One of the features of LinkedIn I’ve always really liked is the ability to give and get recommendations. I did some reading about and played around with the feature this week to get a bit more insight to share with you.

Here’s what I learned:

People check out your recommendations - it’s one of the most interesting parts of your profile to check out, so getting some is worth your time and effort.
It’s okay to ask for recommendations (and you should!) - they’ve made it really easy to do so.

Here’s how:

1) Go to the profile tab and choose recommendations

2) Choose which role you’re asking for, who you’re asking (I personally think you shouldn’t be asking more than a couple at a time instead of using their lovely option of 200!)

Make sure to change the text - their sample text is too generic (more on this in following point)

Send!

Ask for specific recommendations. Mention a specific project you worked on together, or the kinds of topics they might cover. People don’t want to have to think too hard about what they might say - make it as easy as possible for them to say what you hope to hear.
Don’t forget to give recommendations. There are several reasons for this.

1. It might make people want to give you one back.
2. People read recommendations. If they are looking at someone’s profile they might click through to you based on the recommendation you gave someone else.
3. It’s a nice thing to do.

Clean up your recommendations from time to time. I had one recommendation from someone from 2008 that I never even met but only had some casual online in. I teractions with. I also don’t do much of anything related to the position she recommended me for. I decided to get rid of that recommendations to make sure the ones I want seen are more prominent.
Don’t go overboard. Having 200 recommendations is a bit over the top and also a waste. Ask select people or a variety of types: bosses, colleagues, staff, suppliers, volunteers, etc. This will give a nice rounded mix of all your experience and expertise.

Homework:

Based on what I learned I did some clean up, wrote a few recommendations and asked for some too. Here’s what I think you should do this week:

Write 3 recommendations
Ask for 3 recommendations
Have you cleaned up your profile yet?
If you have twitter linked to your linkedin status updates, please turn it off! It drives me crazy! :)

Best article I read on LinkedIn this week is from Mashable: 6 things you need to know about LinkedIn Recommendations