In preparation for the ever worsening economy, I was sending out requests for endorsements on LinkedIn this morning and wondered (in the name transparency) if there would ever be a way to allow for negative comments? In recent months LinkedIn has had an explosion in traffic and I’ve received invitations to join former coworkers networks at an astounding rate. People I haven’t seen or heard from in 10 years.
I admit endorsements are essentially a text based advertisement for someone ‘s personal brand. Hopefully those that ask for them are aware of their standing with you. (Come to think of it, I forgot to tell the people I asked to endorse me that they didn’t have to if they felt it wasn’t warranted. Maybe that should be a “feature”?)
Of course, a LinkedIn user can contact the person that endorsed someone to collect additional information. Not sure how many would actually do that but as managing human capital becomes more comprehensive (resume, personal information, interests, etc), I can see this growing. More employers are looking for additional job seeker information on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Maybe LinkedIn should create a “show me this member on all social networks” service? That would be a way to help monetize LinkedIn.
If LinkedIn was to allow for negative feedback they would also have to allow the user to defend themselves. One can easily imagine this getting very messy and I’m sure that LinkedIn doesn’t want to be in the moderation business. Until then; if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.
