Think Your LinkedIn Profile is Strong? Prove it by measuring your E-R Score and Compare how you stack up amongst the LinkedIn Pros.

Think Your LinkedIn Profile is Strong?  Prove it by measuring your E-R Score and Compare how you stack up amongst the LinkedIn Pros.

Develop a Stronger LinkedIn E-R Score to blow Away Your Competition and Supercharge your LinkedIn Profile and Presence like the Pros

• LinkedIn Says Your “Profile Strength” is the best and you are an “All-Star” – Is that Enough to be successful?

• What are the hidden metrics that determine whether you should be hired, know your ‘stuff’ professionally and are “connected”?

• What set of LinkedIn scores can really separate you from the masses on LinkedIn and have you stand out as a LinkedIn 1%’er?

• This blog introduces you to the LinkedIn E-R Score which is an entirely new metric to gauge the health of your LinkedIn Profile and your online brand.

• Is your LinkedIn E-R Score Healthy or On Life Support?

With the recent introduction of LinkedIn endorsements comes an entirely new metric which helps you better determine your LinkedIn Profile & Online Brand Health – This new metric is the LinkedIn E-R Score.  This article will illustrate what your E-R Score says about you including the following:

• Whether you have enough connections on LinkedIn

• Whether your profile and professional work is worthy of Recommendations and/or Endorsements

• Whether you can stand out among your competition and are perceived as a strong,  viable and recommendable/endorsable brand

• Whether your online brand can receive top billing (vs. your competitors) via LinkedIn Searches

Since the recent introduction of LinkedIn Endorsements, many people have been questioning the value of this new feature that many say is analogous to Facebook Likes.  Others say these endorsements are too easy to be of any value at all.

The following post will shed some light on these new LinkedIn Endorsements – their value, how to obtain them, how do they compare to LinkedIn Recommendations, etc.  All of this will help you determine the health of your on-line brand through a new brand quality metric I developed called your LinkedIn E-R Score.

1. What is your E-R Score & How DO you Calculate this New Metric? Simple – A LinkedIn E-R score is simply the combined total of your LinkedIn Endorsements + your LinkedIn Recommendations. My LinkedIn ER Score is 2,689 and is as follows –> 2,625 Endorsements + 64 Recommendations = 2,689 E-R Score.

    

2. Why is your E-R Score Important?  

A) Your E-R score is an indicator of how connected and active a brand you are on LinkedIn.

B) Your E-R score is an indicator of the quality of your capabilities and how dynamic you are

C) Recruiters use the number of Recommendations and Endorsements (your E-R score) you have as a proxy for determining how capable you are and how deep your skills are.

D) In general, the more interactive you are on LinkedIn and the higher quality your work, posts and relationship building efforts, the more Endorsements and Recommendations you will have vs. your competitors.

Use my LinkedIn inbound and outbound activity as an example of how endorsements have benefitted me:

My Outbound LinkedIn Activity:

• I have now have over 20,000 LinkedIn connections and make 20-30 new connections per day;

• I post updates every day of the year (365 days);

 

• I respond to post comments and e-mails on a daily basis

 

My Inbound LinkedIn Activity:

• I receive between 20-50 profile views per day

 

• On average, I receive several likes and comments on my LinkedIn posts per day

 

• I receive approximately 20-40 LinkedIn e-mails per day

 

• I receive between 5-25 endorsement per day, sometimes more

 

Benefits from receiving LinkedIn endorsements:

Since receiving nearly 3,000 recent endorsements I have received the following benefits:

1) Calls from headhunters and companies seeking to hire me has increased to 5-10 calls and e-mails per week from about 1-2 per week.

2) Phone calls seeking my consulting expertise has increased at least 2x

3) People following me on social media has increased dramatically

Questions about these LinkedIn Endorsement Benefits:

1) Have my skills, abilities, knowledge increased dramatically to warrant this level of recent endorsements? – perhaps.  But more importantly, I am now perceived as the hot LinkedIn brand where few others have achieved this level of 3,000+ Endorsements – certainly not my competitors. It has been like a snowball effect, the more endorsements I receive, the more I am endorsed.

2) Does the fact that I also have 65+ Recommendations help obtain this level of interest? – Very Likely. This is another level of distinction for me and my online brand – few others have this level of LinkedIn credentials (recommendations) as well.

The following chart demonstrates the type of activity my LinkedIn profile (brand) receives EVERY DAY:

  

3) Are Endorsements Equal or comparable in Weight to LinkedIn Recommendations? Short answer – no, not even close. Why…?

a)   LinkedIn Recommendations are at least 8-9x more important than LinkedIn endorsements according to recruiters I’ve spoken to recently.  Why – what was their reasoning…?

b)    These recruiters reasoned that LinkedIn endorsements are more impactful for the following reasons:

• LinkedIn Recommendations take much longer to create and the process involves authoring, editing and then publishing content about who is being recommended.

 

• LinkedIn Recommendations actually require the recommender to develop thoughtful content about the person they are recommending – why they are recommending this person, what make this person stand out, key qualities of the person they are recommending, etc. Endorsements, on the other hand, are easy to provide and do not require thoughtful content authoring and publishing.

 

c)    According to these same recruiters, the best recommendations are those being written by clients and/or previous bosses as these add the most credibility to your LinkedIn E-R Score.  

d)   These same recruiters also think that supervisor testimonials are worth 2-5x than those recommendations provided by friends, colleagues, associates. Here are some examples of my 65+ recommendations:

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e) Endorsements, on the other hand, are comparable to Facebook Likes – they can be generated easy and fast without a great deal of thought or effort.  In general though, the more connections you have and the more active you are on LinkedIn, the more endorsements you will have vs. your competitors.

4)    How do you Boost Your E-R Score?

a) Post updates regular updates as I do in the following examples:

b)   Be an active connector and grow an extensive network as I do, shown in the following examples:

c)  Reply to likes or comments to your own post as shown by this example of mine below:

d)   Reply to viable and high priority LinkedIn e-mails as shown in my example below:

e)   Collect LinkedIn Recommendations for every great piece of work delivered soon after delivering it as I have shown above.

If you follow my advice, you will also start seeing these types of e-mails and LinkedIn activity on a daily basis:

Endorsement Levels:

Endorsement Levels:

Skills Endorsed:

Skills Endorsed:

Skills Endorsed: