I Love LinkedIn!

Don’t ask me why, but until recently I hadn’t given much effort to my LinkedIn profile – of course I had one, but it really only had the mininum like name, website and telephone number!  Since putting some time and effort into my profile I have reconnected from people I have worked with or had business dealings with in the past and I absolutely love it as a way of effortless networking.

If you’ve not looked at it, LinkedIn.com is a professional networking site where people showcase their work histories, skills and achievements. It’s not difficult to use—if you can type your resume in Word or fill in an online form, then you are good to go for using LinkedIn. Businesses routinely use this site to look over someone’s credentials if they are considering them for a contract or employment. Once you have joined make links to others you know professionally, and take the opportunity to have past and present clients or colleagues write you a recommendation or write one for them.

Companies also habitually advertise positions and contracts here, making it an ideal site for coming across work opportunities. I have one consultant friend who routinely makes a LinkedIn connection to every person he meets both in a personal and professional capacity and now has a network of 500 people—making their connections available to him if he wants to leverage an introduction.

1. Type www.LinkedIn.com into your browser.
2. Click on Join Today and follow the prompts to set-up a username and account.
3. Load up details on your current employer and previous employers (listing previous employers makes it easy for people you have worked with previously to find and link to you). Look through the available groups you may like to join, for example I went to Deakin University, so I have joined the Deakin Alumini.
4.  Thereafter you will only need to Login to view your profile and contacts.

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