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LinkedIn Endorsements: Value or No Value?

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

The Cynical Girl asks:

What’s the value of a LinkedIn endorsement or recommendation?

I won't blockquote half her article here, you can go over and read it if you'd like to (and you should). I will, however, give you a good example of why endorsements are pretty dumb.

You see that? Those are, apparently, the things I'm good at according to my endorsements. You'll notice, however, that accounting comes in at #5, even above Photoshop which I find offensive since I created this masterpiece all by myself and clearly that makes me an expert. Anyone who knows me knows I can't add to save my life, Excel frightens me and the only reason I know which side debits go on is because I was forced to sit through 400 hours of CPA review classes. Maybe if this said writing about accounting but no, it says "accounting" which implies I'm the person to ask when you have a question about which line goes where on your 1040. No no no no no.

I'm not sure about you guys but I often get drive-by endorsements from people I've never met in my life who couldn't possibly know how hard I worked to get on the first page of Google for "Ben Bernanke exposed" (Google that at your own risk). Someone casually stalking my profile has no idea if the endorsement comes from a former colleague or some random guy I followed on Twitter 3 years ago who has no idea what I actually do for a living even though it's right there on my profile.

It doesn't help that LinkedIn encourages you to endorse people based on the endorsements they've already been given, many of which they themselves endorsed themselves for when they added it to their profile! Hell, I've endorsed some of you for crap that I have zero clue whether you know or not. Oh, you're into compliance? Cool, have this endorsement.

Where's the value if we're just clicking buttons out of courtesy like the #TeamFollowBack of LinkedIn? Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose? I'm still not convinced my mechanic is skilled in vehicle maintenance and I know that guy, how am I supposed to know if some CPA I met once at a conference knows GAAP from a hole in the ground? I mean, I'd hope so but… you never know.

On that note, I'm going to take a page from Cynical Girl's playbook and go change my skills to more relevant ones such as "cat wrangling" and "badassery." If they're going to be worthless anyway, might as well go all the way.

 

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Doing It Wrong Twitter Case Study: The Chronic Over-Sharer

Following our previous Doing It Wrong Twitter Case Studies, today we present you with a pretty common tweeter who can be found across any industry, not only our own precious accounting set: the chronic over-sharer.


The chronic over-sharer doesn’t understand that when Twitter asks “what are you doing?” it actually means “what are you doing or interested in that you think might be appropriate to share with the Internet community at large?” This means the over-sharer can mistake Twitter for a translator plugged directly into their own streaming consciousness as well as a diet journal, a livejournal, a teenage journal and a best friend who actually cares to hear what the over-sharer had for breakfast that morning.

The over-sharer doesn’t realize that most people – especially those in our somewhat small accounting niche – don’t care what they ate nor what they think if the thoughts are translated all hours of the day and come out mostly as angry gibberish and inflammatory nonsense. To the over-sharer, losing followers by the handful after each obnoxious tweet doesn’t mean anything, Twitter simply exists as an avenue for their consciousness. Like the audacity of sending out extensive Christmas letters each year to family members you haven’t spoken to in years, it takes a lot of guts to blitz Twitter with personal details while ignoring proper traditions of behavior. Remember, this is the accounting industry we’re talking about. While the over-sharer can be found in any niche, their behavior is especially noticeable in ours as we’re known for being a conservative lot.

No one is suggesting people can’t use Twitter to communicate or flaunt their personalities but there is a line and in our profession it’s important to follow that. You won’t have much luck snagging clients or getting hired if you’re using Twitter to blast coworkers or talk about your personal digestive issues.

Some tweeters get the balance just right, like Francine McKenna and Shane Eloe. See? You can be chatty – even snarky – but please refrain from telling the entire Internet about the consistency of your cat’s puke or about your super obnoxious senior whose head you’d like to chop off. It isn’t cute and you’re forgetting the Internet is forever. That means you might be able to delete the offending tweets once you realize you’ve been acting like an ass on Twitter but the damage to your reputation (or brand) can carry on long after the tweets have been zapped.

Just don’t do it. Keep it professional, people. Lively, conversational and a little personal but professional. Pretend like your boss, colleagues, and all former and future employers have your tweets streaming to their desktops at all hours of the day and remember: no one cares what you ate for lunch unless it’s food porn (SFW) and you happened to eat it with an accounting industry rockstar.