15 LinkedIn Recommendation Examples for Colleagues, Clients, and Leaders

15 LinkedIn Recommendation Examples for Colleagues, Clients, and Leaders

Most LinkedIn recommendations say almost nothing.

“Jordan is a pleasure to work with.”

“Taylor is a great leader.”

“Morgan always goes above and beyond.”

The praise may be sincere.

It is also interchangeable.

Replace the name, and the recommendation could belong to almost anyone.

A strong LinkedIn recommendation does something more useful. It gives another person credible evidence of how you work, where you create value, and what distinguishes you from professionals with similar titles.

That evidence matters because it comes from someone who experienced your work directly.

Your headline makes a claim.

Your About section explains it.

Your experience documents it.

A recommendation confirms it.

What Makes a Good LinkedIn Recommendation?

A useful recommendation usually contains four elements:

• Context: How did the writer work with the person?

• Contribution: What did the person actually do?

• Consequence: What became better because of the work?

• Character: What was distinctive about working with the person?

Consider this example:

“I worked with Maya during a complicated product launch involving four departments and an immovable deadline. She created a decision process that clarified ownership, surfaced risks early, and kept the team moving without creating unnecessary meetings. Maya combines operational discipline with a rare ability to make people feel heard.”

The recommendation does not rely on vague enthusiasm.

It provides a situation, contribution, outcome, and recognizable strength.

Before requesting recommendations, decide which professional association you want them to reinforce. 10 Personal Brand Statement Examples You Can Use can help define the audience, value, and expertise that your proof should support.

The examples below are illustrative. Use only details you can truthfully describe, and protect confidential information.

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Colleague

“Daniel and I worked together on three cross-functional launches. When a project became unclear, he separated the urgent issue from the distracting noise. His calm questions helped our teams make faster decisions, and he shared credit generously.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Former Manager

“Amina led our customer education team through rapid growth. She set clear standards, explained difficult decisions, and created room for respectful disagreement. I became a stronger manager because she combined accountability with practical coaching.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Direct Report

“I managed Luis while he rebuilt our client-onboarding process. He interviewed customers, mapped where projects stalled, and introduced a simpler handoff for clients and our internal team. Luis finds the real problem and brings people into the solution.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Consultant

“Priya helped our founder-led company identify decisions that still depended unnecessarily on the founder. She turned interviews and operating data into a practical framework that changed how our leadership team assigned ownership.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for an Executive Coach

“Marcus coached me during my transition to general manager. He helped me recognize when I was solving problems my team needed to own and gave me a practical way to delegate without disappearing. His questions were direct and grounded in the reality of leading under pressure.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Sales Professional

“Elena earned our trust before asking for the business. She understood our manufacturing process, involved the right technical experts, and was candid when her product was not the best answer for part of our project. That honesty made the rest of her recommendation credible.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for an Executive Leader

“Thomas brought focus to a leadership team managing too many priorities. He made decision ownership visible and kept customer consequences in the room during difficult tradeoffs. His leadership made us more disciplined without making us more bureaucratic.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Project Manager

“Sofia managed an implementation involving internal teams, outside vendors, and changing requirements. She kept risks visible and addressed tension before it became delay. We finished with a system people understood because she treated adoption as part of the project.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Technology Leader

“Noah translates technical risk into decisions business leaders can act on. During our infrastructure modernization, he explained tradeoffs without exaggeration, challenged assumptions respectfully, and helped the executive team invest according to actual business risk.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Marketing Professional

“Camila turned scattered campaigns into one clear market position. She found the language customers used to describe the problem and aligned our website, sales materials, and launch around it. Her work made our message easier for buyers and employees to repeat.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Professional Speaker

“Andre spoke at our annual leadership conference for 600 managers. He adapted his examples to our industry, stayed within the schedule, and gave attendees a framework they discussed after the event. He was compelling onstage and dependable behind it.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Nonprofit Leader

“Rachel brought businesses, donors, and community organizations together around a shared food-access initiative. She listened before proposing a plan, clarified each partner’s responsibilities, and kept the coalition focused when priorities competed.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Career Changer

“I worked with Jamal in military logistics, where he coordinated people, equipment, and contingency plans under pressure. His ability to anticipate operational risk and communicate a clear response translates directly to business continuity work.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Creative Professional

“Mei redesigned our research report without reducing it to decoration. Her visual system helped readers understand the argument, find the evidence, and navigate complex data. She asked better questions about the audience than anyone else involved.”

LinkedIn Recommendation for a Business Partner or Vendor

“Owen supported our regional expansion when timelines and site conditions changed repeatedly. He communicated problems early, offered realistic alternatives, and never hid behind the contract. His reliability was most visible when the plan stopped being easy.”

How to Ask for a LinkedIn Recommendation

Do not send the same request to 30 people.

Choose people who directly experienced the work you want to make visible. Clients can describe value. Colleagues can describe collaboration. Managers can describe growth. Direct reports can describe leadership.

LinkedIn’s current recommendation guidance says members can request recommendations from first-degree connections they work with or have worked with. The request identifies the relationship and position at the time.

Personalize the message:

“Priya, I’m refining my LinkedIn profile around the work I do helping leadership teams clarify decision ownership. Because you saw that work during our operating-model project, would you be comfortable writing a short recommendation about what the process was like and what changed for the team? Please use only details you are comfortable sharing publicly.”

Do not ask for a particular compliment.

Do not send a finished testimonial and request a signature.

Do not imply that the person owes you a recommendation because you wrote one for them.

The objective is independent evidence.

Align Recommendations With the Rest of Your Profile

Recommendations should confirm the professional position already visible elsewhere.

If you want to be known for helping technical founders become effective executive leaders, your headline and About section should communicate that position. 15 LinkedIn About Section Examples for a Strong Personal Brand shows how to develop a position through perspective, experience, proof, and personality.

Use the Featured section to show the work behind the recommendation. A client may describe your framework, while a case study, article, or presentation demonstrates it. How to Use Your LinkedIn Featured Section to Build Your Personal Brand explains how to create that evidence sequence.

A recommendation should not rescue a confusing profile.

It should make a clear profile more believable.

Review Recommendations Before Displaying Them

LinkedIn currently allows a recipient to accept, dismiss, or request a revision before displaying a recommendation. An accepted recommendation is visible by default, but it can be hidden later. LinkedIn also says recommendations appear chronologically and cannot currently be reordered. Review the platform’s acceptance and display guidance before managing this section.

Ask for a revision when a factual detail is wrong, confidential information appears, a title is inaccurate, or the language creates a claim you cannot support.

Do not rewrite the person’s honest perspective simply to make it sound more impressive.

Save the original recommendation, date, relationship, and any permission to reuse it. Your Personal Brand Proof Folder: What to Collect Before You Need It provides a system for organizing testimonials, results, credentials, and other evidence.

If you quote a LinkedIn recommendation on your website, in a proposal, or in a professional biography, ask permission and preserve the meaning. 17 Professional Bio Examples for a Strong Personal Brand can help you decide where third-party proof strengthens a biography without overwhelming it.

Common LinkedIn Recommendation Mistakes

Avoid these recurring problems:

• Requesting recommendations from people who barely know your work

• Collecting generic praise with no context

• Giving the writer a complete script

• Revealing confidential client or company information

• Including unsupported numbers or outcomes

• Trading recommendations as an automatic favor

• Asking only senior people while ignoring clients, colleagues, and direct reports

• Displaying old recommendations that support a direction you have left

• Treating quantity as a substitute for relevance

• Allowing every recommendation to make a different professional claim

Strong personal brands earn trust through consistent associations and credible evidence. Personal Branding Examples: 15 People Who Built Powerful Personal Brands demonstrates why clarity, repetition, proof, and recognizable value matter more than a large collection of disconnected praise.

You do not need dozens of LinkedIn recommendations.

You need a few credible people describing the work you want the right audience to remember.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a LinkedIn recommendation say?

Explain how you know the person, describe a specific contribution or behavior, identify what improved because of the work, and name the quality that made the person distinctive.

How long should a LinkedIn recommendation be?

A concise paragraph is usually enough. Aim for several specific sentences that provide context, contribution, outcome, and character without becoming a complete career history.

Who should I ask for a LinkedIn recommendation?

Ask first-degree connections who directly experienced relevant work, such as clients, managers, colleagues, direct reports, business partners, or vendors.

How do I ask for a LinkedIn recommendation without sounding awkward?

Explain why you are updating your profile, remind the person of the work they observed, suggest the aspect that would be useful to address, and make it easy to decline.

Can I edit a recommendation someone writes for me?

You cannot directly rewrite a received recommendation. LinkedIn allows you to accept it, dismiss it, ask the writer for a revision, or hide it after acceptance.

How many LinkedIn recommendations do I need?

There is no universal number. A small group of recent, specific recommendations covering your most relevant work is more useful than many generic or outdated endorsements.

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