The ability to get and receive recommendations is one of the best features on LinkedIn. Recommendations provide a way for potential clients and referral partners as well as hiring authorities to learn about your character, your achievements, and the ways in which you provided value to those you served.
Recommendations are far more important than simply having some of your skills be endorsed. Endorsing a LinkedIn connection for a skill takes very little effort and is often done quite casually.
On the other hand, when people write a recommendation, they typically put some thought into what they say about you and about your contributions in the job or other capacity in which they interacted with you.
Keep in mind that people will notice and not only form an opinion of you by the types of recommendations you receive, they will also learn about you via the recommendations that you give to others. Be sure that these recommendations are well written, with no grammatical, typographical and/or spelling errors.
Please note that you and the other person must be connected on LinkedIn for each of you to recommend the other. For a recommendation to display on both your profile and the profile of the person you are recommending, the person who gets the recommendation has to add it to their profile.
How to Make and Give LinkedIn Recommendations
- To find the Manage Your Recommendations section, start by hovering your cursor over the little photo of you at the top right of your LinkedIn screen, and you will see several drop down options.
- Click on the word Manage in the box that says Privacy and Settings.
- You will likely need to have your password handy to complete this step.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page where you will see the words: Go to previous version of settings. Click on that hyperlink.
- Then click on Manage Your Recommendations, which is a hyperlink at the bottom of the list you will see in the lower right of your screen.
- It is easy to ask for and give recommendations from this section of LinkedIn. Just click on the words Ask for recommendations and then complete the template.
- You will also see if you have any pending requests to recommend someone. Plus you will see whether or not a recommendation you have given has been accepted yet
- To give a recommendation, click on the words Give a recommendation and complete the template. When you write recommendations, be sure to include two or three specific attributes of the person as well as specific contributions they made in the role for which you are recommending them.
- Also, be very sure that when you get a recommendation that it has no typos or grammatical errors. Do NOT add it to your profile until the recommender has made the changes you requested in their recommendation.
- Finally, it is OK to not recommend a person who has requested a recommendation when you don’t think that you know enough about the person to write a meaningful recommendation.
Check Out the YouTube Video
Recommendations on LinkedIn are a perfect way to network with your LinkedIn connections and to recognize their contributions and qualities. Take time to write an honest, recommendation with specifics about the person. Doing so reflects well not only on the person you are recommending but also on you as the recommender.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qThOtafOxLQ
How About You?
What approach have you taken to writing and giving recommendations? Have you ever turned down someone who asked you for a recommendation? What are some of the best types of recommendations you have received?
About Joyce
Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more effective using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.
She provides social media tutoring and training to business owners, business development professionals, authors, speakers, coaches, business consultants, job seekers and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.
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