A Bit About LinkedIn

LinkedIn is basically a professional networking website. You can choose to connect as a business, student, or professional and create a profile for others to browse and contact you. I would say that the site is mostly used by professionals (or those seeking jobs) and recruiters. You can market yourself and your skills in a profile you create, that job recruiters can pull up during their searches. You’re basically infusing your resume into a social media profile.

Features of the site now include options to have conversations, ask and answer questions, and even have informal interviews. You can allow job recruiters to contact you should they come across your profile who think you should apply for a position.

Once you’re signed up, you can add connections (people) to your network. These can be friends, classmates, professional references, family, etc. You also have the option of connecting to groups such as previous employers, schools, alumni, clubs, or you can show your interest in the same groups.

As far as suggestions go for using the site, my first and most important piece of advice to anyone thinking about using LinkedIn, is to make sure to not treat it like any other social media site. Too often you browse around and see unprofessional photos, headlines and summaries on a profile. If someone is signed up in hopes of landing a job position, they more than likely aren’t going to be contacted, because a recruiter is going to pass on all of the above when coming across it.

Another issue with the site that I found out is that you need to have some sort of knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in order to be noticed in searches. Just like those automatic resume programs that search for certain words – profile results are filtered similarly. Having the right keywords in your profile and placing them multiple times (appropriately of course) will give yours a better boost than those who have no idea about how to integrate this SEO practice.

Personally I have not been very fond of this website, but I realize that the day is coming where I will need to invest 100% into making a proper profile. The more I search job boards elsewhere, the more I notice a decline in the amount and quality of jobs available. I have seen many more people and companies flocking to this site over the years. In fact, I was looking for some jobs this last week and saw a couple of places where the only place they wanted you to contact them was on LinkedIn. If companies are being this selective in their hiring process, then a proper profile here is something we should all think about investing quality time into.