LinkedIn Now Prevents Connections Endorsements From Being 100% Public

LinkedIn Now Prevents Connections Endorsements From Being 100% Public LinkedIn recently made a significant change to the way Recommendations are viewed, where you cannot see the name of the endorsing party, unless  you are linkeded as a 1st-degree connection  to that particular individual. Instead of I highly recommend Bob for his leadership capabilities, by Tom White, CFO at Any Company, youll now just see the recommendation itself, with no information on who wrote it, their career level, or how they even know the original user.   Given that one of LinkedIns strongest points has been the ability to gather and leverage public endorsements as references, this change strikes a blow to the credibility and usability of Recommendations especially from a recruiting standpoint. Some people read these endorsements as a measure of whether theyd like to connect with another userand recruiters often take  Recommendations as  evidence of strong job performance. Now, they wont be able to filter out the reciprocal (meaningless) colleague-to-colleague  endorsements. Taking it a  step further, you are now prevented from allowing  all LinkedIn users to view your Connections list. The options (go look this up in your Settings) are only My Connections or No one, meaning that if you want others to see your network, youre out of luck. Many of my clients have benefited from reviewing my  Connections list and Recommendations in advance of hiring me, noting the caliber of executive and professional clients who have been thrilled with my work (although the overwhelming majority  of my executive clients are in the midst of a stealth job search  and  we therefore do not link directly). Without this information, the Recommendations list seems as if it has been reduced to volume only (21 people have recommended Bob).   Of course, endorsements can be written to add I was a direct report to John at XYZ Company, but how many people will remember to do that? Id like to hear your thoughts.  Does this change water down the strength of LinkedIn as a networking or recruiting tool?