If you’re a business or professional person and not using LinkedIn, you’re behind the curve. Seventy million business networkers must be on to something. LinkedIn is the 800-pound gorilla of business networking sites and an essential tool for job seekers in particular. According to the LinkedIn Web site, a new user joins the site every second, and it’s easy to see why. LinkedIn is a free billboard for businesspeople. It showcases not only your name, photo, and professional credentials but also your colleagues’ recommendations, your brilliant thinking (by way of a PowerPoint presentation or white paper attached to your profile), and your excellent roster of connections.
The way to begin your career on LinkedIn is to build a sharp profile. Jump over to LinkedIn.com to create a login and password and begin to fill out your profile. LinkedIn helps you in your profile-building project by providing a handy thermometer-type tool that tells you how complete your profile is.(Until your profile looks fairly complete, resist the temptation to start inviting your friends to join you on LinkedIn.) Push on until you’ve reached at least the 70-percent mark. If you have a little more energy, use the Applications at the bottom of the profile-editing page to add a PowerPoint deck, your full-text resume in Word format, an article you wrote, your own blog, or other content to your profile. Last, create a personalized LinkedIn URL for yourself, like this: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/yourname, and use that URL on your resume, job-search business cards, and job-search-related correspondence. Now rest and give yourself a pat on the back. You’ve arrived on the business-networking scene.
Of course, launching a LinkedIn profile is only the first step. LinkedIn offers tons more in the way of friendly functionality for your job search. Not sure how to leverage LinkedIn in your job search?…