Jobseekers can easily request someone to write are commendation for them. You can write a recommendation for a friend and ask him/her to return the favour. This is almost like posting your comments on your friend’s Facebook profile. This kind of recommendations has no bearing of someone’s capabilities.

Also chances are you might not know who the endorser is.It can be a colleague, manager, or boss or just a random person reciprocating a testimonial. Checking up with the sources and verifying their credibility is a time consuming process. It is hard to trust someone who doesn’t have any mutual connection with your firm.

2. Too Many To Handle

Ideally the number of recommendations or referrals required for any particular job are a maximum of 3. With LinkedIn, you can get more than 20 recommendations, which is redundant. This leads to a profile cluttered with too many recommendations from different sources, and it is not always easy or possible to verify every source. If a candidate’s LinkedIn profile shows 10+ recommendations, then chances are not all them are reliable.For instance, you can get fired for being incompetent yet have more than 10 LinkedIn recommendations that applaud you. This just shows that too many recommendations in a profile can easily mislead and confuse you.

3. Vague Recommendations

Unless the recommendations are for specific projects,assignments, or jobs, you may not be able to gauge the capability of a candidate. If certain skill sets are highlighted and recommended by ex-employers or colleagues, then taking them into consideration can help.General recommendations that don’t highlight specific skill sets wouldn’t assist you in ensuring the candidate’s skills.

Other Ways of Screening

LinkedIn might not be the right way to go about when youare looking to recruit potential job seekers, so here are some other ways to help you with the process.

1.   Ask For A Referral Letter- Ask the candidate for a letter of recommendation from his ex-employer.If the candidate is a first-time job seeker, letters from the university he/she studied in should help with your process.

2.   Screen Through A Phone Call- If the candidate doesn’t have a referral letter, you can call up his/her ex-employer to get more details about them since there may be lots of things left out from the letter. One-on-one conversation with them will give you a clearer idea about the candidate’s capabilities.

Hiring the right employee is a challenging process.LinkedIn may be a popular tool to help you with the recruitment process, but it still has certain loopholes in its system and hence shouldn’t be your exclusive choice for the recruitment of candidates. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Head of Marketing at Aditi Staffing, Rakesh is responsible for organizational brand outlook. With over 10 years of experience in various sales and marketing roles including an entrepreneurship attempt in the Digital Display Advertising world, he brings a comprehensive approach to Aditi Staffing’s brand management in the global recruitment market.