LinkedIn is a good way to stay connected with professionals in your field and to help in your hunt for full-time or consulting work should you find yourself unemployed.
Transferring the highlights of your resume to your LinkedIn profile and slapping on an office-appropriate photo is just the tip of the iceberg. Boost the odds that a potential employer using LinkedIn will find you by adding key words that describe what you do to your profile -- for example, "small business taxes," "visual merchandising" or "pharmaceutical sales." And increase your Googleability across the Web by replacing the random number assigned to the end of your Public Profile link with your full name (after the http://www.linkedin.com/).
Fill in the "What are you working on?" field at the top of your profile to let contacts know you're attending a business conference (perhaps one of your online pals is too) or looking for a new position (maybe one of your contacts knows someone who knows someone with an opening). And show off your Web site, blog (if the content is strictly professional) or the latest high-profile article about your company using the Web sites fields (to customize the title, select "Other" from the drop-down menu).
Joining an alumni group (academic or former employer) or an industry-specific group is a great way to rub virtual elbows with folks you already have something in common with. The more specific the group, the better. I'm a member of a catchall group for Seattle-area professionals, and it's basically a classifieds section of 5,000 job seekers and consultants shouting, "Hire me! Hire me!" Not too helpful. The academic alumni group I joined is far more valuable. And since I haven't found a LinkedIn group for Seattle-area freelance writers, I'm thinking of starting one of my own.
I'm a big fan of the Answers tab on LinkedIn. Answer a question posed by the peanut gallery and you just might impress a potential employer or client with your customer service, consumer electronics or guerilla marketing expertise. Ask a question of your contacts or the LinkedIn community at large (the choice is yours) and you just might get the resume makeover or salary negotiation tip of the century. Since nobody likes an infomercial, be sure you're helping others as much as you're helping and promoting yourself in the Answers forum. Don't be a mooch.
Do you have more information about this topic? If so, please click here to contact the editors of ABC News.
Quotes delayed 15 minutes for NASDAQ. 20 minutes for NYSE and AMEX. Market Data provided by Interactive Data. Terms & Conditions.
Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions
