The Skills and Endorsements section is a very important part of any Fire & Security sales person’s LinkedIn profile. It’s one of the top four places where you should be using your key words and phrases.
Whatever you add here will help:
- LinkedIn to understand what search terms you want your profile to show for; and
- your connections to understand how best you can help them.
It’s also a great way to start conversations with your connections. But many Fire & Security directors don’t have a clue how to get the most value from it!
Read on to find out the how and the why…
How to use LinkedIn’s Skills and Endorsements Function
The Skills & Endorsements section of your profile is a place where your connections can vote to show that they believe you’re good at a particular skill.
Viewers of your profile get to see THREE Featured Skills & Endorsements. YOU can choose which three. OR LinkedIn will select the top 3 by number of endorsements.
They will also see one of the faces of those people who have endorsed you.
As a LinkedIn User, you can endorse other connections for their skills. Go onto their profile and scroll down to the Skills & Endorsements section.
Select the skill and click the + sign.
Then you get the option of Good, Very Good or Highly Skilled.
Plus the chance to select a relationship with the person you are endorsing.
Personally, I don’t endorse people unless I have had a personal experience of their expertise in that area.
But there is also an option to endorse someone when you have heard about their skill from others.
Optimising LinkedIn’s Skills Section For Fire & Security
It is vital that you go into your Skills section and control what your connections might be asked to endorse you for.
Here’s a big clue! If you are a Fire & Security installer, your ideal customers are not looking for your prowess at sales or new business development. You should add in some of your own Fire & Security skills!
Even if you are a sales person or business development manager for Fire & Security equipment or software, you should add in some of your company’s Fire & Security products!
Adding Skills
In the Skills & Endorsement section, click on the Add a new skill link. This will bring up a box in which you can add the best Fire & Security keywords for you and your business.
Start typing in the skill that you want to add and some options will appear in a dropdown menu for you to select.
You can add in skills that are not in the dropdown menu – sometimes.
There are also some suggested skills
THE LIMIT IS 50 SKILLS!
Remember to click the blue add button when you are done!
Deleting or Reordering Skills
Next to the Add a new skill link is a pencil. Click that to edit your skills.
A new pop up will appear and each of your skills will be listed with an dustbin to the right. Click that to delete any skills that do not reflect what you do.
This is also where you can reorder your skills so that you can put the most important THREE into the TOP SKILLS positions – that will make them the featured skills that appear when someone first views your profile. Click the PIN image to the left of your top three skills and it will move them to the top.
You can then prioritise the order of that top three. Click on the three horizontal lines to the right of the screen next to your chosen skill. Then drag it to the 1st, 2nd or 3rd position.
You can also prioritise the skills that are listed in the Industry Knowledge category. Again, click on the three horizontal lines to the right of the screen next to your chosen skill. Then drag it to the new position.
There are additional categories for:
- Tools & Technologies
- Interpersonal Skills
- Other Skills
Make sure you click the big blue Save button!
Hide endorsements from specific individuals
You may decide that you don’t want an endorsement from a particular individual to show on your profile. You can sort this out by clicking on the Skill that has been endorsed. A list of endorsers will appear and you can toggle the switch at the right to stop a particular connection’s endorsement from being visible.
Opting out of LinkedIn’s Skills And Endorsements – but should you?
Back in May 2014, LinkedIn had received enough complaints about their Skills and Endorsements feature to warrant the inclusion of an opt out feature.
Users didn’t want to see LinkedIn’s suggestions about people they might want to endorse as being good at what they do. And they didn’t want notifications or emails about endorsements that other connections have given to them clogging up their inbox.
Scroll down to the Skills and Endorsements section of your profile and click View ** more. The box will open up to reveal all your other skills. Scroll down to the bottom and click Adjust endorsement settings.
A pop up will now appear so you can manage how you receive and give endorsements.
Click the button and it will change from Yes to No.
Be aware that if you click No for ‘I want to be endorsed’, the other options will disappear. Just click again so it becomes Yes and they will reappear.
You also have the option for:
Include me in endorsement suggestions to my connections
Show me suggestions to endorse my connections
Personally, I will agree to be endorsed and included in the endorsement suggestions – this brings you back to the top of mind for your connections.
I will also choose to continue to see the suggestions to endorse my connections – it seems only fair if I am asking to be endorsed myself. And, again, if that person is notified that you have endorsed them, it keeps you top of mind.
Responding to Fire & Security Endorsements
You now receive a notification on your dashboard about any endorsements. LinkedIn has been very clear that you should start a conversation by saying thanks.
Skills and Endorsements is a very useful way to start conversations on LinkedIn, as well as to show your appreciation of your talented connections. Use it wisely!
LinkedIn is a great way to identify prospects and connect with them but, like all relationships, it requires a lot of work on a consistent basis.
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