A couple of days ago I had an email from an old work colleague asking me to put in a recommendation for him in LinkedIn (we actually never did any work together so I asked myself on the basis of what would he expect me to craft such a thing).
And, is there really value in these recommendations? A study by Leising, Erbs and Fritz from the University of Halle-Wittenberg recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked at the influence that knowing and liking a person have on the ratings reviewers give of that person. As one would expect (though maybe to a greater extent than one would expect) liking has a significant influence on the positiveness of the reviewers' ratings. So, why would a hiring employer trust a unrealistically rosy recommendation from a candidate's close acquaintance?
The study also found that lower liking may be associated with better accuracy. Despite its use or not as a tool for professional promotion in the web, accurate judgement is as good an ally as one can find for personal growth and improvement. It would seem that in the world of development, Baltasar Gracián's old saying: "the wise person finds enemies more useful than the fool does friends" might stand true.
1 comment:
It appears to me in these cases that there is a level of disingenuous behavior at play. The requestor is not asking for your actual assessment but for validation and praise based on a potential level of guilt about criticizing a friend or ex colleague with whom there is currently no boss employer relationship. I was once asked to be a peer reviewer in a 360 feedback process. Taking it seriously I gave an objective assessment only to have the individual complain they would not have asked me if they knew I was going to include their weaknesses. In order for these "recommendations" to have any value to the broader community the basic governing tenet has to be "caveat emptor!"
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