I recently had the occasion to want to remove a connection that I had accepted on LinkedIn. In researching different posts, it seems this is a popular request, so we thought we would show you just how easy it is.
When you first start using LinkedIn, you are entranced with building our network and interacting with others with similar interests. Then you realize that maybe you should be more select, especially when you feel one of the connection requests that came out of the blue now seems to be generating spam or self-serving sales pitches. Or maybe you had connected with the parents of your daughter’s boyfriend – and they broke up 3 years and 5 boyfriends ago. Or maybe you had a falling out with a business partner and would like to sever the tie. Or maybe you just think you’ve taken this 6 degrees of separation thing a bit too far and you won’t connect with Kevin Bacon any closer.
Disconnecting from and removing a connection is as easy as following these four steps:
• Login to your LinkedIn Account
• Select “Contacts” Tab (top toolbar, 3rd tab from the left)
• Select “Connections” (first selection, above “Add Connections”)
• When you select Connections, all of your connections will be listed in alphabetical order. On the far right of the sub tool bar, you will see “Remove Connections”. Select that and a text list of the connections only (no title) will be presented. Simply click on the name or names from which you wish to disconnect and press the Remove Connections button. This is the section of the page that appears:
Remove these connections:
Cancel and go back to Connections.
Note: These connections will not be notified that they have been removed. They will be added to your list of contacts in case you want to reinvite them later.
As the note indicates, the beauty of using this Remove Connections functionality to disconnect is that it is in stealth – your contact will not be informed that you removed them from your connections.
If your removed connection sends you an invitation to connect again, they do receive a very circumspect error message that says something like “This user cannot be invited at this time”. If they contact you directly, you may want to be prepared with an explanation. In all likelihood, unless they actively search their contacts, they will not know you are no longer connected.
If the circumstances that led you to disconnect have changed, you can re-invite them and the connection will be fully restored as if they had never been removed.
The ability to remove connections and disconnect should give you the confidence that the option is there and easy to do.
