Donna Serdula - LinkedIn Profile Optimization For Dummies

In addition to endorsements, there’s another longer-form way for connections to add their two cents about you: recommendations. Keep reading to find out more about this type of testimonial.

Recommendations are testimonials that appear on your profile, showing your reader you are trusted and admired within your network. Recommendations are given by first-degree connections and provide citation to your value and abilities and make your profile more credible.

If you are a job seeker, recommendations from your current or past employer and colleagues sets you apart from other job applicants. When your goal is branding or reputation management, a strong list of recommendations from VIPs and leaders boasting your finer points provides evidence to your reader that you truly are a high performing, impressive professional. If you are promoting your business, products, or services, having recommendations from your current clients touting your strengths impresses your prospects.

You may be thinking, “What’s the merit in a LinkedIn recommendation when every recommendation on LinkedIn is glowing?”

The power behind LinkedIn recommendations is it’s easy to find out how significant or insignificant the person is who wrote your recommendation by simply clicking on the person’s name and visiting his or her LinkedIn profile to learn more. It is not what the recommendation says that’s so important, it’s who wrote it . The short recommendation from someone in a high place is significantly better than the glowing recommendation from a colleague or vendor.

The best kind of recommendation comes from employers, VIPs, or customers. These are people with a lot of things on their plates. The fact they took time and wrote you a recommendation speaks volumes and proves that you truly did something important. Recommendations by colleagues and people in lateral or lower positions are useful, but not nearly as powerful. The quid pro quo recommendation, given out of duty, impresses no one. Check out Figure 3-9 to see the types of people you should ask for a recommendation.

FIGURE 3-9:Order of recommenders by importance.

Here are some questions to help you identify the right people to ask for a recommendation:

Who have you helped?

Who have you impressed?

Who have you inspired?

Who have you provided value to?

Who has recently thanked you?

If you have a large list and don’t want to send a recommendation request to each and every one, here’s how to narrow the list:

Who is on LinkedIn?

Who has a large LinkedIn network?

Who is active on LinkedIn?

Who shares your target audience?

When a person writes a recommendation for you, that recommendation is also listed on that person’s profile. By making sure the person has a large network and shares your target audience means more eyes on the recommendation, which might translate to additional opportunity for you.

You can only request recommendations from people who are on LinkedIn and connected to you. However, if you want to add a recommendation from a person who is not on LinkedIn or from someone who has passed on to the great beyond, you can scan the recommendation and add it to the experience as a multimedia file. Directions on adding multimedia files are found in Chapter 12.

If you were unable to come up with a list, what are you waiting for? Go out and start impressing people, help others, and start participating in random acts of kindness.

Now that you have a list of people to ask for a recommendation, don’t let shyness get in your way. People love helping other people and you may discover that most people are honored that you asked them to recommend you.

The best and most successful approach when asking for a recommendation is not to simply request a recommendation, but provide the person with a recommendation already written for them.

People often balk when I suggest providing a pre-written recommendation. The truth is, rather than being insulted, more often than not the other person is going to be overjoyed. The vast majority of people out there don’t have the time or ability to write you a strong recommendation. Because this person is doing you a favor, it’s important to do them a favor by making it as easy for them as possible to help you. And as you struggle to come up with the words for your own recommendation, imagine how difficult it would be for the other person!

The other reason I suggest writing the recommendation yourself is to ensure the recommendation is written with all the points you want covered. Just because you think your leadership ability and unwavering commitment to customer service is what sets you apart, the person writing your recommendation may instead focus on something else entirely.

In addition, by writing the recommendation yourself, you can infuse the recommendation with keywords that help optimize your profile’s searchability. All those keywords can be infused into recommendations to make your profile rank even better. (Refer to Chapter 2to find out even more about how to get found on LinkedIn.)

If my arguments to write the recommendation yourself failed to persuade you, at the very least provide the person with some criteria as to what you’d like stated in the recommendation. Consider including language similar to this:

Dear Dave,

I have enjoyed working with you. Would you be open to providing me a recommendation of my work that I can include on my LinkedIn profile?

When you write the recommendation, I would love it if you’d mention my strength in social selling and how I often acted as a trusted advisor to my clients. Perhaps you can even mention how I saved the Wiener deal using my extensive knowledge of widgets and ended up renewing them for an extra two years, which resulted in a $2M uptick in revenue?

Thanks so much! I appreciate it! —Hal

When writing a recommendation for yourself, the best thing to do is list your qualities you want highlighted. If you aren’t quite sure what qualities you want highlighted, ask yourself the following questions:

How does this person know you?

How long have you known each other?

How did you work together?

Detail a singular experience in which you exhibited a high level of leadership as it fits within his or her knowledge of you.

What one quality of yours proved beneficial to this person? What was the result?

Did you mentor or work alongside this person? What impact did you have on him or her?

Use the answers to these questions to craft a powerful recommendation.

When requesting a recommendation, it’s important that you request the recommendation from within LinkedIn’s interface. Whatever you do, don’t send the request for a recommendation via an outside email address. Emailing the request makes it difficult for your contact to figure out how to provide the recommendation. By sending the request from LinkedIn’s recommendation page, your contacts can easily click the link that LinkedIn provides, making it easy for them to give you a recommendation.