How to Gain Recommendations and Testimonials

What someone else says about you is about three times as powerful as what you say about yourself. This is one reason why testimonials are becoming an increasingly important part of your career development.

Whether you are an IT contractor or an IT professional in the permanent arena, it is important to gain testimonials and recommendations on an on-going basis.

As we mentioned in the abstract, testimonials are being used more and more as a starting point for considering someone for a job, as opposed to the job market of old where your skills led the process and your 'references' (as they were called) purely validated it at the end.

Now it is completely different!

The emergence of networking (through Linked IN and other mediums) have vastly changed this landscape and have developed recommendations and testimonials into one of the primary factors to influence your job hunting and career development.

An example we used in our article titled 'how to differentiate your CV for FREE' highlights this perfectly . . .

"When you are shopping online, what do you pay more attention to? The company description of the product OR the customer reviews. Yep – the customer reviews all the time.

The same applies to print. Companies have always witnessed much higher boosts to their commercial activity as a result of receiving editorial coverage, as opposed to the increases they see after an advertising campaign.

Impartiality is the key."

So, this works in the same way for the recommendations and testimonials you receive.

Therefore, the rule of thumb is (especially for contractors) that when you approach the end of a contract, gain recommendations from the people you have worked with.

For those in permanent roles, use the same approach but around when you finish a particularly big internal project (ie. you could be working on something with an overseas office - get them to write a referral for you).

Then use these on your Linked IN profile and also within your CV.