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Why Linkedin recommendations are not enough

By Anup S • July 21, 2008 • Filed in: Reviews

Linkedin recommendations are people centric and not strength centric. for eg: If I request my manager, John Doe, to give me a recommendation, he would give me a recommendation based on his preconceived way of giving a recommendation. Now this could be totally different from other recommendations because of a multitude of things, but the most important points which would affect John Doe’s recommendation are :

1) His view of me based on what he thinks is important.

2) His bias based on the previous recommendations for me on LinkedIn

Taking point 1 into consideration, It would be interesting to bring in some consistency into what context people use when they write their recommendation (it applies to both an employer or a peer recommendation). Recommendations add value when it is done within a context. This contextual approach to adding recommendations is what is missing in LinkedIn. This context could be an accumulation of individual employee reviews he did of me (either through a mental approach or through a rigid HR process)

Technically, you could send your manager a email request asking him to give you recommendations with emphasis on certain areas. But that is cumbersome because it is done in a textual format and is free form.

Contextual recommendations should be based on a multi-dimensional rating approach.The dimensions used for the rating should be based on what you think are your most marketable strengths and/or skills and/or performance areas. This should be done at least once in 6 months in my opinion and could be part of your HR evaluation.

In short, a recommendation should be based on a structured and disciplined review process where you control upfront what you are getting rated for. The recommendation on a LinkedIn profile should point to those reviews so that people understand what the recommendation was based on.

Comments

By Ernest Richards on July 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am
There were 2 new employment sites added to the ABout.com top ten emloyment sites list, Linkedin.com and Realmatch.com. Where would you look for a job? Top 10 Employment site list here:
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/joblistings/tp/jobbanks.htm
By admin on July 26th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Never used Realmatch before, I will give that a try. However there are a lot of recruiters from LinkedIn who call us up to enquire if we need talented people for our startup.
 

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