What are LinkedIn Recommendations?
You may not have heard of LinkedIn but it is the social network site similar to Twitter and Facebook only it is for business professionals. Every one second two new members join LinkedIn and because of this growing network more and more people are using it as a tool for intelligence, recruitment and networking but what are recommendations and why should I get some?
Brick technology web design has come up with some useful hints and tips concerning recommendations on LinkedIn:
If you do not ask you do not get
Do not wait for someone to provide you with a recommendation because the chances are you will either be waiting for a long time or else you will not get one. What you need to do is politely request someone to recommend you but you need to make this request personal.
Ask them to recommend you for something which you worked on together like a big project otherwise you could end up with something very general which do sadly look like you forced the person to write something.
Alternatively ask them to write about something that happened as a result of you working together like sales increasing or major contracts being acquired.
Be selective and do not ask everyone
Sending out a blanket request to all of your connections is never a good idea and should be avoided. Not only are these extremely impersonal but in reality you may have not worked with all these people close enough.
You regularly see recommendations where a person has been recommended for something which is irrelevant and these are the types of recommendations which are just there for the sake of having one.
Recommendations with comments such as “he/she is a nice person and was really good to talk to” should be avoided because they stand out a mile and are not the types of comments to add to your professional business profile page.
Never ignore a request from someone else for a recommendation
If someone sends you a request for a recommendation from you but you do not know them too well never just ignore them. You should reply and give them feedback just saying thanks for the request but at this time you are not in a position to comment.
Tell them the truth that you haven’t worked with them close enough to recommend their work but if this arises in the future then please feel free to contact you back. That way you have been polite and not left them wondering whether or not you would recommend.
You should never just write something on LinkedIn as a recommendation just because you want to be polite. Instead you should be straight or else they will end up with a general comment which in reality is better left off their profile anyway.
Take care when your recommend
Whilst it is really good to feature some fantastic recommendations what you need to avoid is having your whole work force all recommending one another. It looks fixed, cheesy and adds very little to the recommendation no matter how fantastic it sounds.
What you need to bear in mind is that who you recommend will show up on their profile once they accept it but it also shows on your profile that you have recommended them and wrote one.
If people see them recommending you and you recommending them back and then you recommending another member of your team and them recommending you back it can all get a bit suspicious!
Regularly make adaptations and changes to recommendations
This isn’t something which occurs often but sometimes there might be a reason as to why you wouldn’t want to be associated with someone and therefore you need to withdraw a recommendation.
In order to remove a recommendation all you need to do is go to your profile and click on the “recommendations you have made” then here you will view them when your profile has been linked in and you can easily remove it.
Within this same area you may wish to remove a recommendation which someone has given you whereby in reality you no longer wish to be associated with. You can remove this here too as well as correct any spelling mistakes.
Always say Please and Thank You
This one goes without saying however you would be surprised how many people are not polite when requesting a recommendation or when they have received a recommendation. What you need to remember is when you receive a recommendation you are given the option to return the favour and write one back.
As mentioned earlier you shouldn’t write one unless you’re comfortable doing so. Remember you can always submit one further down the line if you do not feel its right at this point.
With this in mind however you need to ensure that when someone sends you a recommendation you do reply to them and say Thank You. It is common courtesy and general politeness.