LinkedIn Introduces One-Click Skill Endorsements

LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, has made it easier for its members to promote each other’s skills and expertise by introducing one-click “Endorsements”.

The feature will partially replace “Recommendations”, and the lengthy process of describing someone’s experience in free-form writing. Endorsing someone is as quick as clicking on an already existing skill, or typing several words to suggest a new one.

From Monday, Endorsements are available in the US, India, New Zealand and Australia. “We look forward to expanding Endorsements in all languages to all members over the next few weeks,” promised David Breger, product manager at LinkedIn.

Social advertising

The new feature will be visible at the top of the member’s profile, in a window which will display recommended endorsements.

Users can promote the people they have worked with by clicking on a corresponding skill listed on their profile, or recommending one they haven’t added yet. The user receiving the endorsement can then choose whether to accept it. LinkedIn will notify its members by email when they have been endorsed.

Members can also be endorsed from the Skills & Expertise section, dedicated to the new feature. Each endorsement will be accompanied by a picture of the person who made it, and a link to their profile.

As time goes on, the endorsed skills form something of a hierarchy, with the things the account holder particularly excels at appearing on top of others.

Over the past few months, LinkedIn has received plenty of bad press, after a Russian hacker stole and published around 6.5 million member passwords. Although the passwords were protected with SHA-1 hashes, there was no “salting”, meaning the hackers were able to decrypt some of the login details.

The website claimed that the security breach had cost it between $500,000 and $1 million.

Despite this, TechWeekEurope readers have recently voted LinkedIn as the best social media channel, ahead of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and even that traditional favourite, the pub.

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