LinkedIn: Make it work for you

Literally, I get worked up when I get a pop up e-mail from another social media aside the ones I am patronizing. My head goes Blrrrhhh! ‘Why can’t this people leave me alone?’ I see them as a limitless form of asking for personal details.

I must say that LinkedIn is worth the try, if you are considering taking your career to the next level and building meaningful contacts. But wait a minute! I have not been paid to advertise or assigned freebies to do a review, so perch before you land on me. In simple terms, I would say it’s amazing because of the kind of people you meet on this network. But as beautiful as this may sound, there are locks around the corner that you have to be aware of and many don’ts around this powerful network. LinkedIn would not permit you to add people you don’t know directly to your profile and I think that is a great feature of LinkedIn.

So! Cutting around the corners to do real business, you ask, ‘How do you use LinkedIn to your advantage?’

·         Optimize your profile by not only filling the required information, but by also using important keywords that could drive traffic through search engine. LinkedIn however meets you midway by recommending people to connect with you from past jobs, educational institutions and activities.

·         Use a eye catching professional photo, definitely not something erotic.

·         Revise your headline. Mine says, ‘Doctoral Researcher at ...University’. Yours could be healthcare professional or CEO Jeff banks

·         Concretize your career summary using an effective elevator pitch and update this regularly. As you grow, your profile should grow, don’t you think?

·         Make your profile accessible to the public. Except for confidential job roles, why have a profile, only you can access?

·         Create a profile URL to make it easy for others to find you. It is also presentable on a business card

·         Bulletize your key industrial experiences and specify your areas of specialization

·         Engage others by making use of status updates and get people to know about your progress and update. Recommend and endorse people you know and they might return the same favour.

·         Join discussion groups and related professional networks to be ahead and to participate in active discussions. Don’t be too afraid to back out, if they are not meaningful.

·         Finally, don’t be too afraid to ask for guidance and regularly visit other senior profiles to be inspired or challenged.