The LinkedIn Reminder You Need that Doesn't Exist

Does someone else's success leave you feeling a little slighted? Yesterday a friend was telling me about an experience you may find familiar.

• She receives a call from a recruitment firm saying she was listed as reference for a former employee.
• She didn't know she had been listed as a reference, but gave a glowing review of the former employee anyways.
• When she asked the former colleague about it, they had said that they were grateful and explained they had not had a chance to let her know about the reference listing as they were incredibly busy.

Now that is it's own mistake, but the next event is the real kicker.

• My friend had received a LinkedIn notification to congratulate the former employee on their new job.
• However, she had not received a thank you from them before the job update went up and felt slighted by the whole situation.

I love seeing LinkedIn's growth and evolution over the years, especially in helping people maintain an active and professional presence online. They provide prompts and reminders to complete your profile, connect with colleagues and interact with your industry.

However, a small prompt that would go a long way is the "thank you" reminder. I propose that LinkedIn add a pop-up reminder anytime someone is about to add a new job or position at their current company which reminds them to that they may want to thank some people before posting the news. It might look like this:

"HOLD UP! We're excited you're coming up in the world, but before posting this change we wanted to remind you to pick up the phone, write a note, send a Snapchat if that's your thing, to the people who helped make this possible. Even if they gave just a little of their time, they gave you something and you may even come to rely on them again in the future. Be a mensch and let them know first. We'll be ready to complete your update once you're done."

OK, so the reminder may be something a little more brief, but you get the idea. I would love to see LinkedIn implement something like this as another step in improving peoples' professionalism.

Have you had this experience before? Do you feel professionals are forgetting their manners these days?

For those who need this explained as a meme, I present "Good Guy Greg - The LinkedIn User"