Are you making this critical LinkedIn mistake?

Have you ever gotten a request on LinkedIn from someone you didn’t know? Do you know what’s wrong with that? Do you know it’s a mistake that thousands of people make every single day on LinkedIn?

They don’t indicate why they want to connect with you, nor do they personalize the request. Instead, they opt for the default invitation, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

I wrote about this mistake nearly two years ago, Personalize Your LinkedIn Invitations, and here we are in March 2012 and the “madness” (yes, I’m a college basketball fan) continues.

Here are some tips to think about when dealing with LinkedIn invitations:

1. Generally speaking, connect only with people you know, trust, and respect. Anyone can build a massive network of people they don’t know, and those collectors are generally “takers” rather than “givers.” Steer clear of them.