LinkedIn gets on my nerves. Besides the fact that it’s just a version of myspace for grown-ups, it’s basically a giant schmooze-fest. No matter where you go on that site, you bump into all kinds of kissing up.
I think part of the problem is that LinkedIn only allows people to endorse each other on the site. There’s no mechanism for giving bad reviews, no “dire warning” tag. If there were, it would be a far more accurate site, not to mention interesting. Plus, LinkedIn should provide an “anecdote” option. Then it would get really interesting. I would read that for fun.
Just think about what amazon.com would be like if you could only give products a thumbs-up rating. It would be terrible! You would never know if some product just didn’t live up to its billing.
Plus, you see a lot of edorsement-cycles, too. Person A endorses Person B (”The greatest professional ever to grace this region of the earth.”), and, surprise surprise, Person B also endorses Person A (”An indispensable asset to any company. You would be a fool not to hire them! Poach them now!”). Kinda hinders the credibility, I think.
Since you can only endorse people on LinkedIn, I think the best thing to do is to write creative endorsements that express the true character of your peers’ professional abilities.
- I would strongly encourage my competitors to hire ****; such a decision would greatly enhance our ability to succeed in the marketplace.
- **** is an excellent programmer; after a while you won’t even notice the smell.
- After years of effort developing his management skills, I am finally able to say without reservation that I would choose to work under **** insead of Hitler anytime.
I’m sure you could come up with many more…