LinkedIn & Update Your References Week
By Jason Alba
Career experts across the country will tell you two of the most important things you can do for your career include developing a strong professional network and enhancing your personal brand. Since this is International Update Your References Week, a registered holiday sponsored by Career Directors International (CDI), I thought I'd share a tactic that will help you do both things with very little effort, potentially producing terrific results.
If you are like most of us, you are not actively looking for a new job (although you don’t know when you will be looking). Asking a boss or peer for a letter of reference is just out-of-place, and may lead to more problems than you are interested in dealing with.
Let’s twist the concept just a little, and get professional benefit like the pro’s do.
First, you should have an account in a professional social network site. I recommend LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com) as it’s a recognized, mainstream social network for professionals. Because LinkedIn is growing at about one million new members a month, it’s likely that many of your professional contacts have heard of, or have an account on, LinkedIn.
Next, your job is to try and solicit professional references through LinkedIn. You can ask for references, which is what most people do. I recommend a more relationship-nurturing technique – instead of asking someone for a reference, leave a reference for them first. You’ll be amazed at how flattered they are, and they are likely to reciprocate and leave you a professional endorsement.
As you reach out to your network contacts first, and build their professional image and brand, you will develop your own brand as someone who cares about them and their professional endeavors. This is an excellent way to nurture a relationship between you, even if you haven’t communicated with them for years! If you need to increase the numbers of recommendations you have immediately, pick one or two contacts to recommend each day. If you want to build your references over time, simply recommend someone each week or each month.
If and when your contact reciprocates with a recommendation for you, it’s likely that they will either leave a general recommendation that doesn’t do justice to what you want to bring out, or the things they focus on may not be on-brand for you. Perhaps they knew you five years ago, when you were Mary in Accounts Receivable, and you are working towards becoming the Controller of a new company. Instead of focusing on certain specific tasks you did in Accounts Receivable, it might be more appropriate for them to focus on higher-level skills that you portrayed.
You should coach your contacts on what skills and abilities you want to portray. There’s nothing wrong with asking them to rewrite a recommendation, and focus on certain areas to help your future endeavors. If someone where to ask you to rewrite a recommendation for them, focusing on a different strength they had, you would do it, right? Of course you would, if it were something that you could endorse.
Asking for recommendations is professionally acceptable, and doing so on LinkedIn provides you with an opportunity without saying “I’m in a job search.” The power of a LinkedIn profile, with the recommendations, is that it is not a resume or declaration of being in a job search. It is a professional profile, and the recommendations are professional endorsements.
As you build your own list of recommendations, which are like little reference letters, you’ll enhance your own professional image. As you give recommendations to your network contacts you’ll nurture those key relationships and put yourself at the top-of-mind of your network. What are you waiting for? Go leave a recommendation for one of your contacts today!
