How to Remove a LinkedIn Connection

So, you’re glancing through your LinkedIn notifications to see who has sent you an invitation to connect and you accidentally hit the button to accept rather than decline the invitation. Or, you’re cleaning up your LinkedIn network and see a couple people you know longer want to be connected to. You may begin to wonder…

• How do I remove the person from my LinkedIn network?
• Do they get notified that I removed them from my LinkedIn network?

How to remove a LinkedIn Connection:

No matter your reason for wanting to remove a LinkedIn connection from your network, the steps to do so are quite easy.

1. Click on the Connections tab in the header
2. Either Search within or Sort your connections to find the profile you are looking to remove.
3. Hover over the More link, then click on Remove Connection

Here’s a quick video to show you the steps to remove a LinkedIn Connection.

The person you remove from your network will not receive any notice that you removed them. The same is true for invitations that you choose to ignore. The person may notice that you never connected or may realize that you are no longer connected, but rarely is this an issue.

Why would you want to remove a LinkedIn Connection?

I recommend that people keep close tabs on their LinkedIn network. After all, others can see who you are connected to and may ask you for a recommendation or introduction to them. You don’t want to have to say, “Well, I really don’t know him/her. I just connected with him/her on LinkedIn because they asked.”

Here are a few other reasons we’ve found to remove a LinkedIn connection:

• Something has changed in your working relationship and you no longer feel comfortable recommending the person.
• You’ve tried to reach out to the connection for professional reasons and you’ve gotten no response from them.
• You no longer remember how you met the connection or why you connected in the first place.
• The person invites anyone and everyone to join their network so they aren’t able to make relevant introductions between members of their network.
• The person spams your inbox with solicitations or irrelevant content.
• The person has strong views on controversial topics that you’d prefer not to be associated with professionally.
• The person has become a competitor of yours.

A few things to keep in mind as you are cleaning up your network:

• If you remove a connection that has given you endorsements or recommendations, those will also be removed.
• If you reconnect with someone who had given you an endorsement or recommendation, the endorsement or recommendation will not be restored.
• Only the person removing the connection can initiate the reconnection.

Still can’t decide if you should remove a LinkedIn connection?

If in doubt whether to remove a connection of not, I suggest you consider whether you’d be comfortable sitting down to a cup of coffee with the person. If you’re not willing to invest a little time getting to know him/her better there’s not much chance of true networking taking place.