Her question was a good one but some companies have policies against giving or receiving public recommendations on LinkedIn.

Or your recommender is not on LinkedIn.

But you did great work for someone in one of those companies, so how can you get them to offer their admiration on your profile despite the admonition?

You have to be creative, but here are a few ideas:

  • If ethics conventions in the target’s industry, or yours, make recommendation tenuous, approach the compliance officer with a draft of what you would like to say and ask their help in formulating something acceptable. This is a consultative act, not a punishment.
  • If the recommender is not on LinkedIn, ask them to write yours and provide it in PDF, then you can prominently show it as a pane in your Featured section.
  • If the recommender is not excited about writing it from scratch, ask them to add some words around and outline of what you are seeking.
  • Finally, if the recommendation is not forthcoming at their present employment, wait until the recommender changes and the company environment is more LinkedIn-friendly.

See, not all is lost. You have some alternatives.

Did I leave any out that you can suggest?