Giving recommendations is an important part of your web footprint. When people look at who you are on the web, one thing that speaks a lot about you is who do you recommend. Actually your recommendations show your true values, something that your CV will never show.

You can recommend people you are connected to on LinkedIn and recently on BeFound where you are limited to just 500 characters.

Make sure you do not start selling yourself in the recommendation to someone else. The recommendation requires the approval from the one who is receiving it. Be honest, and be nice.

Here is the example I just wrote for John Sumser:

John was regularly appearing in my Inbox every day at 5PM (sharp!). It was 5PM GMT time here in Dublin, where I worked at Microsoft. When Johns mail (Interbiznet newsletter) would come I knew it was the time to start finishing what I had to finish that day. I was saving reading John’s mail as the last thing I would do – saving the best for the last. This always gave me something to think about driving home, and helped me not to bring work home.

This was more than 10 – 12 years ago. I knew nothing about the recruitment then, and somehow feel even today, that all that I know I learned from the John’s mail shots. I still wonder why people ask me about the recruitment today. I often tell them they should ask John since all I know I have learned from him. I quite often feel like a spokesman form John. And not that good one actually.

What I learned from John made me change my career. I went into the recruitment 10 years ago and never regretted it. John’s writing made this recruitment FUN!

John changes lives. He changed mine.

I have sent the recommendation in both LinkedIn, and a shorter version in BeFound. I wonder if John will like my reccomendation, and if he does, will he decide to show it above all the other recommendations he is getting!