How to Send Requests to Nonmembers of LinkedIn

Only members of LinkedIn can be part of your network. If you want to send a Connection Request to someone who has not yet joined LinkedIn, you must invite that person to create a LinkedIn account first.

You can either send your invitee an e-mail directly, asking him or her to join, or you can use a LinkedIn function that generates the e-mail Invitation that includes a link to join LinkedIn. Either way, you need to have the nonmember’s e-mail address, and you’ll probably have to provide your invitee with some incentive by offering reasons to take advantage of LinkedIn and create an account.

When you’re ready to send your request using LinkedIn, just follow these steps.

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Click the green Add Connections button.

The Add Connections window appears.

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Fill in the names and e-mail addresses of the people you want to invite to LinkedIn in the boxes.

You can invite up to six people at a time. Once you are done inputting the names and addresses you can click Send and LinkedIn will send a standard invitation to your friends. You can also edit the text and send a more personal invitation if you like.

Click the link Edit/Preview Invitation Text link.

A preview pane within the same page opens.

Write a custom Invitation in the text box provided.

You’ll send this Invitation to everyone on your list.

Click the blue Send Invitation button.

You’re returned to the Add Connections page, where you see a green confirmation message on the screen. From here, you can invite additional people to your network.