“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR LinkedIn; BUT WHAT LinkedIn CAN DO FOR YOU!”

Although I’ve been a LinkedIn user for only 1.468 years, I’m pretty sure that among the 10 reasons for not joining LinkedIn listed in my previous blog, the site can execute ALL 10. Let me know if I’m wrong. My take on LinkedIn’s purposes is boiled down to the following five.

FIVE PURPOSES OF LinkedIn

1. Display your professional credentials to promote your expertise and job-hiring potential

2. Communicate with professional group members, colleagues, clients, and students all over the world on any topic

3. Market your business, whether individual consulting or a large corporation, or products to obtain clients

4. Search for a job, while employers search for you as a candidate to fill a position

5. Search for the best candidates to fill positions in your business or institution

So how does this affect your professional life as you now know it? Consider the fit between the major purposes for using LinkedIn and your professional needs. Will it make your life easier, add or create opportunities you want to pursue, expand your professional aspirations? Only you can answer that.

COMMITMENT TIME
Remember that LinkedIn is just a tool or vehicle to do the above. If you don’t commit to using it properly, the preceding purposes may not be realized. It provides FREE professional services (of course, there are upgrades) you can use to propel yourself forward in your career. Once you take the time to set up your profile (and we can do that together), it will require only a few minutes a week to update and keep your activities visible to your network.

C & P YOUR CV
Now that your head is beginning to spin like the kid in the Exorcist about your career and whether LinkedIn is worth your time, trust me on this: IT IS! Let’s do this together. The best part of this profile posting is that you already have most of the information in your résumé or curriculum vitae (CV). [SIDEBAR DEFINITION: If you’re a nonacademician, the term “curriculum vitae” is Latin for “résumé on steroids.” It typically contains education, previous employment, grants & contracts, publications, presentations, patents, professional membership & leadership, editorial boards, expert witness testimony, financial portfolio, pets & livestock, and other pertinent activities. It averages 1000 pages. The longer it is, the more impressive and pretentious it is.] I NOW RESUME THIS PARAGRAPH, WITHOUT ACUTE ACCENTS ON RESUME, ALREADY IN PROGRESS. Most of your CV will be pasted into LinkedIn’s format. You can do this.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC