To accept or reject Invitations from sites like LinkedIn and Facebook can be a rather stressful decision dependent on whom the invitation is coming from. It seems we face invitations from school and university days, from former colleagues, bosses, others who share similar interests, those wanting to hire us and many more. However many of us face the dilemma of who to accept and who to reject. Particularly where there is not a clear reason for the invitation or any particular benefit for us in accepting it, other than increasing our tally of connections.
Some of us reluctantly accept every invitation we get for fear or offending, whilst others confidently reject those they deem of little benefit. The majority of us chose to ignore invitations from those that we cannot seem to categorize as a recognized connection or a connection that we can quickly ascertain to bring benefit to us at some point in time.
Most of us like to deal in fact and prefer to know where we stand. We are grown up and are able to handle a no or a yes response. As such, as a professional it is suggested that you either confirm or decline an invitation rather than sitting on the fence. When sending invitations to connect with those that may be distantly connected to you or that you are approaching cold, it is always advisable to connect with a purpose, stating this up front. It then gives the person you are inviting to connect with you a clear understanding of the purpose of your invitation so that they can reasonably make a decision about the value of this connection. It is also more likely to result in a more qualified connection and thus beneficial connection being made.
It seems that our good friends at Facebook have come up with a new way of “Rejecting Friends Without Looking Like A Jerk“. With its new feature you will be able to click to ignore a request, with the person who request you not being notified about it. “Likewise, if you accept someone as a friend, but then later un-friend them, they will not be notified (though they will no longer be able to see your information, nor will you be able to see theirs). “ So chances are they will figure it out pretty quickly! Facebook recommends ignoring requests, however as highlighted above I don’t believe that this is the best approach. The writer of this post, makes a good suggestion in you can maybe accept all requests yet give different access levels to different people via the filtering tools. Certainly this seems like a sensible option. Ultimately though, it’s a personal decision to accept or reject or simply ignore!
Share your thoughts and experiences on the subject here.
4 Comments
Kelly,
One should be free to actively OR passively reject a connection as appropriate, and it is the recipient of the request that gets to deem what is appropriate.
In this issue, I greatly prefer Facebook’s “Ignore” feature vs LinkedIn’s controversial “I Don’t Know (IDK)” feature. Of all the social/professional networks, only LinkedIn penalizes someone for an unsuccessful attempt at making a networking connection, which is absolutely silly.
Accept, Reject or Ignore — having all three options is definitely the best, especially if there are no penalties associated with any of the options.
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I don’t mind when people reject my social network invitation. Some people like the LION group see the power of larger networks, others are more private.
I feel I am on the net to network, so I accept every body as my contact
I believe in keeping all channels of communication open. The world of networking is a very small one, I am always amazed at the amount of people I loose touch with and “re-discover” through colleagues at work, or business trips etc.
I am with having different access levels depending on the level of interaction I have with that person. One never knows when an opportunity arises from acquaintences. It’s about being in the right place at the right time or the more up to date version of spotting the right post at the right time.