“I don’t have time to mess with Linkedin.com. I’m a busy person and I just don’t see any merit in it.”
My friends, you need to take advantage of the powerful tools that Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter provide. Determine what you want to gain from the experience and how much time you will devote to the endeavor. Minimally, you need to learn to use one of these social networks. Let’s consider Linkedin.
Advantages
- Job security is very low, even if you are an entrepreneur or have 20 years of experience with one company. The economy is improving, which increases the chances you will want to use social media in different ways. Whether it’s to hire or find a new opportunity for yourself, you owe it to yourself to learn about social networks.
- Linkedin is very useful for research. For example, you may want to know if a friendly competitor is paying relocation in a lump sum or reimbursing expenses. By posing a question on a Linkedin group, you will have responses quickly. Or find your colleagues online and contact them by phone, thereby maintaining an ongoing relationship for your next process improvement project.
- Finding top talent is enormously successful through social media. You can post jobs on Linkedin.com with reasonable cost but better yet, you can find someone with the skills you need without even posting. For instance, you may want an individual with analog, power management and design experience for your Dallas location. Linkedin.com is a living database of people in other companies with those skills. Identify the person, find his or her company phone number and call the individual. This person may not be interested but can refer you to others.
Social networking is not like Monster, CareerBuilder, Yahoo/hotjobs or Dice. Profiles on Linkedin.com are both active and passive candidates. People who post their profiles on Linkedin.com are not necessarily looking for jobs.
You should pose and respond to questions to keep your reputation visible and vibrant. Join relevant groups like your alum group or the Telecom Executives Business Network. If you are in the semiconductor world and search for a group to join on Linkedin.com, you will find 95 groups available. You can contact anyone in the group directly without email addresses.
Disadvantages
- You will need to learn the technology.
- You might become addicted to it.
- You don’t have the time to call or write to your mother, let alone play with social networking tools, such as Linkedin.
Without at doubt someone will arrive on a white horse with a newer, better, quicker way to improve social networking capabilities. Room here prevents delving into the merits of the other two social networks mentioned, but currently Linkedin is the best for connecting business professionals.
I strongly recommend you take two hours to play with Linkedin to understand the power of connecting with others online. Or take a short class, online or in person. Not only will it enhance your professional reputation, but you will enjoy connecting with your colleagues. Be sure you include enough information on your profile that others can find you. You want to be found as well as you finding others.
Send me a request to connect on Linkedin.com. I’m online daily for my recruiting efforts.
I am speaking at the Dallas IEEE meeting tonight at the Holiday Inn Select in Richardson, TX., starting at 6:15 p.m. The topic will be updating your resume or avoiding the $10,000 resume. Click here to register.
To read my articles for those in career transition, click here.