"But a smart recruiter would realize that some measurable chunk of endorsements are selected by people who have no clue as to your skill set or level of ability

"But a smart recruiter would realize that some measurable chunk of endorsements are selected by people who have no clue as to your skill set or level of ability in that particular area" I don't use LinkedIn to do keyword searches really, but if you're into that sort of thing, I imagine that having tagged profiles is still much more useful than not having them. Presumably, if you're a typical recruiter, you'll combine a keyword search with a list of schools or companies that your clients agree are a good proxy for aptitude. Or you'll do a bit of manual pruning, blast some subset of the search results, and see what sticks.