Recommendations from other users in your profile on LinkedIn help to increase your credibility in the professional world and can lead to interesting job offers and opportunities. But you need to follow certain rules on how to use recommendations. Mashable.com has summed up these rules in six points.
1. Actively ask for recommendations
Don’t just wait for somebody to give you a recommendation. Ask politely for a recommendation and try to make sure that the recommendation is as specific as possible. For example, it should describe a big project you worked on together and what you achieved and not just say that “you are good at your job”.
2. Choose who you ask
Do not send requests for recommendations to all your contacts. Among them there may be people you have not worked with for a long time or who you have never worked with at all. You could then receive completely irrelevant recommendations.
3. Don’t ignore a request for a recommendation
If you receive a request for a recommendation from somebody you don’t know well, thank them for their interest but write frankly that you would prefer to give them a recommendation at a later date once you are working together more closely. Don’t just give a recommendation to avoid looking impolite.
4. Think carefully about who you are giving your recommendations to
Be careful to make sure that all the people in your work team are not giving each other recommendations. There would be no benefit to this. Your recommendations not only appear in the profiles of the people you are recommending but also in your own profile.
5. Check your recommendations regularly
The situation may occur where you need to remove some of the recommendations from your profile or alter them. Therefore find time to read your recommendations and make any alterations to them that are necessary.
6. Don’t forget to say “thank you”
Always say “thank you” for a recommendation but resist the temptation to automatically offer a recommendation to whoever has given you a recommendation. If you are uncomfortable doing it, just say “thank you”.
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