A question came my way about a sensitive situation. A fellow professional of mine was asked for a recommendation on LinkedIn for someone she is not terribly comfortable giving one to. What do you do in a situation like this?
Not surprisingly, the thread on Facebook from the folks she contacted were very different. This proves that social networking and how you approach situations are going to vary greatly.
Here are a few of the notions that were tossed around:
- Ignore the request
- Ask for details on the basis of the recommendation
- Don’t give a recommendation at all and let the person know this is your policy
- Give a recommendation based on your honest feedback
- Give a recommendation based on a specific project that you with the person on only
Now the dilemma is what course of action to take! In my experience, people coming in and out of my life has been almost like a boomerang effect. Sometimes they leave and somewhere down the road come right back! Past interactions might come back to haunt you because this is a small world.
Dealing with the situation head on and being dead honest in a professional manner usually seems to do the trick. Of course, you have to do what feels right. In short, any of the above suggestions could be the best way to proceed. It all depends on the person making the decision.
What would you do in this type of situation? Feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment. Opinions are always welcome on this blog!
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1 user responded in this post
Like you, I think the choices are all good, and probably each individually appropriate, based on the particular situation. I’m one of those brutally honest people – I like to keep it short and to the point, even in conversations. My mom always said, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all….but I also believe in speaking the truth in love. So, therein lies the rub for me. If the guy/gal was an arrogant jerk, I’d simply ignore the request. If he had good qualities, but did nothing to serve the company we worked for, I would try to find something short and sweet to say about him, therefore not running the risk of hitting a molten boomerang in the future!
What do you think?