Ask HN: What do you think about LinkedIn endorsements?

[palidanx]

Recently I have been getting endorsements, by people in my network who don't know anything about the endorsement itself.

For example, a chef connection endorsed me for 'Ruby' even though he doesn't code Ruby at all.

Do you think the LinkedIn endorsement changes your perception on a profile you view?

[bockris]

They are completely worthless for the reasons you stated. A few months ago I connected with a colleague from ~ 15 years ago. He endorsed me for skills that weren't even invented when we worked together.

Recommendations are even more unreliable.

Case in point: A manager who was on the same level as my direct manager contracted an 'Architect' to come up with a high level estimate for a big project. The guy basically drew pictures in Enterprise Architect for 6 months and barely interviewed any stakeholders or technical folks. I was in the meeting where it was decided that it was a worthless exercise and big waste of time/money. We let him go right after he turned in the project plan and scrambled to redo the work. The manager that hired him wrote him a very positive, over the top, gushing recommendation on LinkedIn. I don't know if it was 'quid pro quo' or just the manager trying to save face but it definitely showed me that they are worthless.

[sbarg]

They don't change my perception any more, now that I've realized how worthless some endorsements are. I used to work for a company that had Ajax in the name. I did 95% back-end coding in Java there. LI recently informed me I'm in the top 1% of people with Ajax endorsements. :-)