Fun Fact: You need three recommendations to have a 100% complete profile.

When they are solicited favors from social networking friends you have never conducted business with, they are undeserved, unfounded props that cheapen the value of well earned, bonafide recommendations.

I have seen a lot of it going on lately and it’s unfortunate. I know some feel rules are meant to be broken and guidelines are just that.. but the misuse of a potentially powerful tool like a professional recommendation deserves serious criticism in my book of ethics.

Let colleagues, clients or suppliers speak to your record

I have had several requests for recommendations I felt I just couldn’t provide and then sleep well at night. In the case of my intern who just started and enthusiastically followed my suggestion to create an account now in her sophomore year, so she can build a vast, meaningful network of mentors and subject matter experts to take her through the rest of college and into a career, I simply wrote back and said, “I would be happy to write a recommendation for you once you complete your internship — based on the quality of your work.”

In the case of others who I have never worked or collaborated for or with on any project… I generally just ignore the requests. You see, I can’t recommend someone because I have heard of them, listen to them on an internet radio show, read their blog, or even know of good work they do. It would be like writing a recommendation for Anderson Cooper — I think he does a great job but a recommendation from me is meaningless to his career..

What’s the point?

Search current and former clients, colleagues, managers, professors and college class mates you did real work for and with, link up with them and ask for a real recommendation. If you would like to know more about LinkedIn recommendations here is a short video you’ll find helpful. As always, I welcome your commentary.

My inspiration for this post goes to M.H. I woke up this morning and over morning coffee I checked my email. There was a LinkedIn invitation from her. I haven’t worked with her or spoken with her in 15 months. It wasn’t a fan letter. It talked about projects, teams and and our professional relationship. It was truly very meaningful to me. What did I do? I wrote one back…

For instance, there once was a woman named Reina.….. It’s your lucky day for I will spare you the very gory details.

It’s not a common name in the US and it had been a few years years since I had been subjected to it. About 7 years ago as a call center manager I received a calendar appointment to interview a “Reyna”. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Immediately, all I could think of was there was no way I was going to deal with that even though I knew with 100% certainty that it was not the same person.

I got up and took a walk.  I needed air. And as I walked I talked with other personalities that reside in my mind and as we conversed and sorted it all out we came to the conclusion it was important to give this person a chance.

It’s not the same Reina so what are you worried about? She doesn’t even spell it the same way. You can’t judge a person by her name, don’t be ridiculous. What if you dismiss her because of something in your past that nothing to do with her, miss out on a great hire and do her an injustice? Just get over it.

I took some deep breaths, convinced myself to do the right thing and accepted the interview. Reyna turned out to have very high performance reviews over the next 5 years and in most respects really was a model employee.

This is a true story! I’m glad I recognized it wouldn’t be fair to judge someone on something that wouldn’t be performance related. Had I allowed my personal bias over a name to influence my decision it would have been a very big mistake.

What personal bias have you had to deal with? Was it difficult to recognize it existed? How did you overcome it?