endorsement bombing

The act of tagging LinkedIn profile connections with random or irrelevant skills from thousands of available options, with the idea of making it as weird and abstract as possible.

Historical perspective: LinkedIn endorsements started as a feature intended to highlight laudable skills, but then the Internet got involved. According to The Week, alongside old standbys like "marketing" and data analysis" varied talents such as "foosball," "hugs," and "cheese" have cropped up on profiles thanks to friendly pranksters. The aim of endorsement bombing is to tag connections with random or irrelevant skills from LinkedIn's 35,000 available options. The skills list is generated from LinkedIn's 444 million users. Because 19 companies list "sword fighting" on their profiles pages, even that is an endorsable skill; many people approved these plugs without a second glance. One software manager said he was recently touted for his "fly-fishing" skills as payback from a friend he endorsed for "lubricants."