Everything You Need To Know About LinkedIn Recommendations

by Susan Adams, Forbes Staff

Given that recommendations are mostly solicited and always vetted by members, and hiring managers and recruiters know this, does anyone take them seriously? Does it hurt you if you fail to get recommendations? Is there a saturation point where you have too many? A way to make your recommendations count? I got in touch with a LinkedIn spokesperson, three career coaches, four executive recruiters, a recruiter at a high tech company, and Larry Nash, a recruiting director for Ernst & Young, the giant accounting and consulting firm. Here is their accumulated wisdom:

1. Recommendations can help your cause. Recruiters and hiring managers do read recommendations and take them into account, though it’s unlikely that a recommendation would make or break a LinkedIn member’s chance of getting hired. “It’s additive but not evaluative,” says Ernst & Young’s Nash. Brian G. Clark, a managing partner at executive search firm Kensington International, says his firm treats them like references: recruiters always probe beyond information submitted by the candidate.

2. Failing to get recommendations won’t hurt you. Despite LinkedIn’s exponential growth, the site is still not ubiquitous, and hiring managers know this. Although some high level executives have active LinkedIn profiles, including Michael Dell, Richard Branson and Meg Whitman, plenty of people do not, or they only display minimal information. Recruiters and hiring managers don’t discount candidates based on incomplete or absent profiles. The one place it may matter: If you are a small business or independent contractor using LinkedIn to find work. Potential clients expect to read recommendations from satisfied customers.

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