The biggest advantage of LinkedIn, having in mind that 1/4 Billion people are in this network, is that practically you could find the person from the company you are seeking, something that outside of LinkedIn is sometimes impossible. If you are a business professional and you want to keep up to date with your business contacts, then you should have LinkedIn profile. If you already have this article is going to emphasize on 3 interesting perspectives about this social network.
Every contact is valuable
Think of a person you don’t want to communicate with them. List 3 reasons why you don’t want them in your LinkedIn contacts. Now scratch these 3 lines. Because when you are doing a legit work, there is not even a single reason to limit your business network. Every contact is valuable, not only because of his personal traits, but also the qualities of his contacts on 2nd level. After all the main scope of LinkedIn is to grow your business network and it won’t hurt to train your conflict management skills, if that’s the case.
Adding new contact in LinkedIn can lead to an acquaintanceship and also new real life acquaintanceship can lead to adding a new LinkedIn contact
In other words – you can add people even if don’t know them, and of course – the ones you know. The golden rule: when you meet a new person – add him as a LinkedIn contact in a day period (if he/she has one of course). Having in mind how many business professional are present in LinkedIn, there are big chances that you could find the person. What is the benefit in this, compared to the ordinary, old-school business card exchange? On the business card you put between 50-100 bits of information, one bit being a letter or a digit. In your LinkedIn profile you could put 5 000 – 10 000 bits of data, if you want.
The biggest difference between LinkedIn and an ordinary CV – here you describe your professional experience in big details
Do you remember the wisdom from Winnie the Pooh – “The more, the merrier”? It is better to describe your professional experience in details. You have to emphasize on 3 things:
1. Experience – don’t make people guess what you have done in this or that job, if you could explain it once and for all for less than 10 minutes. You could be neglected from someone that is looking your profile and is searching for a specialist exactly like you, if you haven’t described your previous experience well enough.
2. Skills – LinkedIn is the perfect place to list your skills and to explain HOW you have got them.
3. Professional maturity – you could explain what every job that you had have though you, without any fluffy element (e.g. “It made me the person I’m today”). Let’s say you have worked 2 years in company X and you’ve learned how to do financial reports, project management, design presentations and deliver them. From these 4 activities you could list at least 8 skills that you have developed on some level. And if you write only something like “I’ve become more organized”, then you are missing at least 7 key words and phrases that could be really valuable for your positioning in LinkedIn.
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