LinkedIn is a name that is not unknown to job-seekers and employers.
Well, you must know that! But, have you considered how strong your LinkedIn profile is?
Employers consider LinkedIn as a very trustworthy platform and more than 89% of the employers have sometimes or the other, hired some of their employees from this social media platform.
But, have you considered, whether employees will be impressed only with your experience and diverse field of work?
Recommendations on LinkedIn:
They believe in your quality, your approach to work and how good you were in your previous company. Hence, the only elixir that could help you stand out in the crowd is a recommendation.
Not just any recommendation, but a strong and trustworthy one.
Now there are quite a number of factors that the employers will check when they go through your profile.
So, even if you have an array of recommendations and you are waiting relaxed that you will impress them and make it to the selections, you might be mistaken. Employers will check,
- The ratio between the numbers of people you have in your connections and the number of people who have recommended your work. If you have a large network or connection, but very few recommendations, it is a red signal for you.
- If the number of recommendation is equal to the number of people in your network, it will mean that those recommendations were not spontaneous, rather manipulated and mutual reciprocations. That is also a clear no for employers.
- If your profile is overflowing with recommendations but most are flaky and frivolous, they will be absolutely of no regard.
So, it is a must that you have quality and sensible recommendations that will testify your credibility.
No matter in which field you are working, be confident that when an employer asks you for some references in your favour, you can point to your profile in LinkedIn.
Tips for Receiving LinkedIn Recommendations:
Receiving worthy and useful recommendations is what you should aim for.
In previous times, there was only a formal necessity for three recommendations and most of the time the employee himself or herself had to write them and the mentor or employer used to make necessary changes and sign them. But LinkedIn recommendations are different.
They need not be letter-long, a few paragraphs focusing on your credits and your role in a particular project is perfect.
Hence, you can easily understand that it is mandatory that you only request for recommendation to those, with whom you have previously worked and whom you know personally.
If you send random requests to someone, who has never worked with you and does not have any idea of your work field, it is a waste of time and might demark your profile.
1. Choose the trustworthy people:
When you are looking for some recommendations, it is very important that you find the proper people, whom your future employee can trust.
And in that case, rather than your friends or relatives, your ex-employer, your colleagues and managers are good choices.
They have the knowledge and experience of working with you and hence, can recommend you well, which will be good for consideration.
2. Put yourself in their shoes:
Now, there can be situations that they might have forgotten what projects you had worked with them on and what your role might be.
So, when you request them for a reference, you have to provide the very basic and adequate amount of information just to give them a reminder, but make sure that you don’t seem to be writing the recommendation for them. Being too pushy will ruin the initiative and chance.
3. Keeping contact:
Most people make the mistake of choosing those, with who they have not even distantly stayed in touch over the past years.
You must at least loosely keep in touch with them, whom you choose as your reference. Otherwise, your request for reference will not be persuasive at all for them to consider.
4. Request to focus on:
All those references and recommendations that focus on your initiative in a new project, your role in a project, how you have taken hold of a critical situation, how your role has worked in favour of the company to hit the goals are quite useful.
What not to do when asking for LinkedIn Recommendation:
One thing that you must not do under any circumstances is that you never send a request for recommendation to someone, whom you do not know at all.
Sending insensible and fluffy requests like, “Please recommend me if you know anything of me.”
It will not only lead you to some worthless recommendations, but also make your profile weak with forced and useless references.
Requesting recommendations on LinkedIn:
Now, when you have got at least a rough idea on how you can request your previous or current employers to write a reference or recommendation for you, you have to know the technical steps to do so. Simply go to your LinkedIn Profile, click on recommendations and then on request recommendations.
Choose the person from your network or connections, to whom you want to send the request. Then write a small request. It can be in this format and you can always change it for better –
“ Dear …..,
I am writing this to ask for a recommendation from you regarding your work experience with me .
It would be helpful if you could mention how it was for you to work with me in …. Project and mention, what role I had performed in that….
To make it easy for you, so that you remember my tasks and services, I am attaching a brief draft. Please go through it if you may and edit it as you please.
Thank you for considering.”
If someone has taken the interest of writing a recommendation for you personally that is not uploaded on LinkedIn, take the enthusiasm to request them again to upload it on LinkedIn.
Make sure that you send them a copy of what they have written in the document, so that they do not have to take the time out of their busy schedule to recommend you time and again.
