When some sends you an invitation to connect on LinkedIn without personalising their message, it’s very good practice to write back and start a conversation. However with the new 2017 updates on LinkedIn, things are a little different.

Here is a quick step by step to show you how to reply to an invitation on LinkedIn without accepting:

1. Go to ‘My Network’. Do NOT click ‘Accept’ from the list that appears.
2. Click ‘Manage All’ in the top right corner of the ‘Received Invitations’ box
3. In this screen you will see ‘Message’ in blue at the bottom of the invitation, click here to message BEFORE accepting. 
4. After sending your message accept the invitation

From the graphic provided you will see two variations of this. 

In the first screen you will notice that I have the ability to ‘Reply’ to Donna before accepting her invitation. This does not appear for Jim’s invite. This is because he did not personalise his message before sending, where as Donna did. However in the second screen, after clicking ‘Manage All’ you will now see that I can message him back.  

It’s a really good idea to come up with a template response message so you can quickly say something to this person before they disappear into your list of connections. 

If you have any questions about how to use LinkedIn then please send me an email Naomi@TheProfile.Company and I’ll do my best to answer quickly. 

Thank you to Louisa Newport of Avenue Business Services for this question.