[Ed. note: This belongs to our series of posts featuring tips for recent grads from LinkedIn users. Bruce Biskin, PhD is a career planning and assessment expert, and senior associate with Delaware Valley Career Solutions. He also co-administers a job/career resource wiki in Bucks County, PA]
It’s almost May and graduation is right around the corner. A year ago, many college juniors were expecting to be popping the academic bubble and taking the next step toward independence–and some have. But the short-term job outlook is more uncertain for many others and stress-levels are beginning to ratchet up. So what can you do to kick-start your career? Here are four tips.
1. Remember that jobs are still out there. The “perfect” job rarely is waiting just for you, but good ones are there to be found. Focus less on a particular job or career path and more on your marketable skills. If you are stuck in a rut and need help, check in with the career services center at your college and get help before you graduate. Or hire a professional career counselor or coach to help hone your job search skills and support you through the job search process after you graduate.
2. Keep networking. Use your network to find the best possible job for you. Web-based professional business networks such as LinkedIn are great places to find out about companies, make contacts, ask questions, and get yourself known. [Not a member? Get started at the LinkedIn Grads Guide] But don’t ignore other virtual networks like Facebook and Twitter–just make sure there’s nothing embarrassing or unprofessional there. Let your trusted contacts know you are looking for work. And certainly use family and friends not in your virtual networks. And speaking of family….
3. Use your family network wisely. The boundaries within families are not always seen the same way by students and their parents. The better you know yourself, the easier it will be to draw what you need from your family to continue to grow as a responsible adult. As much as possible, take charge of the process parameters, be willing to negotiate, and avoid being too compliant or defensive. If you and your family collaborate without falling into destructive familial roles, your family can be a great source of support and job possibilities.
4. Consider service options. Non-governmental organizations, some federal and state agencies, federal service programs like AmeriCorps, and the armed forces will be getting direct and indirect economic stimulus support in the next fiscal year. If you consider continuing your education later, you can earn support for graduate school and possibly forgiveness on some educational loans through AmeriCorps and military service programs. You can also learn transferable job skills that should make you a more attractive job candidate when your service is completed. http://blog.linkedin.com/category/linkedin-seek-week/
Here’s the second part of C.G. Lynch’s article. Enjoy.
3. Filling out your bio
One of the finer things about LinkedIn, at least from a recruiting standpoint, is that it not only encourages honesty in your resume, it essentially requires it, since your profile is viewed by your bosses, colleagues and customers.
Dixson says the normal resume rules apply — accentuate your strengths and highlights, while providing context around your job responsibilities.
But the one main difference between a regular resume and a LinkedIn profile is that you’ll have a wider range of people viewing the latter. As such, you will have to be slightly more pragmatic in hitting points that you think might satisfy a few different sectors of your industry that interest you.
A couple other quick tips for your profile and bio:
• Get the LinkedIn URL you want. Most LinkedIn profiles URLs will have be a slash and then your name (/your name) at the end of them. Names can be common, so try to get yours first.
• Make sure your LinkedIn profile is public (go to account settings to check). If you want to tap all the capabilities of LinkedIn, and be able to have people search for you and examine your career experience, you need a public profile.
• Remember that you don’t matter on the Web if Googledoesn’t see you. Try to include keywords in your profile that you think people might search for regarding your field.
4. Your LinkedIn Connection List
There are two main factions who argue the merits of how one chooses connections on LinkedIn. One is LinkedIn itself. As CIO highlighted in a past article, LinkedIn firmly believes you should know your contacts before deciding to add them as a connection. They say they have designed the service with that philosophy in mind. Connections, they argue, are a reflection of you professionally. If you don’t know who they are, it can reflect poorly on you when people peruse your connection list.
On the other end of the spectrum are the LinkedIn Open Networkers, known as LIONs. A LION generally will add most people as a connection (whether they know them or not). Many LIONs build huge connection lists (thousands), and see value from doing this. According to the LION entry on wikipedia, they also adamantly discourage the use of the “I don’t know” button. “I don’t know” was designed by LinkedIn to discourage random, unknown connections. If it’s hit five times, a person can be blocked from LinkedIn or face consequences that prohibit their use of the service.
Dixson recommends taking somewhat of a middle ground between the two camps and work up a strategy you think makes sense for you and your profession. The key, she says, is having a consistent set of guidelines for adding connections.
But it will always be a murky issue, Dixson says. Perhaps, for instance, your criteria for adding a connection is that you know someone or have at least conducted business with them in the past. Well, what if, after you give a talk at a trade show or conference, a member of the audience writes and asks to connect with you on LinkedIn?
Dixson says it is fine to decline a connection, but that if such a case arises, it’s good form to explain why. For example, you might respond this way: “Thank you for reaching out. I’m glad you enjoyed my talk at the trade show. While I’m happy you contacted me, I don’t add connections until I’ve done business with a person directly. As such, feel free to e-mail me in the future and we can see what opportunities might come up in the future.”
If you are the one sending a connection, be sure to not use the canned invitation of “I’d like to add you as a connection” when sending the invite, especially if you feel you don’t know the person incredibly well or that their memory might need some prodding. At the very least, even if they decline it, they’ll be less likely to hit the dreaded “I don’t know” button.
Finally, make your connection list public, Dixson says. If you don’t, you are essentially defeating the purpose of LinkedIn. It’s a social network, and there isn’t anything more inherently unsocial than not allowing your contacts to connect with one another. The only exception would be is if you feel showing your connections would undermine your company’s competitive advantage.
5. Recommend and Getting Recommended
The recommendations feature on LinkedIn can be a powerful way to show that your work has been endorsed by influential people. With this in mind, Dixson recommends a “360 degree strategy” that shows the various ways in which you do your job and the people you serve.
“You want managers, peers and clients to recommend you,” Dixson says. “These should be people who know you well and who can really speak to your competencies as they’re relevant to what you’re positioning yourself for.”
Though it’s nice to be recommended, Dixson says it’s vital to build up your own social capital by recommending others, a key to good LinkedIn Etiquette (and social networks in general): what goes around comes around. If you go and write a good recommendation for a colleague, odds are someone will do the same for you in the future.
As I continue to add some expert posts about Linkedin and your job search, in this two part series by C.G. Lynch, he takes a wider view on the proper way to complete some of the Linkedin tools in your job searching process. Enjoy.
LinkedIn Etiquette: Five Dos and Don’ts
Creating a useful LinkedIn profile, and knowing how to interact with your connections on the professional social network, isn’t always as straightforward as it seems.
By C.G. Lynch
December 03, 2008 — CIO — Building a strong profile on LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, has taken on greater importance as the economy slips deeper into a recession. What information you decide to include, or exclude, could affect future job opportunities as well as your overall identity on the public internet.
Although LinkedIn doesn’t pose the same reputation perils presented by Facebook — such as being tagged in photo albums or being victimized by random comments left on your profile — the pitfalls of a poorly constructed LinkedIn profile, or employing bad LinkedIn etiquette, can alienate your contacts (known as “connections”). It can also turn away potential employers interested in hiring you.
We caught up with Kirsten Dixson, a reputation management and online identity expert, who helped us with our Five Dos and Don’ts for maintaining proper Facebook etiquette to get her tips on proper LinkedIn etiquette.
1. Profile Picture
Saying your LinkedIn profile picture should appear “professional” states the obvious. But more specifically,Dixson says paying a professional photographer to give you a few headshots to choose from is worth the modest investment because your picture is one the first things people will notice on your LinkedIn page.
Do some research online to find a photographer near you. You should be able to hire one, Dixson estimates, for $200-250 who can get the job done well. Remember: this is a modest investment when you consider how many professional contacts — some of whom you know, some of whom you don’t — will view your LinkedIn profile.
If you don’t get a professional photograher, you want to keep a fairly neutral background with very good lighting. Dixson says people do use Photoshop to eliminate wrinkles or unflattering features, but be careful: future employers will want to meet you in person for an interview and that picture will set their expectations for what you look like. While this is not supposed to matter, we all know it does.
Lastly, on the issue of timeliness, it can be tempting to leave pictures up of your younger and perhaps better-looking self. Dixson says while you don’t need to update your picture every year, it should still match up pretty well with your current appearance.
“If people are going to meet you and be suprised by the difference, it’s time to get a new one,” she says.
2. Summary
When you read a newspaper or check out articles on a website, many good stories don’t get read without a good headline. As such, Dixson recommends that you be very concise, engaging and specific in the summary field of your LinkedIn page. If the summary doesn’t draw people in, all the great gigs you’ve had over the years (listed in the “experience” section below it) might not receive any attention.
“You really want to express your personal brand in the LinkedIn summary,” Dixson says. “You want to show who you are, what you do, and why it’s unique.”
Today, I share a post with you from Neal Schaffer ( March 16, 2009). Enjoy.
I have been blogging about LinkedIn for several months now, and I just couldn’t help but notice the increased attention there is about LinkedIn in the media. In essence, all of the media are saying that you need to be on LinkedIn to find a job. Is this really the case?
I will be honest with you that I found my last job through The Ladders despite five busy months of ramping up on LinkedIn. LinkedIn itself is merely a database. You signed up for it, so what? Did you fill out your profile? Invite people? Join groups? Did you actively network?
You see, LinkedIn is merely a tool in your arsenal to assist you in finding a job and nothing more. After all, LinkedIn isn’t hiring you, but companies and recruiters are. And companies and recruiters also have their own web sites. And they advertise on other sites. Some are starting to Twitter. So LinkedIn is not the only game in town.
That being said, if you understand that most jobs are found through the “Hidden Job Market” (read “What Color is Your Parachute” if you don’t understand this), then the key to finding your job is, simply, networking. And if you don’t understand networking, you are not alone. Most people that I meet at networking events or through LinkedIn communications still are a little lost. But, in reality, networking is simple: connecting and communicating with people.
Now, when I say connecting, you don’t necessarily have to make them your 1st degree connection. But you need to reach out and communicate. And I don’t just mean with recruiters. Use LinkedIn to get back in touch with old colleagues and classmates, join groups, find people with similar interests, etc. The key to networking is to be in contact with like-minded individuals with whom you can hopefully create a genuine relationship out of. If they don’t live near you pick up the phone and call them! I have made many a friend through “virtually” meeting them.
And that is what LinkedIn is all about: an immense database of professionals like you, and many of them open to networking and helping you out. There is still a lot of bad press about open networkers like myself, but I am always amazed about how other open networkers are willing to help out despite not knowing each other.
Cross the virtual divide. Reach out. Exploit LinkedIn for what it is and start networking! Only then can you say that LinkedIn may have helped out your find your next job.
Jason Alba is considered one of the top experts on Linked. In an article by C.G. Lynth, he uses Alba’s advice on mistakes you maybe doing when using Linkedin for your job search. Check out this practical advice on LinkedIn profile pitfalls.
LinkedIn Profiles: Avoid the Six Most Common Mistakes
By C.G. Lynch
May 13, 2009 — CIO — In the midst of the recession, many job seekers have spent more time on LinkedIn to connect with colleagues, customers and partners in an effort to land a new gig. Unfortunately, many people commit common errors in their LinkedIn profiles that cost them new opportunities, says Jason Alba, CEO of JibberJobber, a company that provides web-based tools for managing your job search.
Alba, who recently released a DVD called LinkedIn for Job Seekers, shared with CIO.com the six most common mistakes he sees on LinkedIn profiles. Here’s how to spot trouble in your profile and fix it.
1. Don’t Get in Picture Trouble
Many people choose not to use a picture on their LinkedIn profiles. While some of you have your reasons, it’s a mistake for the typical user, Alba says. Some common concerns: Perhaps you don’t want to disclose your ethnicity, or you don’t consider yourself photogenic.
“Some situations are justified in not using a profile picture, but in the end I encourage people to include one because it shows you’re comfortable with yourself,” Alba says. “It also makes your profile a lot more personable.”
Alba recommends a professional headshot for LinkedIn, rather than the picture of you in front of a mountain or lake that you utilize on Facebook. In addition, if you’re a job seeker, odds are that you will meet your prospective employer in a face-to-face interview, so that picture of you twenty years ago that you like to leave up there — that needs to be replaced.
“Sometimes people are floored when they see the person if they left a really old picture up there,” Alba says.
2. Write a Descriptive Professional Headline
When you edit your LinkedIn profile, you have what Alba calls a “professional headline” right beneath the name. The common mistake here (as shown in the picture below) is to simply put your name and title. He believes you should use something catchier. Instead of saying, “project manager for X company,” say something more specific: “I manage complex projects involving IT and marketing.”
When people search for you, they will see this professional tagline, and it might decide whether or not they feel compelled to click on your name and see your profile, Alba says.
“Think of yourself as a marketer, and this is where your big ad appears to the world,” Alba says.
3. Properly Label Websites Displaying Your Work or Blog
LinkedIn offers you the ability to list the websites where your work might be displayed. This is a great option if you keep a personal website with a resume or a blog. But when you go to edit the website descriptions, Alba recommends dispensing with LinkedIn’s default descriptions of “my website” or “my company.” Those descriptions aren’t a compelling read for employers, he says.
Instead, when you edit your “websites” section, LinkedIn provides a drop down menu (see picture below). Click “other,” and you can upload the link and describe it as you see fit. Instead of “my blog,” you might write, “my blog on complex project management.”
4. Consider a Vanity URL
Maybe you haven’t changed the default URL that LinkedIn provides for your profile. Especially if you have a common name, this will make your name after the LinkedIn address appear with a bunch of ugly code and numbers. If you have to give your LinkedIn profile address over the phone, or you wish to print it on your business card, it should be as concise and self-explanatory as possible, Alba says.
“It literally takes 30 seconds, and it makes your profile look more on purpose,” Alba says.
(When you edit your LinkedIn profile, go to the “public profile” section to create your LinkedIn URL of choice).
5. Finish with a Strong, SEO-Friendly Summary
The “summary” section of your LinkedIn profile could be the biggest missed opportunity for the majority of job seekers, Alba says. While this section has a 2,000 character limit, Alba suggests packing as much about you and your abilities into it as possible.
In reality, the ability for people to find you will depend on LinkedIn’s search engine linking your name to certain search keywords. So (staying with our repeated example), a project manager might want the term “project management” to appear a few times throughout the summary.
“Most summaries are a couple sentences or a couple paragraphs, and they’re missing out,” Alba says. “The more you put in the summary, the better your SEO is.”
Remember that you’re in a crowded field of applicants. Alba recommends that you put in short “problem, action and results” stories that show how you contended with challenges that helped your business succeed.
Before we look at our last Strategy on using Linkedin to help find a job, let’s summary some of our recent posts on the tools you can use within Linkedin to expand your network quickly and easily. Here are six Linkedin tools we discussed that will save you time and effort in building your digital job searching network. Unlike some other aspects of a job search, these tools allow you to control the entire process!
Import Your Contact Using the Add Connection icon in Linkedin, you can import your email addresses from your Outlook program as well as email servers like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and others. Linkedin will import a complete list of your emails and addresses from these programs. You select the people you want to invite to your job searching network. You can use a standard Linkedin invitation or create your own, more personalized invitation to join. With one click you can send email invitations to all your selected contacts.
Download the Outlook Tool Bar You can integrate your Linkedin program with an Outlook Tool Bar. What will this do? Once you have this tool bar, every email you receive through Outlook will indicate in the upper right hand corner of the email if the person is already on the Linkedin program. Click on this icon and you can immediately send an invitation to join your Linkedin network. I have done this with emails I have received from some of the leading experts in my field. It takes only a minute to generate the invitation right from Outlook. Now you have opportunity to connect with some of the best experts in your industry and invite them to be part of your network.
Invite Colleagues and School People When you complete your Profile in Linkedin you added information about the companies where you have worked and the schools where you have attended. Using the Add Connection tab, Linkedin will search its data base to find matches for people who are associated with the same companies or who attended the same school as you. Connect with them so they can help you in your job searching process.
Manual Invitations You can use a manual form of inviting others to join your network. You create an invitation message and use Linkedin to send it to six people at a time. Repeat this process as often as you like.
Groups The Linkedin program has hundred of groups–people who join together around a common theme or issue. When you join a Linkedin Group, you now have access to thousands of other like minded people who are already members in that group. With these group members, you have the opportunity to both, give and receive from others; show your expertise as well as get more exposure for your job search from a group of people who have your same interests at heart.
Recycle Your Invitations For a variety of reasons, not everyone will respond to a first invitation to join your network. You may want to invite them a second time. Inside of your Linked Profile, you can click on “Sent” items. There you can find out whom you have invited and the current status of the invitation, Pending, Accepted, etc. You can decide if you want to resend an invitation.
Conclusion
To do you see how easily and quickly you can use this Linkedin to expand a network of people to help with your job search? It doesn’t have to be time consuming or laborious. It can be a process you control.
With unemployment at a 23-year high, job seekers need to expand the ways in which they search, say career and workplace experts. These days setting up and maintaining an online presence is often critical to finding work. But for an accomplished professional, it might seem daunting to build up a social-networking presence from scratch. Here’s how to do it:
Claim your name. Before someone else does it, you’ll want to “claim your name” on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, says brand strategist Catherine Kaputa and author of “U R A Brand.” You’ll also want to try to purchase the domain for your name — they typically are priced starting at less than $10. This way, you control how you will be perceived, says Ms. Kaputa. If your name is taken, use a slight variation, such as a middle name or initial, suggests Ms. Kaputa. Then begin developing a Web presence, starting with basic information like your résumé and then add to it as you go. (Note—in a future article, I will show you how to use a blog strategy that can make this Tip easier and faster than creating a website—Al Hanzal)
Practice prudence. Sree Sreenivasan, a professor of digital media at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, made the decision early on to limit himself to three social-networking sites: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. “There is just not enough time,” he says. “Pick two or three, then cultivate a presence there.” If you only manage to join one site, most experts agree that it should be LinkedIn. “It is the one crucial place to be if you are a business executive, professional or entrepreneur,” says Ms. Kaputa. It might help you land a job. For example, more than half of the candidates in Salesforce.com Inc.’s recruiting process are connected to someone at the company, says Scott Morrison, director of recruiting programs. Many of those connections come from the 98% of the company’s more than 3,500 employees who have LinkedIn profiles. “It’s a tremendous resource for us and our recruiters,” says Mr. Morrison.
Choose connections wisely. You’ll also want to choose your network carefully; only add people you actually know or with whom you’ve done business. Whether it’s on LinkedIn, Facebook or any other networking site, “it’s much more of a quality game than a quantity game,” says Krista Canfield, a LinkedIn spokeswoman. A recruiter may choose to contact one of your connections to ask about you; make sure that person is someone you know and trust.
Consistency is key. You’ll need to update your profile regularly. “Curate [your online profile] the same way you would curate your one-page résumé,” says Mr. Sreenivasan. And remember, many recruiters Google candidates before the interview, says Ms. Kaputa. Google yourself to see how you stack up on the Web compared with others and whether your “personal brand” is compromised in any way.
For more information, write to Elizabeth Garone at cjeditor@dowjones.com
Company profile pages on LinkedIn can help you tune into a company’s comings and goings, executive relationships, key business facts, and more. Here’s how to search and use LinkedIn Company Profiles to your best advantage.
By C.G. Lynch
February 12, 2009 — CIO — As the recession turns workers of all industries into job seekers, many users of LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, have begun examining the service’s free company profiles to see who recently joined (or left) organizations, prepare for interviews and learn about what skills particular employers value in prospective candidates.
Since LinkedIn Company Profiles launched nearly a year ago, more than 160,000 companies have established a profile page. If you’re job hunting in today’s struggling economy, LinkedIn company profiles can help you learn about companies on your short list in greater depth, according to career experts who have analyzed the service. Another bonus: a careful examination of LinkedIn contacts who have recently joined (or worked at) a company can help you determine if the organization would be a good fit, as you compare your own qualifications against the candidates hired.
After using the service and talking with experts, we’ve constructed a quick primer on LinkedIn company profiles and how you can start utilizing this resource right away for job hunting or networking.
HOW TO ACCESS LINKEDIN COMPANY PROFILES
1. Log into your LinkedIn account.
2. Click on the “Companies” tab, located on the top (center) of your LinkedIn homepage, just to the right of the popular “Answers” tab.
3. Once the companies page loads, type in a company name (such as “GE” or “Microsoft”) into the search bar. In the search results, beside the company you want, you might see a number inside a parenthesis, such as (41), which would indicate that 41 jobs are available at that company.
4. Once you’re on the company page, look over to the right column for a “jobs” section to see if any positions are available.
Interested in a company? Learn who you are connected to there.
One of the most helpful features of the LinkedIn company pages: they list your LinkedIn contacts (known on the service as “Connections”) who work at a particular company. This list will include your first degree connections (your immediate contacts on LinkedIn), as well as second degree (friends of friends) and third-degree (friends of friends of friends) connections.
“It really can help you network your way in,” says Jason Alba, CEO of Jibberjobber.com, a career management firm, and author of the book I’m On LinkedIn — Now What?. “Even if someone is just two connections away, it puts that information right at your finger tips, and you can act on it by connecting with them directly and asking questions about the company.”
The LinkedIn Company Profiles page shows your “Connections” who work at the company. Above, we see some Microsoft contacts.
Look at the comings, goings, movers and shakers
A company website wouldn’t exactly want to broadcast the names of everyone who just joined or left the organization. But luckily for LinkedIn company profiles, users will keep you informed.
“The real value of LinkedIn is that it’s a self-updating database,” says Phil Rosenberg, president of reCareered (a career consultancy). “You can see who is coming in, and it might help you figure out what the company is looking for [in candidates].”
As Rosenberg notes, a LinkedIn company profile displays a list of new hires at the company (and links to those new hires’ public profiles). This information is purely user-driven, as (presumably) employees who take a job at a company will update their profile information to reflect that change. That user profile information will communicate that information to LinkedIn company profiles.
“By looking at their background, it can give you some hints and clues as to potentially what the company’s new strategies are,” Rosenberg says. “It also shows how the company is trying to deal with its specific business problems.”
LinkedIn also shows changes and promotions that have occurred at the company internally. This could be something as trivial as a minor title change, but culd also be serious promotions or moves between departments.
The past employees section doesn’t provide a ready-made timeline for when employees left the company. In order to piece that information together, you have to click on users’ profiles and see what information exists on their public profiles. There’s an upside to this feature, however: many of the people listed in the “past employees” section could be in your connections (1st, 2nd or 3rd).
“You can use that information to understand lots of things,” Rosenberg says. “You can reach out to them to help you understand what the culture is, or maybe who you will be interviewing with if you score an interview. It’s an excellent way to learn behind-the-scenes personality issues, so you can make a good impression.”
Go to school on your company of choice
LinkedIn company profiles have another convenient feature: key company statistics gathered by Standard and Poor’s Capital IQ. Down the right side of the company profile, look for a list of vital data such as revenue, headquarters (and key geographic locations), approximate company size (in employees) and primary competitors. The latter category may spur new ideas for job opportunities as well.
Above, Microsoft’s key statistics on its LinkedIn profile page.
This data component shows that LinkedIn has interest in making company profiles a competing product to services such as Hoover’s, experts say. In fact, when you you consider the other social components (mentioned above) of LinkedIn company profiles, it might provide even greater user value than Hoover’s.
“I think that LinkedIn companies could make Hoover’s obsolete eventually,” Alba says. “If you’re a job seeker preparing for that interview, they’re giving you a significant amount of information on LinkedIn that you now don’t even need to search Googlefor.”
It’s a very simple process to join a Linkedin Group. Start by clicking on the Group Button on the left hand side of your profile page in Linked. You will be shown three options:
• My Groups
• Following
• Group Directory
• Create a Group
If you are not a part of any Group, select the Group Directory. You will then be taken to a search box that allows you to search the many groups that already exist. For each group you will be given a description, the number of people in the group and how long it has been in existence. To start, choose two groups that you feel would be most helpful to your job search.
When you click on a Group to join, you will be taken to a screen that will ask you several questions. These include, whether you will display the group’s logo; your email address; how often you want to be notified about digests of the group’s activities; allowing members to send you direct messages and a general consent form for participating in the group.
You can then send a message to the group leader telling them why you would like to participate in the group. You will then await, usually a day or so to be accepted into the group.
Once accepted you can now see previous group discussions, learn about the people in the group and initiate and participate in discussions.
Creating Your Own Linked Group
Linkedin also allows you to create your own Linkedin Group. This could be a group of people who professionally could be support to your job search. Or it could the group of people who are actively helping you in your job search. Once you complete this form, you will submit it to Linkedin and they will review your request for creating a group.
To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…
Linkedin also provides you with tools to find connections from Colleagues, Companies where you have worked or people who attended School with you. Start again with the Green Button Add Connections on the left side of any Linkedin page. Click on Colleagues and Classmates. If you have listed specific companies or identified specific schools in your profile, Linkedin will search its data base to find matches for your companies and schools who are already on Linkedin. You will be given a list of names and you can decide whether they are people you want to invite as connections on your Linkedin program.
Manual Invitation
The last direct tool Linkedin offers for building your network is the Manual invitation. Go to the green Get Connected button and click on it. You will see a manual section where you can now type in six email names and addresses to invite with one stroke of the key board. I found it helpful to take some time to research the names and email address I wanted to invite and then place them in a word document. I then copy six names on a daily basis from this list and send an invitation to all the people I wanted to invite.
While you use these emails invitation to invite people to participate in your Linkedin connection, also use them as an opportunity to share with others information on your job search. Even if they do not join Linkedin, they may assist you win your job search. This systematic approach to emailing friends will be a worthwhile contact with others.
Recycling Your Invitations
On a sixty to ninety day basis, you may wish to invite again those who have not responded. If you go to your Inbox on your Linkedin Home Page and click on “Send” you will see all the people to whom you have send invitations and the status of those invitations. From here you can choose to resend invitations to specific people.
[Ed. note: This belongs to our series of posts featuring tips for recent grads from LinkedIn users. Bruce Biskin, PhD is a career planning and assessment expert, and senior associate with Delaware Valley Career Solutions. He also co-administers a job/career resource wiki in Bucks County, PA]
