 

On the other hand, recommendations are short messages that people write about you, you cannot choose what is said about you, but you have the possibility to “Show or Hide” them from your LinkedIn profile. 🤫

 

How to write a LinkedIn recommendation?

Similarly, recommendations work the same way as the skills and endorsements.

That is to say, you can ask for them the same way as you would a skill. The only difference would be to make the request a bit more personalized and directed towards an experience you would like to put forward, rather than general skills. 🎯

In case you receive a recommendation, and you want to return the compliment, or you want to write one for your connections, here are some guidelines you can follow:

• Direct the recommendations to people you know will likely reply,
• Have a detailed look at their profiles and already posted skills to get inspiration,
• Recall a personal experience that you shared together,
• Keep it short and professional,
• Finish the recommendation with a strong statement to reassure the reader.

An example of a good recommendation would be:

“John is the best at social media management. We worked together in a project to grow the community across all platforms, and thanks to his enthusiasm and marketing strategies, we were able to double our target in just a couple of months! I truly recommend working with him, as he was a great asset for our company.”

How to accept a LinkedIn recommendation?

When you receive a recommendation on LinkedIn, you have several notifications and options to handle it. Firstly, you will receive an automatic message from the person who left you the recommendation with a link for you to review it. 🤓

Secondly, in the pop-up that will appear, you will see 3 options:

• “Dismiss”, this means that you can ignore their recommendation in case it’s a negative one, or it isn’t relevant to your professional experience,
• “Ask for revision”, this means that you are going to put it on hold until the LinkedIn moderators review and validate it,
• “Add to profile”, this means that you have reviewed the recommendation, and you’re ready to publish it to your LinkedIn profile asap!

 

It normally takes a few minutes for it to be visible in your profile, which is great because it will increase your visibility as soon as you start stacking them up. 👏

Conclusion: How to Endorse on LinkedIn?

Cheers, you’ve made it to the end of this article! 🥂

Let’s review what we’ve covered here :

• What are skill endorsements on LinkedIn and why they’re important,
• How to optimize your LinkedIn profile to grow your network,
• How to get more endorsements and how to ask for them,
• What automation tools you can use to boost your profile,
• Difference between skills & endorsement and recommendations.

Above all, keep in mind that the skills and recommendations‘ etiquette is to do the same in return! It will show that you have good relationships with your connections, thus proving that you are trustworthy. 🏆

FAQ of How to Endorse on LinkedIn?

As you know, the professional network LinkedIn has millions of users. To be able to stand out from the crowd, being recommended on LinkedIn allows you to stand out from your competitors ❌ (whether it’s for a product or a job offer). Just like testimonials, endorsements on LinkedIn help you to show-off your skills.

As said before, you will need an optimized profile and it applies to all of your social-networking (your Facebook profile is great ? Then your LinkedIn profile should be better than it particularly when it comes to professional networking)

So don’t waste time, use this asset in your digital-marketing strategy.

Optimize your profile

There’s no secret, if you want to have endorsements, you will need to edit your profile and customize your information on it. The more your LinkedIn profile will appear professional, the more likely people will come to you. And you know what we say about first impression, right? That’s why you need to complete your profile: to give a good insight of you.

Well on LinkedIn (and on other social networks), it is the same thing, optimizing your social media profile will help you to acquire more visibility.

And guess what, if you have more visibilityn you will reach your target audience.

When to ask for an endorsement?

There isn’t really a timeline to ask for an endorsement! You just have to consider the people who might give you good feedback and ask them. It’s as simple as that. ✨

Try asking your colleagues first via direct message, then go ahead and broaden the requests to your friends, family or connections that work in the same field as you do.

Know that having good endorsements will help :

• For your personal branding.
• A job-search or job application.
• The recruiters to give you more credibility.
• To reach-out potential prospects.
• To grow your business.

Can you buy LinkedIn endorsements?

This one is a bit tricky… sure, there are tools like SocialRez.com or MediaMister.com that can help you get endorsements for a “small price”, depending on the amount of endorsements you want. It’s up to you to keep it real or not! 😉

How to remove endorsements on LinkedIn?

If you do not wish to display an endorsement anymore, you can either edit the “Skills & endorsements” section and delete it. Or, you can click on the pencil icon and go to “Adjust endorsement settings”, there you can say “No” to “I want to be endorsed” :

 

Likewise, you can hide certain people who have voted for your skills, like this :

How to request endorsements on LinkedIn? 

You got it! There’s no real reason for your first degree connections to say no to an endorsement or recommendation request. But, you can always give them a little push by using an automation tool like Waalaxy. 🌌

I’m sure they’ll be glad to help you out!

Giving endorsements on LinkedIn

As explained in this article, it is important to have good recommendations on your profile in order to be visible but don’t forget to give back. It is important to give back recommendations because it helps to network.

On the other hand, be aware that you will only write recommendations for your first level connections (you can recommend 💌 a colleague, a student or someone you know working in the same industry for example).

The person receiving your recommendations can decide whether or not to post it on their profile. And when someone asks you for a recommendation, it will be displayed in your messages. When you give and receive recommendations, you make room for an exchange that contributes to the reputation of the person you are recommending and that also contributes to yours.

Meanwhile, do not hesitate to contact us if you have other skill suggestions to add, or if you have found other tricks on how to endorse on LinkedIn. I’ll be happy to hear them! 👂