internet

LinkedIn

It's social networking but taken to a new level.  So, if you've outgrown the Facebook generation and got a first foot on the employment ladder, maybe it's time you looked at that next all-important career move!

LinkedIn began in 2003 with the idea to use social networking as a way of making contacts and networking for professional adults.  The idea simply is to create a list of your professional contacts and friends with the sole purpose of networking for career advancement.

Now, you know as well as I do, that the best jobs always seem to go by word of mouth or to a 'friend of a friend' so getting yourself noticed is of paramount important.  In the past this has meant a long round of careful and expensive socialising and slowly building up a network of the best and most useful people to make sure that, when a job does becomes vacant, your name is at the fore.

It's exactly the same with LinkedIn but the whole process just got a thousand times easier!  Of course, there are other sites that promise this (and sometimes more) so does LinkedIn deliver?  After all, you could almost make a career out of joining social networking sites!

According to the Wikipedia at present LinkedIn has around 20 million registered members

According to the Wikipedia at present LinkedIn has around 20 million registered members in some 150 industries.  Of course, that is worldwide and this country only occupies a small part.

However, ask most people who you regard as 'on the way up' or who are in a profession if they have a LinkedIn page, and you will probably get an affirmative answer.  So what are the benefits of joining?

LinkedIn is strong on the 'networking' and deliberately weak on the 'social' side, seeing itself, not as a place to post silly pictures or poke fun at people, but somewhere to focus on work and career advancement.

It's all a case of getting in, talking to people, noting what they say and keeping in touch.  Most business people will find colleagues or business contacts there already, so socialising is easy, even for those who find this aspect hard.

Using social networking sites to promote yourself and help you make the right career choice is something that is already very relevant and will become more so as time goes on.  If you're not sure, think who you'd rather employ - someone answering a newspaper ad or someone who's a friend of one of your own contacts?

If you want to network for business rather than pleasure then give LinkedIn a look and also read this earlier article we wrote on Xing which does something similar but is more European based.

Tags: networking