Most LinkedIn recommendations are forgettable. Here’s how to write one that actually helps the person — and reflects well on you.
A coworker just asked you to write them a LinkedIn recommendation.
You said yes. Now you’re staring at the recommendation box and you have absolutely no idea what to write.
You’re not alone. Most people freeze on this. And the result is the same generic line you’ve seen a thousand times:
“It was a pleasure working with Name. They’re a hard worker and a great team player. I would highly recommend them.”
Useless. To them, to anyone reading it, to you for writing it.
A LinkedIn recommendation, written well, is one of the highest-leverage pieces of writing you can do for someone. It can land them a job, win them a client, or open a door they didn’t know existed. Written badly, it does nothing — and it kind of reflects poorly on you, the writer, too.
Here’s how to write one that actually works, with examples for every common relationship.
What Makes a Good LinkedIn Recommendation Different
A great recommendation does five things in 100-200 words:
- Specifies the relationship — how you know them and for how long
- Names a specific result — not vague qualities, but something they actually did
- Shows the character behind the result — how they got it done, not just what they got done
- Compares them to peers honestly — context that only a real coworker could give
- Closes with an unambiguous endorsement — leaves no doubt what you’re saying
Generic recommendations skip 1, 2, 3, and 4. Strong ones nail all five. The reason is simple: a hiring manager (or potential client) reading recommendations is trying to triangulate the truth. Specific = believable. Generic = ignored.
The LinkedIn Recommendation Formula
Use this skeleton. Fill in the blanks. Edit for voice. You’ll have a recommendation that beats 95% of what’s out there.
Specific relationship + duration. I worked with / managed / reported to Name for time period at Company, where they / I your role / their role.
Specific result or moment. Describe one specific thing they did that mattered. Use a number if possible.
Character or working style. What stood out was specific quality, particularly when specific situation. Most people / Most peers would have what most would do; Name what they did differently.
Comparison or context. Of the X colleagues / direct reports / clients I’ve worked with in field / role, Name is in the top tier.
Endorsement. I’d hire / work with / recommend Name for what specifically without hesitation. Optional: open invitation — “Happy to talk in more detail with anyone considering bringing them on.”
The whole thing is 5 paragraphs but ends up around 150-200 words. Short, specific, and impossible to mistake for a templated platitude.
5 LinkedIn Recommendation Examples (Real Relationships)
Pick the one closest to your situation, then customize. The relationship determines the tone, what to emphasize, and what to leave out.
Example 1: Recommending Someone You Managed
Sarah reported to me as a senior product designer at Acme for two and a half years. She joined when our design team was three people and helped scale it to twelve.
The result I’d point to: she owned the redesign of our onboarding flow, which moved free-to-paid conversion from 11% to 19% in a single quarter. That’s a six-figure quarterly revenue lift from a single person’s work.
What stood out was how she made decisions when the data was thin. Most designers I’ve worked with default to “let’s A/B test it” — Sarah was unusually good at making a strong opinion, defending it, and pivoting fast when reality contradicted her. That’s rare in 8 years of design work.
Of the dozens of designers I’ve managed across two companies, Sarah is in my top three. I’d hire her again in any senior IC or design lead role without hesitation.
Example 2: Recommending a Coworker (Peer)
I worked alongside Marcus on the platform team at Acme for 18 months. We weren’t on the same project, but we shipped infrastructure that depended on each other’s code about once a week.
One specific moment: when our deployment pipeline broke during a peak traffic event, Marcus diagnosed a race condition in 20 minutes that the rest of us had been chasing for 3 hours. Then he wrote a postmortem so clean we still reference it as a template.
What I noticed working with him: he treats other engineers’ code with respect. When he disagreed with my approach (which he did, often), he’d come with an alternative and a working prototype. Not just complaints. Most engineers don’t operate that way.
If you’re hiring a senior platform engineer, talk to Marcus. He’s the kind of teammate who quietly raises the bar for everyone around him.
Example 3: Recommending Someone Who Managed You
Elena was my VP of Marketing for almost three years at Acme. I joined as a junior content marketer; I left as her director of demand gen. That trajectory wouldn’t have happened with anyone else.
The thing she did that I think about most: she made me write a one-page strategy doc for every campaign before I executed it. I hated it for a year. Then I realized it was the difference between marketing that compounded and marketing that scattered. I still write that doc today.
What separated her from other marketing leaders I’ve reported to: she made hard calls quickly. We killed campaigns I’d worked on for months because the data didn’t support continuing. It always stung. It was always the right call.
Of the four marketing leaders I’ve worked under, Elena is the one I’d take a meeting with tomorrow. If you’re a marketer thinking about joining her team, do it.
Example 4: Recommending a Client (or a Vendor You Hired)
We hired Tom and his team to run our outbound program for nine months. Going in, our SDR team was sending 200 emails a week and booking maybe 4 meetings. Going out, we were running 1,500 emails a week and booking 35-40 meetings.
What I appreciated: Tom told us “no” more than he told us “yes.” When our positioning wasn’t tight enough to support outbound, he made us fix it before he’d send a single email. Most agencies would have taken our money and run generic sequences.
The follow-through impressed me as much as the results. Weekly reviews actually had data, not vibes. Slack responses inside an hour. He treated our pipeline like it was his own.
If you’re an early-stage B2B company thinking about hiring an outbound partner, Tom’s team is who I’d point you to.
Example 5: Recommending a Vendor or Service Provider Briefly
Jenny built our sales website over a 6-week engagement last year. Three things stood out:
Speed without sloppy. We had a working v1 in 12 days. By v3, we had a converting site, not a brochure.
Opinions, not order-taking. She pushed back on three big decisions we were making — and was right on all three.
Pricing transparent and fixed. No scope creep. No surprise invoices. The number she quoted was the number we paid.
If you need a sales-focused web designer who’ll tell you the truth, hire her.
How to Write a LinkedIn Recommendation: Step by Step
Sit down, give it 20 minutes, and walk through these in order.
Step 1: Get Specific About the Relationship
Before you write a single sentence about them, write down for yourself: how exactly did you work together? What was your role, what was theirs, how often did you actually interact? “We worked at the same company” is too vague. “We were on the same eight-person team for 14 months and shipped four major product releases together” is the kind of specificity readers can verify.
Step 2: Pull One Specific Story
Don’t generalize. Pick one moment, project, or result that stood out. Numbers help. A real story that took 30 seconds to remember beats a paragraph of adjectives every time. If you can’t think of a specific story, you probably shouldn’t be writing the recommendation.
Step 3: Describe the How, Not Just the What
This is the part most people skip. “She delivered the project on time” is the what. “She delivered it on time even though Engineering pushed the timeline twice — she rebuilt her plan in a weekend without complaint and never compromised on the launch quality” is the how. The how is what makes the recommendation memorable.
Step 4: Compare With Honest Context
This is the strongest move you can make: anchor your recommendation against your broader experience. “Of the 12 marketers I’ve managed, she’s in the top 2” is far more credible than “she’s amazing.” Hiring managers are trained to look for this exact kind of comparison — it signals you’ve actually thought about the recommendation rather than rubber-stamping it.
Step 5: Close With an Action
End with what you’d actually do, not how you’d describe them. “I’d hire her tomorrow into a senior PM role on a 0-to-1 product.” “I’d refer them to any client looking for a senior fractional CMO.” Action verbs, specific roles. This is the part that gets quoted.
Step 6: Edit for Length
Aim for 150-200 words. Not 500. Not 75. Long recommendations look performative; short ones look careless. The middle is the sweet spot.
Quick-Reference: What to Include vs. What to Skip
Same idea as the templates above, condensed into a checklist you can scan before you publish:
| Include | Skip |
|---|---|
| Exact relationship + duration | “I had the pleasure of working with…” |
| One specific result with a number | Vague qualities (“hard worker,” “team player”) |
| A real story that took 30 seconds to remember | Generic praise that could apply to anyone |
| Honest peer comparison | Inflated superlatives (“best role I’ve ever met”) |
| Specific endorsement (what role, what context) | “I would highly recommend” with no qualifier |
| Quirks or unique strengths | Boilerplate corporate language |
| 150-200 words | Either 75 or 500 words |
| First-person voice | Third-person “they are” framing throughout |
The “skip” column is what makes most LinkedIn recommendations forgettable. The “include” column is what makes them get read all the way through.
Common LinkedIn Recommendation Mistakes
Six patterns that show up over and over. Worth checking your draft against.
- Adjective stacking. “Hardworking, dedicated, talented, professional, detail-oriented.” Nobody believes any of those words anymore. They’ve been used by everyone, for everyone, forever.
- The participation trophy. A recommendation that praises everyone equally praises no one. If you genuinely think they’re average, don’t write the recommendation. Decline politely.
- Talking about yourself. “I taught Sarah everything she knows about product management” is not a recommendation for Sarah. It’s a recommendation for you.
- Burying the relationship. Reader spends three sentences trying to figure out if you actually worked together or just LinkedIn-knew each other. Lead with it.
- Too long. A 600-word recommendation looks like an obligation, not an endorsement. Aim short.
- No specific endorsement. “I would recommend them for any role” means nothing. “I’d hire them as a senior PM at a product-led growth company” means everything.
This is also why I generally recommend people getting actively job-searched optimize their LinkedIn profile before they ask for recommendations — the strongest recommendations aren’t worth much if the rest of the profile is generic. Same logic applies to your LinkedIn headline, which is what 70% of recommendation-readers see first. If you’re using LinkedIn for active business development rather than job-search, the connection-message playbook in our LinkedIn cold message guide and the broader LinkedIn outreach workflow are the natural next reads.
How to Ask Someone for a LinkedIn Recommendation
Not the focus of this post, but worth a quick note since it comes up. The best way to ask is to make it easy:
- Reach out personally (not via LinkedIn’s auto-request feature).
- Remind them of one specific project or result you worked on together.
- Offer to draft something they can edit if it’d save time. (Most people accept this.)
- Specify what role or outcome you’re hoping the recommendation will support.
The “I’ll draft it” move is the unlock. People who’d never have written from scratch will happily edit your draft into something honest. And the result is more specific than what they would have written from a cold start.
LinkedIn Recommendation FAQ
How do you write a good LinkedIn recommendation?
The formula: state the exact relationship, name a specific result they delivered, describe the how behind that result, anchor them with an honest comparison (“top 3 of 20 designers I’ve managed”), and close with an unambiguous endorsement of what role or context you’d recommend them for. Aim for 150-200 words. Avoid generic adjectives — “hard worker,” “team player” — because they’ve been overused into meaninglessness. Specificity is what makes a recommendation believable.
What should you include in a LinkedIn recommendation?
Five elements: (1) the relationship — how you know them, for how long, in what context, (2) a specific accomplishment or moment — ideally with a number, (3) the working style or character behind that result, (4) honest peer comparison (“of the X people I’ve worked with…”), (5) a clear endorsement specifying what you’d recommend them for. Skip anything generic enough to apply to a different person without changes.
How long should a LinkedIn recommendation be?
150-200 words. Shorter than that looks rushed; longer than that looks performative. Most readers spend less than 15 seconds on a recommendation, so the goal is high information density: one specific story, one comparison, one clear endorsement. If you’re over 250 words, you’re probably padding.
Can you write your own LinkedIn recommendation for someone to post?
Yes — and it’s the recommendation industry’s worst-kept secret. Many people who agree to write recommendations don’t have time to draft from scratch. Offering “I’ll send you a draft you can edit” is often what turns a “let me think about it” into a “yes, send it over.” The result is more specific (because you remember the details) and gets edited into the recommender’s voice. Just make sure you give them genuine room to change it — including the option to soften it.
How do you write a LinkedIn recommendation for someone you’ve only worked with briefly?
Acknowledge the brevity directly — don’t pretend to know them better than you do. “Jenny built our sales site over a 6-week engagement last year” sets the right expectation. Then focus on what you observed in that window: their working style, one specific output, and honest commentary on whether you’d hire/work with them again. A short, honest recommendation from a brief engagement is more valuable than a stretched one pretending at deeper familiarity.
Is it OK to decline writing a LinkedIn recommendation?
Yes — and it’s better than writing a lukewarm one. A weak recommendation hurts the person you’re trying to help (because readers compare across recommendations). The graceful decline: “I don’t think I have enough context on your work in area X to write something that would actually help you. Happy to introduce you to someone better positioned if useful.” That’s a real favor; a generic recommendation isn’t.
How do you ask someone to write you a LinkedIn recommendation?
Reach out personally rather than using LinkedIn’s auto-request. Remind them of a specific project or moment you worked on together. Offer to draft something they can edit (this dramatically increases acceptance rates). Specify what you’re hoping the recommendation will support — a job search, a new business launch, a consulting practice — so they can tilt the writing accordingly.
The Bottom Line
A LinkedIn recommendation, written well, is one of the most valuable things you can do for someone in your network. It costs you 20 minutes. It can change their next year.
Specify the relationship. Tell one real story. Compare honestly. Close with action. 150-200 words. Done.
The next time someone asks you, treat it like a real piece of writing — not a chore to dispatch. They asked because your name carries weight with the people they’re trying to reach. Honor that by writing something that earns the weight.
Rooting for you,
Tom