“Will You Recommend Me On LinkedIn?”
November 23rd, 2009 | by Jason Alba |Don’t you love those messages you get from someone you don’t really know who ask if you will recommend them on LinkedIn?
I hate them.
Part of the issue is my connection policy: if someone invites me to connect I typically accept (with one exception). In part, this personal policy is because I have a public personality and people might read my stuff or here me speak and want to connect – I’m happy to start a relationship that way (as opposed to saying “I don’t know you yet – let’s work on a relationship first.”).
What this means is I get a lot of people who I don’t know.
And it bugs me to no end when one of them, someone who I don’t know, asks me for a Recommendation.
What can I recommend you about? The fact that you don’t know people but still ask them for professional endorsements?
That’s like a car company asking for an endorsement of a car you’ve never been in.
Or a pen company asking for a testimonial for a pen you’ve never seen or used.
I do not write back and decline, or lecture, I simply delete the Recommendation request.
It still bugs me, though…
Please, only ask for Recommendations from people who can really recommend (or, professionally endorse) you.
(this is only one reason why I dislike the built-in recommendation request feature in LinkedIn)
