If I haven’t worked with you professionally, don’t ask me to rate you professionally.

Simple, right?

MyBizCard.co, a self-described “world’s first online business card with ratings & reviews from your peers that shows how awesome you are,” may make this rating system a little too simple. You use LinkedIn to send a message like this to your connections: “I’d like to request 10 seconds of your time to leave me a quick rating here: <MyBizCard link>.”

The click-through contains this:

“Thank you for responding to my rating request.
Please rate my professional skills below. Your rating will be shown on my virtual business card.”

All fairly innocuous. The trouble was, of course, that I had never worked with the sender professionally.

Now, MyBizCard may not give the sender a choice as to who to send this message; I received it as one of a small group of other names that start with the letter “B.” Unfortunately, that alone made me think this request was more generic than having any real value.

The fall-out to this type of blind request is it makes me think that I don’t want to work with this person. If the sender overlooks a detail like this, what else will he or she overlook?

At the very least, I don’t see the value in remaining connected with someone who doesn’t know or care about this kind of thing.

I’m all for using LinkedIn to expand your network with people you don’t know in person nor worked with professionally. Just take a moment to look at the messages you’re sending. They may be saying more than you realize.

Click here for tips on how to ask for a recommendation.

What’s been your experience with MyBizCard or other “rate my work!” requests?

Photo found here.