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I'm looking for new job. I want to ask my team lead for a linkedin recommendation, so that I can refer to it in interviews( or indirect reference by putting linkedin profile link in CV). But I do not want my team lead to know that I'm looking for a new job(for obvious reasons).

So, I wanted to ask, do professionals usually ask current team leads for linkedin recommendations? Is it perceived as normal thing by team leads or does it raise a flag?

FYI, there is not much work to do anymore in my team and a while ago I talked to lead about moving to other team. I'm not sure under these circumstances how team lead will perceive recommendation request.

Thanks,

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  • Frankly, nobody except recruiters pays attention to linkedin, and they don't understand half the technologies listed. I wouldn't bother for that reason. – gburton Jan 1 '17 at 10:26
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In my personal experience, linkedin recommendations are something you get after you move on. Sort of a good-bye gift from former coworkers, if you've left them with a good impression. The one job that I voluntarily left I did not ask for recommendations, not because I left on bad terms but because I felt awkward doing so.

If a coworker asked to link with me, I'd think nothing of it. Standard practice. But if he asked me for a recommendation I'd definitely suspect that he was thinking about looking elsewhere.

Now, if you convince them you want a recommendation to make you look good to other managers on other teams, you might pull it off. But if you really are worried about consequences should they find out before you get another job, better not to risk it. The value of having linkedin recommendations isn't all that high, IMO. Of much higher value are the work references that you'll be asked for. Hopefully you have some from your last job that you can re-use, because you aren't going to get any good ones from a company which you blind-sided with your leaving.

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  • Thanks for the response! Actually this is my first job, and I have been here for couple of years. So, I do not have any previous work references. Therefor, I'm thinking about getting linkedin recommendation from TL. – blackfyre Jun 16 '15 at 19:27
  • though I understand that its risky to ask TL for recommendation – blackfyre Jun 16 '15 at 19:34
  • Ouch. This is going to be hard for you, then. If you've only had one job and you aren't able to produce references from that job they are going to wonder. Were there part-time jobs that you worked at which might come with references? Maybe work-study or summer jobs? – Francine DeGrood Taylor Jun 18 '15 at 1:02
  • If there is "not much work to do" on your team, is there any way you can get your team lead to assign you more work? – Francine DeGrood Taylor Jun 18 '15 at 1:07
  • No, I do not have any proper previous job. After completing studies its my first job. And my company do award performance based certificates to best employees, and I have been awarded it twice, the last one was awarded just few months ago. Maybe I can use them... – blackfyre Jun 18 '15 at 15:46
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It is not unusual to ask for LinkedIn recommendations from people you are currently working with. Whether or not that raises a flag depends on your specific situation.

If you have concerns you can partially address them by turning off your "activity broadcasts" in your LinkedIn profile. This way, your network won't get emails as you update your profile but anyone who deliberately visits your profile will see the new stuff.

You said yourself that the project has less work to do, and so is presumably winding down to a finish. Right now (while memories are still fresh) is the best time for getting recommendations from people and updating details about the project for your resume and for LinkedIn. If anyone has concerns about this you can address them by indicating that you're just keeping your profile up-to-date. Even so, if there's less and less work to do, anybody working there would have to be naive to think that people aren't at least starting to think about the future.

In general, regular updating of LinkedIn and your resume is good practice. This way, you can reap the benefits of being up to date even if you're not looking actively. Lots of very successful people "find" jobs when they're not looking because they have an active and well-maintained network (this is true for LinkedIn as well as more informal networks of people who know each other).

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It's like the lessons they teach to lawyers, if you don't know what the witness is going to say, don't ask the question. This is all contingent on your relationship with this team lead and his perception on how the company would react if they found out.

I was at a company where several people were close to each other and worked together before, but I didn't even tell one of my best friends that I was looking to avoid asking him to lie/keep quiet about it. After I left, management did confront him and he was very convincing when he told them he knew nothing about it.

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