Create More Value With LinkedIn
September 14, 2007 by Darlene McDaniel
Filed under Jobs
Part 9 Of My Series About LinkedIn
Guy Kawasaki has a great blog called How To Change Your World. Back in January 2007 he wrote a post called Ten Ways To Use LinkedIn.
Here are his 10 Ways Plus 1:
1. Increase Your Visibility
2. Improve Your Connectivity
3. Improve Your Google PageRank
4. Enhance Your Search Engine Results
5. Perform Blind, “Reverse” and Company Reference Checks
6. Increase the Relevancy of your Job Search
7. Make Your Interview Go Smoother
8. Gauge the Health of a Company
9. Gauge the Health of an Industry
10. Track Startups
11. Ask for Advice
I am definitely a believer in the value you can have by getting connected to LinkedIn. For those of you in the market for a new job or career change, LinkedIn can help you connect to a lot of people very quickly. What you do with the connections is up to you. You can admire the number or you can roll up your sleeves and dig in and start connecting with people. Reach out and meet people and network your way into your next job.
Jobseekers who need a boost in their job search, I believe LinkedIn is a great option to have in your arsenal when navigating the job market. Why?
LinkedIn does increase your visibility with people that you may otherwise not have the opportunity to meet informally. The one item on Guy Kawasaki’s list that interest me the most is number 7 – Make Your Interview Smoother. Here’s how I see it -
By being LinkedIn, you can invest some of your preparation time, finding out about the organization from people who are currently employed and from people who were previously employed. What a great wealth of information you can glean from them if you ask the right questions. If the hiring manager is LinkedIn, you can find their profile, and learn a lot about them. Not necessarily to speak to in the actual meeting, thought it may come in handy. But it should give you some insight into their experience, where they have been and what interest them. The other thing I like about LinkedIn, LinkedIn Answers. Find the hiring manager. See if they have answered some questions. If so, study what they have said. What can you glean from what has been shared through their answers.
Prior to LinkedIn very little information was known about a hiring manager other than their name and their bio which was only available on rare occassions. LinkedIn gives you much more information and insight about people. Use it to your advantage. Use it to help build rapport. Reach out to others and learn from their experience.
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The inspiration of this series of posts this month comes from Jason Alba’s new book, I’m On LinkedIn, Now What???
YOU are the key ingredient to creating value for yourself on LinkedIn. Jump in!
For what it’s worth, I used to love LinkedIn but now I am finding that other networking sites (like http://www.octopuscity.com or facebook) give you more of an ability to really connect and interact with people, rather than just “have connections”.
Hi Nicole,
Thank you for stopping by Interview Chatter. I appreciate your recommendation. I would love to hear more specifics about Octopuscity.com. What are the significant differences between Octopus City and LinkedIn? How has it helped you? What is the difference between Facebook and Octopus City? I look forward to hearing from you again!
Hi Darlene, I think the major difference between OCity and LinkedIn is that with L.I the goal is to accumulate recommendations or connections but with OCity it’s more of a jumping off point to communicating, doing automatic address updates, chatting, etc. Also difference with both Facebook and L.I is that OCity has a contact management feature built-in, which I like. In terms of social networking though it’s more similar to Facebook but with a more business orientation.