Now that LinkedIn allows people to endorse others, I am getting endorsements from people I either don’t know or whom I have never worked with. I appreciate their compliments and desire to please, but how can someone endorse me as a speaker when they have never met me, much less heard me speak?
I feel I am losing credibility by having a stranger endorse me. If I want a recommendation or a testimonial, I ask my clients. Only clients and business associates can endorse me, as they are the only ones who can really vouch for my skills. It just makes me crazy! Am I wrong?
I encourage people to keep their kind words for people whose work they actually know and have first-hand experience with. I also wish LinkedIn would get rid of that feature. Another friend recently complained that she often gets endorsements from people she vaguely knows, which is nice, but it appears that they are only doing it so that she will endorse them in return. Or, people will endorse her for skills that aren’t really relevant to her current job and career path.
If you want to speak glowingly about someone’s work, save it for a recommendation, which carries more weight.