Over a few short years, LinkedIn has blossomed into the most powerful professional networking site on the Internet. It gives a range of capabilities to both jobseekers and employed professionals. I've been focusing increasingly on aiding my clients to use it effectively. Often LinkedIn has been one of the factors in turning a sluggish job search into a success. Developing LinkedIn profiles and strategies is part of my Premium and Elite services here at Shimmering Careers. To give you an idea of what LinkedIn can do for you, I'll be writing more about it on this blog and elsewhere. To get started, below are five LinkedIn capabilities for you, whether you have a job or not.
Job Seekers
Finding Jobs: LinkedIn's job postings allow you to directly find a job and, while you are at it, research the person posting it.
Researching Potential Employers:Whether you already have an offer in hand, or are just starting your job search, LinkedIn helps you research companies. You can find out contacts, learn about what people there work on, and even do searches to get a sense of their turnover rates.
Promoting Your Resume: LinkedIn pages tend to enjoy high page rankings on search engines like Google. By setting up and fully populating your profile you will, in essence, be putting your resume out for the world to see.
Displaying Recommendations: In this age of employment lawsuits, it can be hard to get an employer to give you a detailed reference. You can, however, frequently get LinkedIn recommendations from previous employers, colleagues and clients. All of these can help bolster your resume.
Working Your Network: Since many people still get hired through a connection, LinkedIn can be helpful in connecting you to opportunities that are not publicly posted. Use LinkedIn to contact both the people you know and the people that they know to see if there are any opportunities for you.
Employed Professionals: Research competitors. Thanks to its near ubiquity, LinkedIn lets you see who does what at competing companies. Thanks to status updates, SlideShare presentations and the like, you can even see what they are working on.
Research Prospects: Before trying to sell into an organization, LinkedIn can let you know who you need to contact. Finding people has never been easier thanks to its detailed Search functions which let you not only identify the right contact person, but also learn about them.
Leverage Group Knowledge: LinkedIn's "Groups" function lets you align yourself with people in related industries or who share your interests. You can then engage them in online discussion and leverage their expertise.
Maintain your Personal Network: Everyone is more productive when they have a strong network. LinkedIn makes it easier for you to keep in touch with everyone you know.
Make Travel More Productive: Knowing where your connections are lets you leverage business trips to not only do your job, but also reconnect with colleagues.
According to Forbes, only 30 percent of jobs are advertised on the Web or in newspapers. You can uncover the rest of them but it takes a persistent networking strategy to do so.