How To Use LinkedIn For Job Search And Networking

If Twitter is a cocktail party, and Facebook is dinner party, both can be fun, but can also be noisy and full of drunk people. LinkedIn may just be the place where business happens.

LinkedIn is a social network that allows you to make connections with trusted contacts and essentially create a virtual Rolodex. But it’s much more than that.

In addition to the convenience of finding your important business connections in one place, it offers a host of useful resources for job seekers, sales people who are prospecting, and recruiters who are looking for qualified people to fill jobs. There are too many benefits to enumerate, but it’s not just a social network—it is a database of people and companies that can be searched geographically—and most of what it offers is freely available.

In 2006, LinkedIn was populated with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and business professionals, and required an invitation to join. In spite of its gated approach, its membership grew from five to eight million that year. In 2007 when Facebook opened its doors to everyone and its membership took off, LinkedIn followed its lead, and by the end of the year it had more than 15 million users.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, not everyone joins LinkedIn, but those who do recognize its value. Today LinkedIn has more than 80 million members across 200 countries and seven continents, and continues to grow at the rate of one new member per second.

When I opened my account, I invited a number of business associates to join me. But before I did, I spent time aggregating information, then wrote an introduction, cleaned up my resume and gathered other relevant data to populate my profile. At that time, profile pictures weren’t included, but they are now, and I think it is worthwhile to include a good photo that reflects the image you wish to project.

How To Create An Effective LinkedIn Profile

1) Update your resume — Pay close attention to spelling, grammar and punctuation. Don’t rely only on built-in grammar and spell checking tools, as they don’t necessarily detect context or poorly written prose.

2) Introduce Yourself, including information prospective employers or colleagues would be interested to know.

Your LinkedIn page is like an agent who promotes your image to others when you aren’t there to do it yourself. Think about the kinds of experiences you have that sets you apart from others who offer the same goods or services, and make your case.

3) Identify your affiliations with professional organizations and groups.

For example, if you and a prospective employer are connected via an alumni group, that could be a point of connectivity. But LinkedIn is not Foursquare, and there isn’t a competition for the number of “badges” you display. Adding affiliations needs to be done sensibly.

4) If you feel you can contribute substantively, answer questions as an expert in your field.

Members can pose questions, and you can enhance your reputation if you can answer, conceivably positioning yourself as a “go-to” person in a particular discipline.

5) Take time to consider and make note of your achievements and honors.

Don’t feel as though you are taking advantage of this opportunity to boast and brag. You have accomplished a lot and deserve to stand out from the crowd for it. You earned it. You deserve it.

It’s not about what you did as much as the impact of your contribution.

6) Participating in your community as a volunteer demonstrates teamwork and good citizenship — attributes that are important to many employers and very often mirror their values. If you have contributed through volunteering, say so.

Whom Should You Connect With?

Connect to real-life current and former colleagues, associates and employers. They know you and will accept your connection request.

And finally, identify people who can recommend you.

You can ask a former boss or colleague if they will write a recommendation for you. You should ask only people who have direct knowledge of your work.

If someone takes the time to help you—I can’t stress this enough—you MUST thank them—preferably with a handwritten note. Why do that instead of sending an email? Because few people do it and it makes you stand out. I’m often amazed at how people fail to formally express thanks when someone goes out of their way to do something for them.

LinkedIn has led to my receiving unsolicited job offers, which illustrates what it can do for people, even passively. It provides options to link to your Twitter feed and to post status updates, and recently partnered with Behance to link visual work samples to user profiles. But for the most part, you will find only salient information on LinkedIn. Unlike an individual web site which must specifically be sought out, when a person is searching LinkedIn, they are already in the mode to find you.

An investment of time on your LinkedIn profile can be beneficial on a number of levels. And beside the strictly business end of things, there can be a social aspect of joining groups where others share your interests or expertise.

As LinkedIn has evolved and innovated, one thing hasn’t changed: IT WORKS.