As of December 2010, LinkedIn had ninety million members and is adding new members every day. LinkedIn is a social media site designed to share your professional information. Much like a traditional résumé, the standard profile includes sections for a summary, education, experience, and additional information. You can also upload a picture, as well as attach presentations and your blogs and websites to your profile.
The social, interactive component of LinkedIn is your ability to connect to people and to see their connections (or people who have connected to them). You can reach out to these secondary connections by asking for an introduction from someone with whom you are already connected. In fact, you can reach out to connections of connections through the introduction process, so you have access to not just your circle but two circles removed from you. This greatly expands your network.
Another interactive component is the Groups function. LinkedIn has Groups based on a mutual interest or other commonality, such as university affiliation, professional goal, or geography. Anyone with a LinkedIn profile can create and run a Group, so you could use LinkedIn to create an online community for your specific interest or goal.
The following is a cursory overview of LinkedIn’s basic features, but you can see that having a LinkedIn profile can add tremendous advantages to your job search:
- You can upload your résumé details online and be able to point people to your LinkedIn hyperlink rather than an attached document. This is very useful when requesting informational interviews where you want the person to have your extended background, but you don’t want to be presumptuous and attach a résumé.
- You can share additional information that would be cumbersome on a traditional résumé.
- You can network with ninety million members regardless of where you are physically based.
- You can use the connections feature to keep track of your network and to meet new people, thereby facilitating your job search through networking.
- You can use the Groups function to meet people with similar interests and goals, such as people in your target industry, function, or geography.
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