About LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the largest social network for working professionals. You need to know how to write a LinkedIn recommendation as a recruiter.

This makes it an ideal platform for someone who wants to grow a business or might want to find a better career opportunity. So in this article, we will learn seven strategies to get you started on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn reported that profiles with a photo get 21 times more profile views and nine times more connection requests.

LinkedIn Profiles

This is the second place a new connection will look when they view your profile.

• With the help of the keywords add your specialty and avoid generic headlines.
• You now have 120 characters to make your headline stand out.
• The next step to making sure your LinkedIn profile is in tip-top shape is to include a well-written executive summary. The summary section on LinkedIn is one of the most overlooked sections.

Potential Connection

• This is where a Potential Connection will look for some of your greatest accomplishments. Your summary should be precise and specifying about your brief introduction and roles and skills.
• To get this right, create a sentence about what type of career you want and what drives you most about your ideal career, then discuss your area of ​​expertise. You can also mention any volunteer work you’ve done and any awards you’ve received.
• You can add some personality to this section by briefly mentioning your interests. Remember, subheadings and bullet points are a great way to guide readers through your content easily.

Summary

• You now have 2000 characters to create your summary. 
• Next step is to add your work experience. You can find the work experience section under the main profile section.
• Start with a descriptive title, then enter your company name. You can select the company name from the drop-down menu if the company name is available.

Experience

• Selecting a company will automatically take you to its page. When writing job descriptions, identify your key achievements and accomplishments in a few sentences.
• Place your keywords strategically, quantify your achievements with percentages, numbers, and dollar amounts, and ensure this part is written in the first person.
• You’ll want the work experience section to mirror the work experience section of your resume. However, you don’t want it to look like you copied and pasted from your resume.
• After completing the work experience section, you are ready to add your education.

Education

• You can find education in the opening section of your LinkedIn profile. Go ahead, click on the little pencil icon, and then find where your education is listed.
• Remember that your education section says a lot about you.
• You want to start by adding your school and the degree or degrees you earned, and if you have a specific major or emphasis, you can always add that to your field of study. You will also have the option to add your grade point average.
• If you are a school or college student, you can use this section for your GPA; otherwise, leave it blank. For your dates attended, enter the term you started to the term you graduated or expect to graduate.

Description Section

• You can also add activities and societies such as sororities, fraternities, or even extracurricular activities or clubs to which you belong.
• Use the description section to add awards, honors, or even committees you’ve served on. Here’s a good rule of thumb for the education section, if you’ve been in high school for more than five years then it is not necessary to mention your high school qualification and details. 
• Also, use the media section to showcase any special presentations or reports you’ve completed. The next step, step six, is to highlight your volunteer experience.

Volunteer Section

• The volunteer section is the perfect place to highlight your passions and show how much you love to give back. You will find this section at the bottom after your work experience and education.
• Go ahead and click the plus sign for an organization, a role, and even a cause. Keep in mind that when filling out the volunteer experience section, research shows that 41% of companies consider volunteer work as important as paid work.

Skillsets

• So if you have little or no work experience, you want to spend time in your volunteer section. And then finally, step number seven is to add a specific skill keyword.
• This section is located directly below the volunteer experience and in an area, they call “Featured Skills and Referrals.
• Go ahead and click “add a new skill,” or if you’ve already set up your profile and have some skills listed, you can go ahead and click the pencil icon to edit those skills.

Talents, Skills, and Strengths

This section is a great way to showcase your talents, skills, and strengths as a professional. 

• The first bonus tip is to customize your background photo. So you’ll notice that my photo will be placed in my main or what LinkedIn calls your introduction.
• You can go ahead and click on the pencil icon for your profile picture.
• You don’t want to get too fancy here. Just keep it simple. If you want to add a name, you can.
• And then, the last thing is customizing your LinkedIn URL. You can find this under “edit public profile and URL.”
• If you go ahead and click here, you will find a section to edit the URL in the upper right corner of the page. Just click on the pencil and add your first or last name, some combination of your name, or even your business name.

How to Write a LinkedIn Recommendation

• A LinkedIn recommendation is something that when someone writes about you, they have to spend time on, and it is at the end of your LinkedIn profile.
• You can write up to 50 skills using the keywords in your LinkedIn profile. And when you go there, you can say, “Okay, I know that this person knows C++,” so you click on C++, JavaScript, HTML, or whatever you know about that person that you know they know, and you approve it.
• I want to show you the importance of LinkedIn recommendations and how we can write LinkedIn recommendations.

Steps To Write a LinkedIn Recommendation

LinkedIn Recommendations are a great and easy way to get back recommendations from your co-workers and managers. It works similarly to returning a favor. So, as a simple rule, the more recommendations you hand out, the more you are expected to get back.

Follow the steps below to upgrade your LinkedIn Recommendation game:

1. Present it confidently: It is no question that you are asking someone else for a favor. But you don’t need to beg them for it as it makes you seem less capable; rather, you want to prove that you are worthy of the position and being confident is a great way to achieve that.
2. Keep it short but catchy: You can choose from a million fonts, templates, and colors, so stop using plain white text and use the right combination of fonts to grab the person’s attention.
3. Personal insight: From ancient times, people have always tried to criticize someone else’s work to prove that they could make it better. You can do it professionally. Tell them your insights about their work and how you would have approached it. This makes you look innovative.
4. End with a strong statement: The end is something they look forward to as it shows what your opinions on the person are. So try something like, “The work Anamika did to improve the project was really what was needed, and I would recommend her proofread your project as well.”

How is it different from a normal Recommendation?

• Anyone can see your recommendation, which makes it public.
• The fact that these are public makes them more genuine since it can be verified who recommended you simply by going to their profile.
• The recommendation will be recovered and preserved as it is available online.

LinkedIn Recommendation Example

• A LinkedIn recommendation is more important because it says more about you, your LinkedIn profile, and your work than just a one-click LinkedIn recommendation on a few keywords you have for your skills.
• Right now, I’m going to take my computer and walk you through how we can write a LinkedIn recommendation.
• And then, I will share the best tips, tricks, and how we can write a good LinkedIn recommendation. So here we go.

Professional Relationship

First of all, recommending someone on LinkedIn is very easy. And what you do is you have to go to that person’s profile and go to the profile of the first-degree connection you would like to recommend.

Working Relationship

• If you need to refer someone else, that person must be your main connection, which is the first degree, not someone you are not connected to.
• Make sure you are connected to this person.
• The second one is that you will see a “More” button on the start tab.
• And from “More,” you select “Recommend.”

Hiring Managers

• So it’s that easy. And then you have to first, next step, the fourth step is to fill in the relationship and the position at the time of his recommendation pop-up window, and then you will click “Next”.
• While hiring managers for your firm it is very crucial to have their background check because the role requires some amount of experience.

LinkedIn Recommendation Sample

• The last step is to write a recommendation in the message field and click “Send.” When you write a recommendation, it does not immediately appear on the person’s profile.
• You write a recommendation that goes as a notification to the other person that you are writing the recommendation.
• That person can read the recommendation and come back to you and say, “Okay, would you mind redoing these sections?” Or they might say, “Oh, I liked this.” And they can approve instantly, and it will be immediately published on their LinkedIn profile.

More about LinkedIn Recommendations 

• If you are writing a recommendation for someone else and then change your mind, you may be able to delete that recommendation.
  So you have full power to write referrals and delete referrals from their profile. Let’s say you want someone else to write a referral; if that person does not write a referral without you asking, you usually have to ask for a referral.
• The way you can do that is you can send them a request. So when you submit a request, they will receive a message from you.

LinkedIn Recommendation via Project Teams

• So it’s very simple. And again, these are the two steps of how you can write a recommendation for someone else and how you can ask someone to write a recommendation for you.
• The thing I will do is share some LinkedIn recommendations, like what are the best LinkedIn recommendations. The best ones are the ones you ask from someone like you, who you work with, knows your work, and maybe was your manager or colleague, perhaps you did a project together with them.
• For example, you’re a make-up artist, and you go to all these events and go to all of them like a photo shoot, and you work with a team because there’s a cameraman, a director, and actors and actresses. So you can talk about the project together.
• So you communicate with them. And if you’ve been working with them for quite some time, you can ask any of these people to write you a recommendation on LinkedIn because they can talk about the project you’re on, and they can talk about the work you’ve done.

Importance of LinkedIn Recommendation

Written recommendation holds a lot of Importance. Some of them are:

1. Nowadays, people check someone’s LinkedIn profile to hire someone. If they see the recommendation, then it is a plus point. It increases the chances of getting a job.
2. LinkedIn Recommendation works as proof that the person has the skills and ability to which will give their company a boost.
3. LinkedIn Recommendations hold much more weight than LinkedIn Endorsements.
4. It also shows how the candidate has done his job, which makes a good impression.
5. It shows the vision of the candidate and what exactly the candidate wants.
6. Not only it increases the chances of getting a job it also increases the ranks of the candidate.
7. It is also important who is writing the recommendation for you.
8. LinkedIn recommendation also shows the value of your company.

LinkedIn Referrals

• When they write a referral, you’ll get a notification and approve the referral they’re writing to.
• You can’t do revisions on their behalf because it’s set in stone when you get a referral notification. If they need to change, the other party has to make the change for you.
• Your referral request should be meaningful and unique to stand out in the recruiter’s inbox.
• It is always a good practice to connect with people who have a similar position and can help you with valuable insights.
• Not only would this give you an unfair advantage over other candidates who come in at interview time, but it will give you a better idea that if the day is a good fit for you or not.

How to get a LinkedIn Referral

Here’s a two-step process to make it work.

• The first step is to connect with the recruiter before making this request.
• If you want to get an active response to your connection request try to connect with them in some way.

• Try to add some value.
• For example, I’m interested in this product marketing position at Apple. I may contact the recruiter by writing the following message. ‘Hi, Annie. I see we both work for MNC tech companies and are based in Shanghai. I also noticed that you studied for a bachelor’s degree at UNNC, where our company recently ran an undergraduate degree program. I want to join if possible.’ Note that I did not call this position at all.
• This first step is getting the recruiter to accept my connection request and possibly start working with them.
• Step two, where the whole point of this process comes in, is to write a message asking to be connected with someone who works in the position you’re applying for.
• For example, ‘Hi Annie, Thanks for accepting my joint request. Two weeks ago, I saw an offer for a Product Marketing Manager position, and I’m researching the role to know if I’d be a good fit.’

LinkedIn Recommendation Vs LinkedIn Referrals

• So the main difference between a LinkedIn Recommendation and a LinkedIn Referral is that you are writing and following someone else in LinkedIn Referrals.
• And it’s like in a paragraph format or like a few sentences. You mentioned how you work with them, maybe you were like a former colleague or a former classmate of that person, and basically, you’re saying I work with this person, and I highly recommend them.
• When it comes to LinkedIn recommendations we can say that it is like a recommendation letter but in a social form. It can be your to increase your network and to get a job.

LinkedIn Users

• Maybe you can also add some images to the experience section.
• So try to find the people you work with because it will be easier for them to write you a referral.
• So writing a referral is very easy and asking for a referral is very easy.

Conclusion

• Most of us have worked with plenty of great colleagues, bosses, and employees that we’d love to recommend on LinkedIn (or anywhere).
• The problem is that sitting down and writing a recommendation takes more time than you think. There are several things to say that will make your requests look and sound authentic? Should you describe every amazing skill this person has or keep it short and sweet?
• Do not worry. We’ve turned this daunting task into a five-step, five-minute process. The next time you’re asked to refer someone, use our advice on how to write and post a message that will give your colleague a career boost.
• Let’s back up for a moment and talk about the what and the why: This little feature of the popular business-meets-social media platform lets you write short testimonials from people you’ve worked with. Think of them as the equivalent of online reviews for your current and former coworkers, employees, and managers (or anyone else you’ve worked with).
• Recruiters and hiring managers often scroll down someone’s LinkedIn recommendations when considering whether to interview or hire them. While these little notes probably aren’t as important as a strong resume and well-written cover letter, they provide additional information about the person’s background and strengths from a third-party perspective like a little reference check.
• So why should you write one? Rethink your reasons for writing a review for your favorite restaurant or hairdresser: It’s an easy way to show them you appreciate and support them, and it helps them look good to new customers (or employers). It’s also an inconvenient way to reconnect or stay in touch with old contacts. They’ll get a notification when you add your referral, which is sure to make them smile and, hopefully, encourage them to return the favor when you’re looking for referrals.

• One final benefit? When you write someone a LinkedIn recommendation, it can signal to everyone in your professional networks that you’re a thoughtful and kind colleague—one that any potential employer would want to hire.

Also check: Data engineer interview questions

Last Updated on October 29, 2022 by Rojalin Mahapatro