I need help with my Week 8 | LinkedIn Presence for my Business Comm Class

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JWI 505

Business Communications

and Executive Presence

LinkedIn | Week Eight

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A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIEND: RECOMMENDATIONS

LinkedIn includes a feature that allows your connections to endorse you

for job-related skills and post detailed recommendations. These

professional testimonials add considerable value to your LinkedIn

profile. They act as public validation of you and your skills, attributes,

and capabilities.

These testimonials are quite powerful. Consider when you look for a new

restaurant at which to eat dinner, or when you are searching online for a

product to purchase. What is the first item you check? You check the

overall rating and the reviews or testimonials, forming at least an initial

impression of the product or service based on what others have said.

To make the most of recommendations and endorsements, you need to

have a plan for asking your connections to provide them.

PLANNING YOUR RECOMMENDATION REQUESTS

Before you ask connections to recommend you, ask yourself the

following questions:

 What are the important projects on which you’ve worked recently

— the items you’d like to highlight that best exemplify your

abilities?

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§ From whom would you like to receive recommendations? You may

have friends on LinkedIn who will gladly compliment you, but these

recommendations aren’t as valuable as those that come from

coworkers, clients, managers, colleagues, and customers. Does

the person have an impressive title, or work for a high-profile

company? Does the recommendation come from someone who

knows and trusts you?

§ Look at the list of recommendations you want. Is there enough

variety in it to highlight all of your different skills and abilities?

THE PROTOCOL OF ASKING FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

Asking for LinkedIn recommendations has a certain etiquette to it.

Follow these steps to request recommendations for your LinkedIn

account:

1. Ask by e-mail. You can even offer to write a rough draft that your

colleague can edit at will. These should be concise and should

state...

a. How the person knows you/where you worked together

b. What accomplishments you achieved

c. Exactly why they recommend you/what skills you possess

that they recommend

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2. Send the request via LinkedIn so your connection can act on it.

When you receive their recommendation, you can choose

whether or not to add it to your profile.

3. Whether you use the recommendation or not, send a thank you,

as this can be a significant imposition on a connection’s time

and effort. Thank-you notes in the form of an email, hand-written

note, or even a small gift are all appropriate, depending on your

relationship to the connection.