OK - two days to go until the new year is here - what are your professional resolutions for 2009? I've got a couple, and as you might expect from a blogger, at least one of them involves 2.0 technology...
#1 - I'd like to get my LinkedIn game on in a much bigger way.
Check out my profile and you'll find that I'm not a total novice. Couple hundred connections, have had a pro account at numerous times to try and unlock LI's potential as a recruiting tool, etc. Still, I'm no power user, so I intend to ramp it up in 2009.
Here's where it gets interesting. I've got lots to do to become a power user - become more disciplined at inviting warm contacts I encounter to join my scene, complete my profile in full, get the LinkedIn logo back on the blogs, etc. One thing I thought I could get started on right away is getting recommendations from the people who know me best in the professional world. To do that, I've got to track down the folks from my past and also determine a strategy for my current co-workers (doesn't it seem a little weird to have your current co-workers singing your praises?).
With all that in mind, I started by asking a few folks in the human capital blogging space who have been positive about my work at the Capitalist and FOT to recommend me. I put out some emails before Christmas, and the community was very kind and gracious in the response. Then I got a gracious response that included the following snippet - "I've got a no-rec policy on LinkedIn".
That one stopped me dead in my tracks. Not because I was offended, because it came from a super-cool pro who I look up to. Instead, I was intrigued because it reminded me of the commoditization of recommendations that can be caused by LinkedIn.
Here's how it works. As you might expect from a service that can hijack your outlook and push out a thousand invites to join your network, LinkedIn has an automated recommendation tool. That means if you are like me, you've received at least 20 automated invites to recommend people that you had marginal knowledge at best regarding the quality of their work. Those requests always hit me a little cold, as did the fact that the LinkedIn technology makes it super simple for anyone to view every recommendation you make.
Clearly not the old days of the talent game, when requesting a recommendation meant you had to have the guts to actually contact someone personally to write a recommendation for you.
Instead, with LinkedIn, you can point and click. It's like Internet Marketing, with the exception that your "close rate" will likely be smaller than the guys pumping out 100,000 emails touting Viagra for $5.
As for me, I'll be soliciting LinkedIn invites the old fashioned way - by requesting them personally from people I believe truly know the quality of my work. I know I'm on the right track when some of the potential recommenders shoot me a note back and say, "Hey, it appears we actually have to be connected on LinkedIn for me to recommend you".
Hopefully that means I've earned the recommendation, and the technology is an afterthought.
Kris:
Completely agree with you on how to solicit recommendations through LinkedIn. I agree to write them - via LinkedIn - only for people I work or have worked closely with in the past (the same people for whom I would write a letter of recommendation). Writing a recommendation reflects as much on me (the recommender) as it does on the person being recommended by me - therefore, I don't write them lightly. Nor, I would hope, do those who write recommendations for me.
Posted by: Suzanne Rumsey | December 30, 2008 at 06:09 PM