LinkedIn is an excellent platform where people showcase their talents and abilities. With its over 310 Million active monthly users, it is among the leading recruitment and sales platforms. A positive recommendation can go a long way in helping your recruitment efforts on LinkedIn. Unlike the rest of a person’s LinkedIn profile, a recommendation is a type of social proof of your skills written by other people within your network. It offers insights into your capabilities and who you are from a third-party perspective.

Recommendations are a helpful addition to your profile. Providing them increases your LinkedIn foothold and makes your connections within the network more robust. Recommendations also send a positive message to your potential recruiters and employers.

But what is a recommendation? How do you write the winning one? Read on to learn all about LinkedIn recommendations and also garner some tips from the list of creative LinkedIn recommendation examples provided herein.

What is a LinkedIn Recommendation?

LinkedIn recommendations are comments or remarks written or provided by another LinkedIn member to acknowledge business partners, students, or colleagues. Businesses or hiring managers searching for partners prefer working with a person who comes recommended by someone or entity they trust and know. A person can jumpstart their LinkedIn marketing by crafting a good LinkedIn profile that includes essential business details that help you create a network with people or entities of great authority within the LinkedIn community.

Benefits of LinkedIn Recommendations

Besides increasing the chances of landing the opportunity you seek, whether a business contract or recruitment, below are the other benefits of LinkedIn recommendations.

• They boost a person’s credibility to a business.
• They increase a person’s visibility by showcasing their profile on a different user’s LinkedIn page.
• Sending a recommendation increases your chances of getting one back, improving your social profile.
• It helps build connectivity within a person’s LinkedIn network.
• LinkedIn recommendations are a great way of boosting one’s LinkedIn profile because they are used less by others.
• They serve as a business review or a customer testimonial by showcasing the recommendations of those you’ve engaged with career-wise or businesswise in the past.

By having quality recommendations on this great B2B network, you can achieve either or all the above benefits. However, the recommendations need to incorporate certain aspects to improve your chance of landing that opportunity or contract. Below are some tips for writing a good LinkedIn recommendation.

Tips for Writing Quality LinkedIn Recommendations

1. Keep It Precise, And Short

You do not want to bore the readers with a long recommendation. An ideal one should be about 200 letters or less. Keeping the recommendation short and precise ensures that you stick to the main point or goal and mention only the things relevant throughout the recommendation. Please keep it simple. Avoid complex and protracted recommendations.

2. Be Professional

Although this might seem pretty obvious, it is where you draw a line between friendly and professional aspects. Although the subject is your friend, it is better to remain professional. Through using a professional tone, you can talk about the qualities of a person safely by their accomplishments or what they are known for. Recruiters and businesses are more likely to consider professionally written recommendations over-friendly ones.

3. Explain the Nature of Your Relationship Professionally

Though serious sounding, it is a helpful context that serves as an introduction for the recommendation. Explaining your professional relationship helps the reader understand why you are writing the recommendation, whether a manager, point of contact within an agency, direct report, or a coworker you have worked with closely for a certain duration.

For instance, “I’ve worked alongside James for about 8 years now.”

4. Explain How the Person Has Grown at Your Company

Does the person report, or have they ever reported to you? Explaining how they’ve grown at the company in your LinkedIn recommendation can be of real benefit. How have they grown within their position or role? This helps demonstrate how the person can adapt to various organisational demands as the company grows. However, do not overstate any low points in their career that may dilute the objective you want to accomplish.

For instance, “James has quickly grown in tandem with our company. His willingness to handle new responsibilities and learn are some of his desirable qualities.”

5. Showcase How They Helped Grow the Company or Team

Indicate how the subject’s performance helped your company reach new levels and hit new metrics within the recommendation. You could also demonstrate their contributions to esoteric things, such as fostering new initiatives or leading their initiatives. This can be something like;

“James’ mastery of his core business functions has been vital to the growth of our company. His handling of the company’s internal communications increased employee happiness.”

6. Indicate What Their Achievements in the Company Reveal About Them

Having included some specifics regarding the subject, explain what the specifics mean for the bigger theme of the recommendation. What do these specific details mean? Do they portray the picture of a hardworking or ambitious person? Do they indicate a person as a team worker? Connect the subject’s accomplishments and their attributes.

For instance, “this uncommon mix of productivity and ambition sets an excellent example for the entire team, explaining why everybody loves working alongside James – regardless of their position within our organisational chart.”

7. Make The Recommendation Personal

Extolling the individual qualities of the involved party is the whole reason for writing a recommendation. Not the team’s collective efforts. To write about the exceptional team involved, talk about the role of your subject in ensuring the group achieved success. Does the person own a company? Talk about your personal connection with the entrepreneur.

This is especially vital when completing the recommendation. Drive the message home by mentioning how you’ve felt, or you feel working with the subject, a prediction on their future, or simply your hope for the subject’s career.

For example, “Although James’ work continues to benefit this company long after his tenure at Buymore, I undeniably miss working with him daily. I only have optimistic predictions for his future career trajectory.”

How Do You Request for Recommendations From Your LinkedIn Network?

Although having recommendations is essential, blasting your entire LinkedIn network with requests for recommendations isn’t the right way. Do not ask people that you don’t know to write you recommendations. This might harm your credibility.

It is also a public black mark on your integrity to make false recommendations. If the person you’ve recommended doesn’t measure up to the task, it will be seen by everybody within your network who knows them.

Like Branding, authenticity is vital. Request for recommendations from those people that can speak from an experience like colleagues, employers (both present and past), customers, and clients. You can start by writing recommendations for these people and then reach out and request them to write one for you. Some will even reciprocate without you asking.

The List of Creative LinkedIn Recommendation Examples

Below are some creative LinkedIn Recommendations that incorporate the above tips. Following them can give you a hint on crafting and structuring your recommendation.

1) Recommendation from a Manager

James always amazed me with his industry insight and brilliant methods of solving problems. His leadership skills help him see solutions rather than problems. He is an organised and customer-service-oriented perfectionist, with no problem working hard when necessary. Whenever I had an issue, he was always able to solve it—an eager professional. Regardless of how complex the problem was, he would always craft an elegant, cost-effective, and brilliant solution. I thoroughly appreciated working with him at Buymore.

2) Recommendation for A Sales Representative

In his 5-year tenure as a sales representative at Buymore, James had the best sales record over anybody else on the team.

He is an excellent salesperson and a hard worker. James was responsible for building relationships, cold calling, and exceeding sales targets as a sales team member. To be an effective and successful salesperson, one should possess an ability to communicate with clients and the right time to speak. James had the above skills in spades. Clients loved him for his ability to establish connections with them. For his success, skills, and abilities, I highly recommend him.

3) Students LinkedIn Recommendations

James was a tenacious student. He maintained his grades and was our best graduate. Besides his written exams, his skills could also be seen during discussions and in-class debates. He sparked critical intellectual debates both outside and within the classroom.

Because of his excellent public speaking skills, James was elected the president of the student council in the college. I’m confident that James has all it takes to excel in any academic setting. Because of his hardworking nature, I can only predict that he will do well in your department, and I wholeheartedly recommend him.

4) Employee Recommending a Product manager

Over my 10 years working under her, I can only describe Betty as an excellent manager. Under her leadership, our team became more productive as everybody was more knowledgeable and focused on the product. In addition, Betty’s ability to motivate teams or a person without discouraging or insulting is nothing but impressive.

She’s always ready to offer a helping hand to anyone in need. Our team not only saw increased productivity, but it was much fun under her stewardship. Even during the challenging conditions, she managed to bring a sense of humour and still focus on the final product.

5) Partners’ LinkedIn Recommendation

James is persistently looking for better ways of growing the organisation’s revenues while always upholding ethical values as a business partner. His persistence in pursuing possible business contacts, staff, and partners surpass even his passion and tenacity for our company.

James has a keen eye for business sense and detail that makes him an invaluable asset for any company where he works. I look forward to working with James again in the days to come and have no reservations recommending. I can only predict unforeseen success for any company that recruits him.

6) LinkedIn Recommendation from Current or Former Client

Paul’s work goes far beyond what we initially expected. When we hired him to assist us with a rebranding project, he offered insights that enabled us to make conscious decisions for our organisation’s new look. He understands our customers and what’s important to us and can marry the two creatively. We continue working with her in our ongoing projects for her innovative ideas.

7) LinkedIn Recommendation for A Mentor

In my 2 years undertaking Masters of Business Administration, Steve remained an influential mentor and portrayed a high amount of care to ensure my success. For instance, he challenged me to incorporate various perspectives when I was completing my dissertation and modelled precisely that by allowing me to shadow him within this field. Through his encouragement, I designed an innovative trading algorithm in my equity firm today.

8) Legal Consultants’ LinkedIn Recommendation

Samuel represented me and my rights in a knowledgeable, professional, and efficient manner. He carefully asked for my consent and input at every critical stage of my lawsuit. In addition, he helped apply his legal expertise to provide sound legal recommendations while applying common sense and humour whenever a situation demanded. This made me feel at ease.

I would not only recommend Samuel but would enlist his services repeatedly. Finding someone you can trust, having all the qualities you need, is seldom easy. I consider myself lucky to have worked with Samuel.

9) LinkedIn Recommendation for a Customer Service Agent

As a great customer service agent, Sharon leaves no stone unturned to help her clients. She believes that customer service requires integrity and sincerity that cannot be accessed or bought using money.

She always prioritised client needs and found ways of keeping them engaged through offering value-added services. By placing herself in her customer’s shoes, Sharon understands the issue and comes up with a way to resolve it. As a result, her co-agents and customers hold her in high regard. Due to her dedication to offering great customer service, I highly recommend Sharon.

Conclusion

LinkedIn recommendations are essential to boost your social profile. With good recommendations, you stand a high or better chance of landing a job, contract, or increasing sales. The best way to get excellent recommendations is by giving them yourself too. You can use tips and the list of creative LinkedIn recommendation examples provided above to craft your recommendations. Remember, LinkedIn has over 800 Million users. You better optimise your profile to increase sales, and there isn’t a better way than through recommendations.