April 2, 2008Ask Meryl ~ To recommend or not to recommend?

Filed under: Ask Meryl by merylrunion |

Meryl:
How would you turn down a request for writing a recommendation or an endorsement without hurting someone’s feelings? What words would you choose?

A colleague asked me to write an endorsement for him.He is an energetic person brimming with ideas and absolutely fun to “hang out” with, but his ideas aren’t practical, he doesn’t always follow through and he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does.

Yet he is valuable to our team for his ideas, optimism and personality. I would feel dishonest if I made an endorsement and yet if I turned down his request, potentially hurt our relationship.

Please help! Thank you in advance.

Meryl responds:
Tough one! It’s unlikely you can do it without hurting his feelings, but you can do it as gently as possible. And I applaud you for refusing. I’ve hired people I wish people would have warned me about.

I had to do this with someone who gave me her book and asked me to write an Amazon review. I didn’t like the book. I know she was offended when I told her I couldn’t recommend it. In this case I found someone else who did like the book, and that woman wrote a glorious review. That helped. But there’s a culture where everyone to writes great reviews even if they don’t like something, so that makes someone who won’t do that seem stuffy.

Say something like,

(Name) I would love to help you, and I think you’re fabulous, but I do have some concerns that I think a potential employer would want to know about. I can play up your strengths, but I would also feel bound by integrity to mention some of your weaker areas. You might be better off asking someone else for the review.

Readers?