Can you give me a LinkedIn recommendation please?
If you ever had to write a recommendation for a colleague or friend, you also know how hard it is to write a positive, well formed description of that person. If you are like me, you will scratch your head for a long time before something useful manifests in form of a few sentences. Unlike a job reference, LinkedIn recommendations are still more personal and less standardized.
For writing a great recommendation though, it helps a lot to have a pre-defined structure. This way you only need to edit the specifics of your relationship. A great structure with several examples is described in this article.
Start with a knockout line to grab the reader’s attention. Then shortly describe the relationship you have. Next step is to describe a standout trait, something exceptional that the person stands for. Then you should give the recommendation a touch of personality and end with a solid recommendation.
This structure already helps, because you can be sure to cover every important aspect in your LinkedIn recommendation. However, it is still a lot of work to write it all down. I take the concept one step further, so you only need to fill in a few data fields and can quickly put together your favorite recommendation.
If you have a good sentence in mind, that you would like to see in a recommendation for yourself, just leave a comment below. I will add it to the tool so it improves over time.
Recommendation Tool
Simply fill in the values below and select sentences that best fit your relationship. The resulting text for copy & pasting will appear at the end.
Don’t forget making at least a sanity check before submitting such a recommendation. Does the text make sense? Did someone else already use the exact same words for his recommendation? Can you add a real personal sentence somewhere? Something that wouldn’t fit into a generic structure like this one.
I hope this tool will encourage you to post and receive more LinkedIn recommendations, whenever you would truly recommend someone. A recommendation should be something rare and valuable, though. So always re-read them before posting and make sure they are on spot and for the right person.
Knockout Line
Relationship
Standout Trait
Personality Touch
Solid Recommendation
Your recommendation:
Few people have the opportunity to report to a manager who is also a coach and mentor – but I did when I worked for Ulrich. I had the pleasure to work with Ulrich for three years when he worked for me as Head of Mobile Development Android. He is always a very good communicator, also when the pressure is rising, calling for clear communication about goals, responsibility, performance, expectations and feedback for every member involved in the project he’s managing. No matter how tense a meeting, Ulrich made sure everyone left with a smile. It was a pleasure working with Ulrich and I would enjoy working with him again.