The document provides instructions for creating a LinkedIn recommendation for another user in 16 steps. It advises writing an accurate, professional recommendation that avoids excessive praise or bashing. It also notes that recommendations become part of the recipient's permanent profile and reflect on the recommender. The steps include finding the recipient's profile, selecting the relationship, and providing a recommendation narrative before sending it.

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Creating LinkedIn
Recommendations
As of April 14, 2010
Screens and process is subject to change
at the will of LinkedIn without notice.
The CT Groups
™

2. 2
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COUNSEL AND ADVISE BEFORE YOU START
• A recommendation needs to be something you feel merits telling the world about
someone and thus you need to be accurate in your recommendations for anyone.
• What you enter is subject to acceptance by your recipient. Thus any attempt to
bash them will not work. Excessive praise may also be rejected.
• Recommendations that are accepted become part of the recipient’s profile. They
have the ability to display or hide any recommendation they choose.
• Be confident your recommendation is something you will not regret later as once
entered what you wrote is beyond your control FOREVER. As such, the use of a
good Spell Checker is highly recommended and you invest the time to consider the
selection of words to craft an appropriate recommendation.
• Be confident your recommendation is something you can support to others
because your name will be displayed with that recommendation to all the world.
• Be confident your recommendation reflects your professional skills too. A sloppy
recommendation reflects on your quality as a potential job candidate, job
promotion, elected or appointed office, etc. Invest your time to do a great job as
your recommendation will be seen on the recipient’s profile AND YOURS!
• Do not be upset if the recipient hides your recommendation. For some jobs, some
recommendations may not bring the appropriate value for a given position.

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Access LinkedIn Web Site
1. Confirm your computer is up, operational, connected to the Internet, and in a
good operating condition.
2. Open an Internet browser of your choice.
3. Type in linkedin.com and press Enter.
A screen similar to the one below should appear.

4. 4
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Join LinkedIn or Indicate Existing Member
1. If you are NOT a LinkedIn member, provide the information under Join LinkedIn
Today and click on Join Now. For this material, we will assume you already
belong regarding the following slides.
2. If you ARE a LinkedIn member, simply click on Sign in below the Join Now
button.

5. 5
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Sign into LinkedIn as an Existing Member
1. As an existing member, provide your full e-mail address and password used to
establish your membership or as it is currently established with LinkedIn.
2. Click on the Sign In button.
3. If you got here by error, you can join LinkedIn by clicking Join Linkedin to the left
of the Sign In button. For the following cells we assume you are an existing
member.

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Identify by Name Your recipient
1. From the People box, enter the name of your recipient.
2. When a name may be very common, click on Advanced link to leverage the
additional selection criteria (location, country, company, job title, etc.) We will
assume the recipient does not have a very common name.
Selected areas may have been blanked out by order of the Witness Protection Program

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Find Recipient’s LinkedIn Profile
• LinkedIn returns all “hits” for “don blaz”. In this case we found him; click on his
name to open his profile.

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Start The Recommendation
• With the correct profile displayed and confirmed, click on the link
Recommend this person

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How Do We Know The Recipient?
1. The following overlay window appears. This list may vary depending on your
relationship(s) with this person. Recommendations are based on items shown in
a person’s profile. Select the one which most closely reflects the relationship for
recommendation you are making.
2. Click the appropriate radio button and then click Go. If you are uncertain, click
Cancel or X to return to the prior screen to review the recipient’s profile again.

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Recommendation Box
• A new screen is displayed which presents the following box. We will explore this
box over the next few cells so you can wisely plan your responses in advance.

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Relationship & Your title at the time
• The Relationship and Your title at the time dropdown menu options are displayed
below. Complete one dropdown menu at a time by clicking on the appropriate
listed item. For limited space reasons, these boxes are shown overlapped.

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Finalize Relationship Information
• Shown are Donald’s title at the time. To the lower right is now this
recommendation will be established using Relationship, Your title at the time, and
Donald’s title at the time.

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Creating the Recommendation Narrative
• LinkedIn does not provide a Spell Checker therefore it is recommended you use a
word processor for your draft through final editing to insure the highest quality
recommendation for your recipient and a professional reflection upon yourself.
The text created in the word process can then be copied and pasted into the box
below. Verify that all portions were actually transferred into the box before moving
forward to avoid problems later. It is recommended you save your creation in your
own files for future reference along with a date of the LinkedIn recommendation
and recipient’s name.

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Informing Your Recipient
• From the prior page of this document, the screen displayed a line reading:
• If you click you will see the following box open allowing you to edit (or customize)
the message to be more fitting for presenting this honor to your recipient.
• NOTE: Clicking on Cancel will take you back to the Profile page thus creating an
added reason to retain the text entered into the recommendation box. The View
and Edit box are identical with no additional buttons or links to utilize.

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Send the Recommendation
1. Click on the Send button to send the recommendation.
2. You will see the screen change back to the profile of your recipient and a notation
near the top left of the page will indicate the recommendation was sent.
3. If the recipient accepts the recommendation the recommendation shows on your
and their profile. There is no acknowledgement or acceptance message sent to
you.

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Instructional Resources for LinkedIn
• LinkedIn offers free on-line training and webinars to help their end-users better
utilize the capabilities of LinkedIn.
Go to the web site at: http://learn.linkedin.com/