LinkedIn Endorsements vs Recommendations: What Is the Difference?
LinkedIn has two peer-validation features: endorsements and recommendations. They are often confused, and their value is very different. Understanding the distinction will help you prioritise where to invest your energy.
What Are Endorsements?
Endorsements are one-click validations of the skills you have listed on your profile. A connection clicks a button next to a skill — "Project Management," "Data Analysis," "Copywriting" — and that counts as an endorsement.
Each skill on your profile shows a count of how many people have endorsed it. Skills with high endorsement counts appear with more prominence.
What Are Recommendations?
Recommendations are written testimonials from your connections. A recommender writes a paragraph or more about your work, their experience of working with you, and what they would say about you to a hiring manager.
Recommendations appear on your profile in a dedicated section, attributed to the recommender with their name, job title, and relationship to you.
Which Matters More to Recruiters?
Recommendations matter significantly more.
Endorsements are easy to give and require no thought. Anyone who has met you can click "endorse" on your skills — and many people do so out of habit or social reciprocity rather than informed judgment. Recruiters understand this. High endorsement counts are a mild positive signal, but they are not weighty evidence.
Recommendations require someone to write something specific, public, and attributable. They take effort. A strong recommendation from a former manager that describes a specific project and a concrete outcome is a meaningful credibility signal that endorsements cannot replicate.
How to Get Recommendations
Ask specifically. A vague request for a recommendation produces a vague recommendation. When you ask, include:
- Which role or project you would like them to focus on
- Any specific skills or achievements you would like them to mention
- The context in which they worked with you that would be most relevant
Ask people who can speak with authority. A recommendation from a direct manager outweighs one from a peer or a client of equal seniority. Aim for at least one managerial recommendation per significant role.
Offer to write a draft. Some busy people will appreciate this. Write something honest and specific, and let them edit it. Many recommendations written by the subject are accepted almost unchanged — which is fine, as long as the recommender genuinely endorses what is written.
Reciprocate. Offer to write a recommendation in return. This is professional courtesy and often accelerates a yes.
How Many Recommendations Do You Need?
Two to three strong recommendations are more valuable than ten generic ones. Quality over quantity.
For active job seekers, one recent recommendation covering your current or most recent role is a minimum. Three recommendations across different roles and relationships is a strong showing.
Managing Endorsements
You can hide specific endorsements from your profile even without removing the skill. If a skill is endorsed by people who are not credible sources (connections you barely know, from unrelated fields), hiding those endorsements and leaving only relevant ones is worth considering.
You can also pin your three most important skills to the top of your Skills section. These are the skills that appear first and are most likely to be seen by recruiters scanning your profile.
Should You Ask for Endorsements?
Only indirectly. Asking directly for endorsements feels transactional. Instead, endorse your connections' skills genuinely and let reciprocity work naturally.
What you can do proactively is ensure your top skills are listed clearly and completely — which makes it easy for connections to endorse them when they visit your profile.
Use CVCircuit to build a CV that reflects the same skills and capabilities that your LinkedIn recommendations validate — presenting a consistent, credible story across every touchpoint in the recruitment process.