Having a first-rate recommendation from many connections on your LinkedIn profile is a great goal, but there are a few fundamental guidelines to bear in mind before you hit the road. I’m often asked for recommendations/endorsements by people I barely know on LinkedIn. I’m really quite uncomfortable giving a reference for someone I don’t really know, as I am sure most are. In my opinion, this is a complete waste of time, and in many ways discredits the person requesting this.
Rather than spending time doing things that won’t result in any positive results, and often create a negative image for yourself, I have one message that I would love to share with you which I send once a year requesting a recommendation or endorsement or whenever I feel my brand needs to be revamped (I recently sent this message to my contacts as I found myself looking for a new challenge. Thank you so much to all my colleagues who were kind enough to write such positive and flattering recommendations) Select the contacts you consider key, personalize/customize the content and have fun, so here it is:
Subject: Hi [Insert Name], Can we endorse each other?
Dear [Insert Name],
I’m sending this to ask you for a brief recommendation/endorsement of my work that I can include in my LinkedIn profile.
It would be great if you could include examples of results you received as a result of working with me – to save you time, I am providing you a list of skills that I utilized while employed at [Insert Company’s Name]:
- Business Analyst
- Business Intelligence
- Business Process Management
- Data Analysis and Mining
- Data Science
- Business Strategy
- e-Business
- SaaS
- Enterprise Software
- Digital Marketing and Branding
- R, Python, Tableau, Salesforce
- Spanish, LATAM
- International Trade, Financing and Insurance
Please, feel free to edit this and include the ones you deem relevant. I’d love to return the favor so please provide me with a sample recommendation/endorsement for you.
Thank you in advance for helping me out with this, I really appreciate it.”
Cheers,
~ Diana
If you find difficult to write a recommendation, there are in the market some free online apps (recommendation generators) that help you with this tedious task, I personally use http://endorser.org/ – however, developers at Inyerface Designs, Inc. (Ottawa-based website development company specializing in web design and application development) gave me a sneak peek about its new app “Iendorse.com” apparently it really solves the issue with endorsements and the concept is better and flawless. They are just finishing on the share functions and it will be ready to launch before the Summer, so I am looking forward to testing it.
In addition to revamping your brand, the larger number of skill endorsements you have will results in your profile showing up more often in search results while also being more credible and positioning you as an expert in your field. This will ultimately help to grow your professional network and achieve any goal you might be pursuing on LinkedIn.
Hoping this post is useful. Start fining your brand and have a blast recommending/endorsing your peers, and don’t forget to let me know how it went, I want to know how many recommendations/endorsements you got.
All the best,
D.
Diana Esparza 