LinkedIn

Basics

Introduction

We’ll cover:• Registering on LinkedIn• Developing Your Profile – Your Living Resume• Sections of the Profile• Who Should You Connect With?• Privacy Settings• Using LinkedIn for Job Hunting

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is essentially the Facebook for business.

Users create profiles, connect with other people, and network

professionally.

Why Use LinkedIn

1. LinkedIn does not take a lot of time or energy to create or maintain.

2. Having a LinkedIn profile is also an easy way to keep your information relevant and up to date. (LinkedIn is easy it to edit and keep track of the time you have been currently employed)

3. The social functions of LinkedIn may help your job search.

How is LinkedIn different from

other Social Media?

• LinkedIn is your professional presence and connection

• Not your family and friends connection, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

• It is a place for your “Living Resume”

You can link your LinkedIn account to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, but think carefully before you do that.

If your other social media accounts are notprofessionally-oriented, you may NOT want to connect them to your LinkedIn presence.

Considerations

Your Profile

Considerations

What to Include on

Your Profile

Again your LinkedIn profile is the online version of your resume so you’ll want to include everything that you would include on a traditional information, that means:

•Summary•Skills•Work Experience•Education•Certifications•Photo•Volunteering•Awards

Tips for Completing

Your Profile

• Have someone else review it to check for spelling and grammar errors.

• Copy and paste your profile information into a Word document and then run the Spelling & Grammar Review.

• However, this probably won’t catch everything—you still need people to review it.

• You’ll also want to have a professional looking profile picture! You should be wearing business attire and the picture should be high quality in a professional environment.

Skills and

Endorsements

While filling out your profile you’ll add skills.

LinkedIn will provide some pre-generated keywords but you’re also allowed to enter your own skills!

Who Should You

Connect With?

Professional Colleagues:Past - People You Worked WithPresent – People You Work With NowFuture – People You Want to Work With

People You Know from Professional Associations and Organizations

Friends

Colleagues at Volunteer Organizations

Networking

Networking

Other Features

Beyond resume features LinkedIn offers social media connectivity, Job boards, and Interests

Connections

Like Facebook friends, LinkedIn allows you to connect with other users.

Instead of friending you make connections. After you’ve made a

connection your connection number goes up.

Another unique feature of LinkedIn is endorsements. LinkedIn allows you

to list skills – then other users that you are connected with can ‘endorse’

those skills. Endorsements then can be viewed by people you network

with and employers, and make you look good!

Privacy Settings

Privacy Controls – www.linkedin.com/settings

•Turn on/off your activity broadcasts

•Select who can see your activity feed

•Select what others see when you've viewed their profile

•Turn on/off How You Rank

•Select who can see your connections

•Change your profile photo & visibility »

•Show/hide "Viewers of this profile also viewed" box

•Manage who you're blocking »

Using LinkedIn for

Job Hunting

One of the most interesting features is that LinkedIn operates a lot like monster.com, clicking on a job application will send you to a company’s site to apply or in some cases uses your LinkedIn profile to apply automatically.

Finding jobs can be done in a few ways; first you can search a business by name or business type in the job section. Next, based on your profile, certain jobs will be suggested to you.

Using LinkedIn for

Job Hunting

Searching the Jobs Directory•Use job titles or keywords

•See how posted jobs are described todetermine whether or not you’re using theright keywords in your profile.

•Identify any skills/expertise gaps you’ll need to address.

•Identify and reach out to any connections you have with that employer.

LinkedIn Pulse

LinkedIn Pulse:

Pulse is LinkedIn’s newsletter available on their website or it will be emailed (you can unsubscribe if not interested). Pulse articles are similar to Forbes and Fortune 500.

Resources

On the Web

Some of the help available from LinkedIn:

LinkedIn Help Center: https://help.linkedin.com/app/home/

LinkedIn Blog: http://blog.linkedin.com/?trk=hb_ft_blog

LinkedIn on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LinkedIn

Resources

On the Web

Other Resources:

www.Lynda.com – Access with your EPL card – http://elmhurstpubliclibrary.org/Choose 24/7 eLIBRARY and click on eLearningSearch “LinkedIn” – There are classes for LinkedIn basics, job searching, and using LinkedIn for business and selling

www.makeuseof.comMakeUseOf eBooks: LinkedIn Guide: Building Your Living Resumehttp://www.makeuseof.com/pages/learn-linkedin-how-to-build-your-living-resume

Resources

On the Web

Other Resources:

Action Verbs:http://www.quintcareers.com/action_skills.html

Using Keywords:http://www.quintcareers.com/resume_keywords.html

For General Job Hunting: http://www.rileyguide.com/

EPL Jobs & Employment Web Page:http://elmhurstpubliclibrary.org/247-e-library/research-reference/jobs-employment/

Or go to http://elmhurstpubliclibrary.org/Choose 24/7 ELIBRARY and click on Jobs & Employment

Resources

Books on LinkedIn can be found

in Dewey Decimal number:

650.140285