Why I don't write linkedin recommendations
From time to time, I'm asked to write recommendations for people on LinkedIn.
I always say no.
My problem is that linkedIn recommendations are simply not credible like Amazon book recommendations. LinkedIn recommendations are always 100% positive!
Here's what you typically find:
Dan recommends Tom: "Tom is just the greatest, most amazing guy. Such a pleasure to work with, a true professional. Simply the best."
and of course,
Tom recommends Dan: "Dan is always right! Wink, wink. He's so smart and can solve any problem."
Sometimes it's funny to see mutual back-scratching recommendations like this side by side on someone's profile page, or even better: right after one-another in the news feed. As in, it took Tom about 30 seconds to reciprocate after Dan wrote his positive review.
LinkedIn recommendations are so universally positive that to find a negative one would make me think that the reviewer was a bitter, vindictive person, and certainly not a balanced, credible reviewer.
The truth is that a quality reference on any individual will involve more than just an 'x-star rating' or 50 word summary with lots of exclamation points. In my experience people have qualities which can be very positive or negative depending on surroundings, circumstance, colleagues, and other variables.
I'm more than happy to provide a reference for anyone I've worked with in the past, and promise to be as objective as possible in assessing that person's capabilities, character, experience, and growth during our collaboration. But I won't write fawning fanboy reviews on linkedin for people because I don't think it's helpful to anyone involved- it undermines the credibility of the reviewer, does a disservice to the reviewee, and wastes the time of the reader of the review.