When you invite a potential connection and haven’t heard from them in a while it’s important to cut your losses and remove the connection. Having too many pending requests can harm your account, so here is a simple guide to help you clear those connections.
Why is clearing your pending connection requests important?
When you have too many pending requests LinkedIn will see that you’re trying to connect with people you may not know. To avoid potential spammers they will limit how many people you can connect to easily by asking for an email address to send the connection each time. Severely limiting your reach. It can also hinder the performance of your account as LinkedIn is less likely to organically promote your content or account if your account is seen as malicious.
You should clear out your pending requests after 2 days of inactivity. If the member hasn’t accepted your request within 2 days you know they either don’t want to accept your request or aren’t active on the site. Either way, they will not make a valuable connection.
How to clear your pending connections
I will break down the clearing into a few simple steps:
First head over to your “My Network” section. The icon is next to the home button, which looks like two people. The top bar will tell you your pending invitations from other LinkedIn users, but this is also a quick way to access your requests. Click onto Manage. The tab will automatically be on received, instead, click onto Sent. You will see you pending requests in this tab. Next to each user will be the option to Withdraw. You will be greeted with the message “ If you withdraw now, you won’t be able to resend to this person for up to 3 weeks.” click onto Withdraw again and the request will be removed.
Broken down into 5 simple clicks:
- My Network
- Manage
- Sent
- Withdraw
- Withdraw
Remember you are more likely to have your connection request accepted if the user has engaged with you previously or you have written a personal message on your invitation. Sending random requests to potential customers will mean you’ll waste a lot of time withdrawing old requests.
If you want more people to accept your requests you need to find a better approach. LinkedIn training helps you understand the social selling process and allows you to understand how your prospects think and act on the platform. This allows you to target people better and have your requests accepted.
