There are two ways you can give a recommendation on LinkedIn. Either you have been asked by one of your contacts, or you want to recommend a contact spontaneously.
1. You have received a recommendation request.
The request will come in via your LinkedIn inbox, and also via email (see screenshot).
click on ‘Write your recommendation’
Your recommendation goes into the first field. In the second field you can write a message to the person you are recommending, to accompany the recommendation.
2. If you want to recommend one of your contacts spontaneously
You can either go to the person’s profile and in the drop down menu next to his/her profile picture you choose ‘Recommend’ or you can proceed via the recommendation dashboard (which can be found at http://www.linkedin.com/recommendations) and from there choose the person you want to recommend.
How do I give a top quality recommendation on LinkedIn?
So how do you give a quality recommendation on LinkedIn? Of course it helps if the person who asked you gives you some info on what they would like to have included (as in the example above). But if you didn’t get any ‘instructions’ than a rule of thumb would be the following template:
6 Steps to a give a top quality recommendation on LinkedIn
- Explain how you know this person (you were: a client, a boss, a colleague, a professor, a mentor etc)
- State how you worked together (a project, a job, university, an event etc)
- State how you appreciated the relationship
- State the person’s qualities
- State specific results (great website, increased income, cut budget etc)
- State if you would recommend this person to others.
Believe me, you will be doing this contact a huge favor, giving them such a quality recommendation!