It’s not just employers who are using LinkedIn to research candidates for employment. In some cases, even before you are selected for an interview a recruiter or hiring manager will check you out on LinkedIn to see what you've accomplished, who you are connected to, and who is recommending you. Guess who else is checking your recommendations? Potential strategic partners and other types of prospects.

This means that recommendations are a vital component of an effective LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn recommendations beat the heck out of old-fashioned reference letters because your LinkedIn recommendation lives on forever online, right on your LinkedIn profile. Even better, your recommendation lives on the recommender’s profile too.

Someone who’s checking out your profile can easily jump from a recommendation someone wrote for you right to the recommender’s own profile, and see for themselves how credible that person is.

See how superior LinkedIn recommendations attract genuine opportunities in this installment of the series on How to Make LinkedIn an Amazing Attraction Magnet, which guides you through best practices for writing, giving and receiving recommendations. Welcome to How to Magnetize Your LinkedIn Recommendations for Attraction.