How to Write a Recommendation on LinkedIn (And if You Should)

James Potter January 11, 2021

As we all start to do more and more online it is becoming more and more important that you look as good online as you are in real life and I am not talking just about “that” photo on your LinkedIn profile!

Increasingly people check out the “stuff” they want to buy or engage with online first and we all do it. We read the reviews on Amazon and eBay, and LinkedIn is no different with people looking at your feedback in the shape of the recommendations on your profile (or perhaps the lack of them).

Recommendations are simple to get within LinkedIn and it just takes a little thought next time someone says thank you or that you did great work remember to ask for one, or if someone has done great work you can chose to write one for them as well.

How to write a recommendation

To write a recommendation on LinkedIn you must be connected to that person as you can only write a recommendation for a level one connection:

• Go to the profile of the person you would like to recommend on LinkedIn and select More – you can do this from desktop or mobile, but our screenshots are from the desktop. From the dropdown list select recommend:

• Then complete the information in the form that appears providing details of your relationship to the person you are recommending and what their position was at the time.

• Finally write your recommendation in the box provided (considering the points below) and then hit send. Once you’ve hit send it is sent to the other person to approve before it appears on their profile.

• Another way to write a recommendation is to go to their profile, scroll down to their existing recommendations and select Recommend (name of person).

But should you write a recommendation?

You may of course have received a request to recommend somebody before on LinkedIn and wondered if you should. You can always just click on the request and you get the option to either ignore or write a recommendation.

A few things that you might want to consider before writing a recommendation:

• Would you recommend that person to every other person you know face to face?
• Would you recommend them for everything they do, or would it be for a single aspect or trait?

Only write a recommendation that reflects what you feel about that person as your profile is associated with it. Think about whether you would be happy to standby what you’ve written if someone approached you about that recommendation later.

If you wouldn’t recommend them for everything consider focusing on the aspect you would say they were good at, the “stuff” they did which you thought was great or the things you want to be associated with.

Perhaps a caveat of “Your profile and reputation is at risk if you recommend someone on LinkedIn that you wouldn’t recommend in real life” should be considered before writing a recommendation.

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