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Why It Pays Off to Provide LinkedIn Recommendations

One of the biggest goals on LinkedIn is to obtain recommendations from past supervisors, bosses, peers, and co-workers to enrich your profile. You can never have enough. Recruiters like recommendations because they provide information that typically isn’t found on a resume or in your profile.

If you are interviewing, future employers can connect with the recommenders and find out more about you. And, they can contact your referrals to get the ‘skinny’ on your past performance.

If you are not actively looking for a job but you are more of a passive careerist, what is the point of getting involved in the recommendation process? Exposure and branding. Did you catch in the previous paragraph I noted that future employers can connect to the recommender and engage? When they hover on your name in another person’s recommendation – what do they see? Your profile. This provides you more exposure, and more eyeballs on your LinkedIn profile and name, and allows you to build your brand.

Recruiters who might be looking at other candidates for a position may see your recommendation, and view your profile. You might actually be a better candidate for the position they are trying to fill. If you include your email address or phone number in the summary section, they can easily email or pick up the phone to chat. It’s a great way to passively shop for a new job, right?

Who do you want to provide recommendations for? Look for the movers and shakers in the industry or profession you work or worked in. Look for your LinkedIn connections who have vast numbers of folks connecting to them. Search out profile owners who have a huge following. Look at the company profiles for businesses you used to work for and see if there are any employees showing on the profile for whom you can provide recommendations.

On some company pages you may even see profile owners in a listing for ‘most recommended.’ Clicking on that profile might take you to the profile where you can send a connection invitation to a high-powered, industry expert. Once they accept your invitation to connect, that leads more people to look at your profile because they want to connect to that mover and shaker, too!

Remember that exposure – in a good way – is vital to branding yourself and increasing your public relations to a new and potential strategic alliance. Get your name in front of past co-workers – they may remember what a great job you did and realize you are still a great job candidate. Many companies are realizing that alumni job candidates are even more valuable as rehires than brand new employees who come to the job as strangers. Recognizing your name as a referral may prompt fond memories of your past performance…and result in an interview phone call!

Dawn Boyer is a career services coach, social media management, human resources, and business development consultant. Follow Dawn on Twitter @Dawn_Boyer.