LinkedIn Endorsements Are Broken — Here's What We're Building

The Endorsement Problem

Quick experiment: go to any developer's LinkedIn profile and look at their endorsements. You'll see skills like "Machine Learning" endorsed by recruiters. "Kubernetes" endorsed by marketing managers. "System Design" endorsed by people who've never written a line of code.

LinkedIn endorsements have a fundamental design flaw: anyone can endorse anyone for anything, with zero accountability.

The result is a system where endorsements are noise, not signal. Recruiters can't use them. Hiring managers ignore them. And developers who actually have deep expertise in a skill look exactly the same as someone who added it to their profile on a whim.

Why "Just Fix Endorsements" Isn't Enough

You might think the fix is simple — just add some friction. Require a connection. Ask for a comment. But that misses the real problem.

The issue isn't friction. It's qualification. There's no mechanism to ensure that the person endorsing you actually has expertise in that skill. Your mom can endorse your Python. Your cousin can vouch for your DevOps skills. There's no accountability chain, no way to verify the endorser's credibility.

The Trustified Approach

We built Trustified around a different model entirely. Here's how it works:

Expertise gating. You can only endorse others in a skill where you have 3+ XP. That means at least three other qualified experts have validated your own skill first. This single rule eliminates drive-by endorsements and ensures that every endorsement comes from someone who actually knows the domain.

Accountability. Every endorsement on Trustified is traceable. You can see who endorsed whom, when, and in what skill. There's no hiding behind a one-click button.

Challenge system. See an endorsement that doesn't seem right? Any expert with 3+ XP in that skill can challenge it. The community self-polices, which means the system stays honest without heavy-handed moderation.

What This Means for Developers

If you're a developer with genuine expertise, Trustified gives you a way to prove it that LinkedIn never could. Your endorsements come from people who've actually worked with you — who've reviewed your PRs, debugged production issues alongside you, and seen you ship.

That's the kind of validation that matters. Not a click from a stranger. A statement from a colleague, backed by their own proven expertise.

What This Means for Hiring

For companies and recruiters, Trustified creates signal where there was only noise. When you see a developer with 5 XP in Kubernetes on Trustified, you know that five qualified experts — people who've actually deployed and managed Kubernetes clusters — have validated that skill.

That's a fundamentally different data point than "12 people clicked the Kubernetes button on LinkedIn."

We're building the skills layer that hiring deserves. One where the signal is real, the accountability is built-in, and the developers who do the work get the credit they've earned.