This land is your land, my LinkedIn is my land

As an HR and Recruiting professional I often get solicited for connection on LinkedIn by people I do not know, I’ve never met, and probably never will. These people are job seekers, recruiting agencies, and people who want to reach that coveted 500+ connection mark. I often feel envious of people like my Scientist fiend who won’t connect unless they have actually worked together, and this includes people at our 300 person job site. If he can’t comment on your work, he won’t connect. I long for a clear cutoff of the personal from the business network. Sure I use LinkedIn to recruit, but this is my personal network as well. And I don’t personally know all of my connections. That person who I went to high school with, I’ll never be able to comment on her work ethic.

A few months back I had 57 people waiting for a response to their connection request. So now it comes down to this:

• If I can comment on your work performance, you’re in;
• If you’re an acquaintance from high school or college and we’ve never worked together, that’s what Facebook is for;
• If you’re an agency recruiter, maybe, but if we don’t do business together in the next six months, don’t be surprised if we’re not connected anymore; and
• If you are a candidate that wants a job, maybe, and again the six month rule.

This system might seem callous, but it’s the only way I’ve found to save some sense of personal professional pride in my LinkedIn network and still manage to keep a broad enough network for networking. Sure, I’m probably not going to disconnect with my sister, although I do have a thing or two to say about her…I have to draw some lines somewhere and this is the best I’ve come up with.