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| Networking is a full-time job |
If you are a professional at any level and you’re not on LinkedIn, you’re missing out on all sorts of opportunity. There are different levels of participating on this social network but at a minimum you have to make yourself available.
The most valuable feature of LinkedIn is the fact that it creates a platform where opportunities can come directly to you, not through a headhunter where you won’t find out the company right away and you may not gel with the recruiter. If you don’t take advantage of LinkedIn, the perfect company you never knew existed could be looking for your exact background and skillset. And you miss the chance. Why? Because you decided you didn’t have enough time to fill out your profile yet you still find plenty of time for watching Honey Boo Boo and Catfish. This is not only the least you can do but it’s the least you SHOULD do.
If you want to take your LinkedIn experience up a notch, you want to take a serious look at the groups. These are the forums where like-minded professionals congregate to ask questions, answer questions, share news, and engage in overall thoughtful discussion. Consistently contributing to these group discussion is a way to stay on top of industry trends and establish credibility with new business contacts, which may be customers, partners, employers, or recruiters. So what’s the benefit of that? Demonstrating knowledge in this forum can also lead to your next job. Imagine this:
You want to work at Dream Company but you don’t know anyone that works there that can help get you in the door. You log onto LinkedIn and search for people that work at Dream Company and find a Finance Manager. After taking a look at the Finance Manager’s profile you see this person belongs to a group called Dream Industry that you haven’t joined yet but you rectify that immediately.
After a few weeks of driving discussions engaging many people and providing valuable insights in response to questions from others, the Finance Manager engages on one of your discussion topics and you exchange a few comments back and forth, which leads to you connecting on LinkedIn, which leads to you asking a few questions about opportunities at Dream Company. Questions get answered, you apply, get hired, and live happily ever after- all thanks to being an active member of the LinkedIn community and more specifically the Dream Industry group within LinkedIn.
This is the future of recruiting.
According to this article, 93% of recruiters use LinkedIn to identify candidates for their respective companies.
Here’s another article talking about LinkedIn as the first “point of entry” for candidates and several other reasons why you need to have a presence there.
Building/maintaining relationships and staying in touch with all of these new contacts requires a significant time commitment but what better place to invest your time than in your career? Don’t let Honey Boo Boo distract you from your big break…
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