XING Help Center

Here you’ll find answers to your questions, and information about XING features. You can also contact the XING Support team if you need any other assistance.

Add new contacts and foster existing ones

  • What exactly are contacts on XING and how do I manage them?
    The sheer number of XING members makes it very likely that you will find many of your business partners, co-workers, customers and service providers from your everyday working life on XING. Try out the "Search" feature and find out which people from your business and friendship circles have already registered on XING.

    You can add other members as contacts. A contact only becomes active once the person you have added confirms this contact. In the same way, somebody may add you as a contact, which you then have to confirm in order to create this contact. These people who are waiting for a contact confirmation from you appear in the "Contacts to confirm" folder in your Contacts page. Contacts can either be confirmed or denied. Their status is "unconfirmed" so long as the contact remains one-sided.

    You can build up an extensive network of contacts in this way, based on the principle that "No two people are more than six levels apart". The contact paths are displayed on the profile of the person you wish to contact. You can see very clearly here, just how many "levels" really separate you from this person.
  • How do I add a contact?
    Initiating contact with somebody you do not know requires a certain amount of tact. We recommend you think carefully about precisely who you wish to contact and who you wish to be introduced to. Make sure you personalize all of your contact requests, referring explicitly to the profile of the person in question, e.g. by mentioning information that they have entered under their “Haves” and “Wants”. This makes your serious interest and professionalism clear, and increases the probability that the respective person will confirm you as a contact.

    When connecting with new contacts you can also decide which contact details you wish to share with this person. All you have to do is check the boxes next to the respective information (e.g. your birthday, business contact details and private contact details). You can also assign tags to your new contact (e.g. private, client, New York, etc.) to make them easier to find.

    You will be notified via email sent to your active notification address once the contact has confirmed your request.
  • How do I manage contacts on XING?
    Networking is not just about bringing contacts together. Managing contacts is also a particularly important aspect of networking. Sending and receiving private messages and introducing contacts are key elements here. It is advisable to regularly review your contacts regarding quality: Has the contact developed as you expected? Is the business relationship perhaps over? Perhaps there are other contacts from the same company who may be of interest to you.
  • How can I delete one of my contacts?
    To do so, just go to "Contacts" in the top navigation menu and select "more" followed by "delete" next to the contact you'd like to delete. Once you've confirmed deletion the member will be deleted from your list of contacts.
  • What happens if I delete a contact?
    If you delete a contact, the connection path will be deleted for both parties involved. In other words, you will no longer appear in their list of contacts, and the deleted contact will no longer be listed under your contacts.
  • What are contacts and contact requests?
    Contacts on XING are members who have added one another as contacts. A contact only becomes active once the person you have added as a contact confirms this contact. In the same way, somebody may add you as a contact, which you then have to confirm in order to create this contact. To add someone as a contact, simply go to their profile and click on the "Add as contact" icon in the top right-hand corner. Please bear the "Wants" and "Haves" of this person in mind and consider sending them a personal message when sending contact requests. The member you send a request to will be notified so they can either accept or deny your contact request.
  • What are "Bookmarked people"?
    You have the option of bookmarking people who you think could be interesting to know but who you would rather not add as a contact straight away. Leave a short note that is only visible to you yourself. You can then find these people under "Bookmarked people".
    http://www.xing.com/app/contact?op=bookmarked
  • How can I invite people to join XING?
    Systematically broaden your network by recommending XING to others! Take advantage of the various methods of inviting people that XING has to offer.
    Revert to one of the written suggestions and send your recommendation by email to one person or several people at once. You can of course formulate your invitation yourself or use your personal invitation link on your homepage and in your email footer. If you are a group moderator you can also invite people to join your group directly!
    To make it even easier for you, XING makes a plugin available to you to search your email addresses. Simply match your addresses from Outlook or Notes with XING and invite people from your address book.
    http://www.xing.com/app/invite
  • How is the address book search carried out?
    You can use the Address Book Comparison to compare those in your XING network with other online address books. Find out which of your coworkers, business partners, acquaintances and friends are already on XING. There are several ways to compare:

    • Import contact data from your Outlook, Lotus Notes or Mozilla address book
    • Import contact data from the address book of your email service (Yahoo! or Gmail)
    • Import contact data from a text file (CSV)
    • Use the XING Plugin

    XING guarantees that the data in your address books will only be saved to carry out a single scan and will be deleted immediately afterwards. XING always uses the most recent, recognized data protection and encryption technologies to protect your personal information.
  • How can I invite people from my address book to join XING?
    There are several different ways to do that:
    • Address books in your PC or Mac (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Entourage, Lotus Notes, etc.)
    • Webmail contacts (e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, GMX or web.de)
    • Facebook friends or Twitter followers
  • How can I add someone as a contact?
    Simply go to their profile and click on the "Add as contact" icon in the top right-hand corner. Please bear the "Wants" and "Haves" of this person in mind and consider sending them a personal message when sending contact requests. The member you send a request to will be notified so they can either accept or deny your contact request.
  • What are 2nd level contacts?
    2nd level contacts are the immediate contacts of your contacts.
  • Why do my contacts disappear?
    There are two reasons why your contacts might disappear from your profile:
    1. This person has deleted your contact and was thus also deleted from your list of contacts.
    2. This person is no longer a member of XING.
  • How does the tagging feature work?
    Start by clicking on "Home -> Contacts" to go to your contact list. There you need to click on the expanded view which is the symbol on the right in the contact list header after the word "Show:" You can now assign as many new keywords/tags to your direct, confirmed contacts as you wish by clicking on the plus symbol next to the word tags.

    If you already created tags, they will be displayed to you as an option. You can of course choose to assign new keywords/tags.

    Tags can be completely renamed or deleted by clicking on "Edit" next to the "Tags" header in the column on the right. Just click on the "x" next to the tag you want to delete, confirm deletion, and you're done. To rename a tag, click on it, make your changes, then confirm it.
  • Why can I confirm a contact request in the notification email, without logging in?
    Every time you receive an email notification from XING saying that you have a new contact request, you can easily accept that contact request without logging into XING. In order to prevent unauthorized use of your XING account by other people, we have made that confirmation page only available via the link that's sent to your private email. All other actions on XING require that you log in. Should you still be concerned about the safety of these settings, you can deactivate them at any time. You'll find a link to your privacy settings in the notification email under the contact confirmation link.
  • I received a contact request by email, but I can't find it on XING.
    If you click on "Contacts" followed by "Contact requests" on the XING homepage, you can switch between "Received requests" and "Sent requests". If you select "Received requests" but can't see any there, the member has probably retracted his request or even deleted his XING profile.

    Please understand that we have no influence over this and the decision was taken solely by the member in question. Even if this person moved the unconfirmed contact request to "Bookmarked people", you will no longer be able to see this request.

    You will not be automatically informed about contact request retractions unless the person who sent the request wants you to know about it. You are of course free to contact that person by clicking on the link in the email notification. You'll then be automatically redirected to a page where you can send a contact request to that person.
  • Where can I view my unconfirmed contact requests?
    To view a list of sent and unconfirmed contact requests, go to "Home > Contacts" and click on the "Contact requests" tab. In the top right next to "Show:" you can select various options from the dropdown menu. Here you need to select "Sent requests".