LinkedIn Recommendation Generator

About the linkedin recommendation generator

When a colleague asks you for a LinkedIn recommendation, the hard part is not the praise. It is saying something specific enough that a stranger reading their profile learns what they are actually good at. Most recommendations end up as a string of adjectives that could describe anyone. This free LinkedIn recommendation generator starts from how you worked together, their role, and one real example of their work, then drafts a recommendation built around that story.

You get a full draft you can edit in your own voice before you paste it into LinkedIn. The guide below explains what makes a recommendation useful to the people reading it, how to adjust it for a manager, peer, report, or client, and which phrases to cut.

How to use it

1. 1

   Enter their name and role

   Add the person's name and the role they held when you worked together. Use the title from that time, since LinkedIn asks for their position at the time when you submit the recommendation.

2. 2

   Choose how you worked together

   Pick your relationship: you managed them, you were peers, they managed you, a client relationship, or a cross-team partnership. This sets which strengths the draft emphasizes and how it frames your view of their work.

3. 3

   Describe one specific example

   Write a few lines about something they did and what changed because of it. Rough notes are fine. A real project, decision, or result is what turns a generic draft into a credible one.

4. 4

   Edit the draft into your voice

   Read the draft, correct any detail that is not quite right, and change phrasing you would never use. Then open their profile on LinkedIn, choose Recommend from the More menu, and paste it in.

What a useful LinkedIn recommendation includes

A recommendation is read by recruiters and hiring managers who have never met the person. They want to know three things: how well you know this person's work, what they are particularly good at, and whether you would work with them again. A strong recommendation answers all three in about 100 to 200 words, usually in two or three short paragraphs.

Lead with the point, not a warm-up. "Casey is the designer I'd want on any project with a tight deadline and a messy brief" tells the reader more in one sentence than a paragraph about how great it was to work together.

• A clear opening claim: the one thing you most want a reader to remember about them.
• Your vantage point: how you worked together and for how long, such as "I managed Casey for two years on our mobile team."
• One story with a result: what they did, how they did it, and what changed. Numbers help, but a concrete outcome works too.
• A forward-looking close: who should hire them or what kind of team they would strengthen.

How to adjust it for your relationship

Readers weigh a recommendation by who wrote it. A manager can speak to growth and reliability, a peer to collaboration, and a client to results. Write from what you actually saw.

• You managed them: focus on how they grew, the scope you trusted them with, and how they handled pressure or ambiguity. Mention a promotion or bigger responsibility if it happened.
• Peers: describe what it was like to work alongside them, such as how they shared knowledge, unblocked others, or handled disagreements.
• They managed you: speak to how they led, such as the feedback they gave, how they protected the team's time, or how they developed you. Keep it respectful rather than effusive.
• Client relationship: lead with the business outcome and what they were like to work with, such as responsiveness, clarity, and whether they delivered what they promised.
• Cross-team partner: highlight how they worked across functions, for example translating technical details for non-technical teams or keeping a shared project on schedule.

How recommendations work on LinkedIn

You can only recommend your 1st-degree connections, and you fill in your relationship and their position at the time before you write the text, according to LinkedIn Help. The recommendation does not appear right away. The person receives it and chooses whether to add it to their profile, dismiss it, or ask you for a revision.

That review step is useful. If they ask for a change, such as mentioning a skill that matters for their next role, take it as a request for accuracy rather than flattery. Only add details you can stand behind. If someone asks you to recommend them and you do not know their work well, it is fine to say so and offer to write about the part you did see instead.

Phrases to cut, and what to write instead

Generic praise is the most common problem, and it is easy to fix. Replace each vague phrase with the specific behavior or result behind it.

• Cut: "a true team player." Write: "She volunteered to pair with two new hires during their first month and wrote the onboarding guide we still use."
• Cut: "would be an asset to any organization." Write: "Any team building a data function from scratch would be lucky to have him."
• Cut: "hard-working and dedicated." Write: "He took over a stalled vendor migration and finished it three weeks ahead of the deadline."
• Cut: "It was a pleasure working with her." Write: a final line that says who should hire her and why.

Examples

Frequently asked questions