{"id":266,"date":"2010-05-03T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/?p=266"},"modified":"2010-04-30T15:00:56","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T22:00:56","slug":"using-linkedin-to-your-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/2010\/05\/03\/using-linkedin-to-your-advantage\/","title":{"rendered":"Using LinkedIn to your Advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Tim Chen, OSU Student and Career Services Career Assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>According to a national study by Grunwald Associates, 96% of Generation Y uses social media tools.\u00a0 Currently, Generation Y outnumbers the Baby Boomer population.<\/p>\n

With that said, more and more businesses are switching over to social networking as means of interacting with the growing youth population.\u00a0 In an effort to draw attention from the youth while maintaining professionalism, LinkedIn was developed as a \u201cprofessional\u201d social network.<\/p>\n

LinkedIn takes the traditional aspects of a job market and places it online for millions of users to interact. \u00a0The profile page looks similar to the \u201cInfo\u201d page on a Facebook profile, but more business oriented.\u00a0 For example, my LinkedIn profile immediately lists off my previous employers, the educational institutions I attended, the number of \u201cconnections\u201d (friends) I have, and any websites that I choose to share (personal, company, etc\u2026).\u00a0 Outside, it provides additional details regarding my information (that I choose to share), and then it displays groups involved and my most recent activities.<\/p>\n

To use LinkedIn for job hunting, there are several general tips that you may choose to follow, from the Guy Kawasaki Blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Increase your visibility! <\/strong>This can be done by adding more connections and using keywords that best describe you.\u00a0 Make sure you add connections outside of your current employer (such as high school friends, friends from groups\/organizations) to draw more attention in search results.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Improve search engine results. <\/strong>Aside from increasing your visibility, advertise your LinkedIn profile.\u00a0 Attempt to create your public profile URL with your name in it so it\u2019s easier for employers to exclusively find you.\u00a0 Also, include your LinkedIn URL in your signatures if you ever post on blogs since it helps advertise yourself within the blog, and it increases the appearance of your name in search results.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Perform \u201creverse,\u201d company reference checks. <\/strong>Given correct information, LinkedIn allows for users to search for previous title holders of a position within a company. \u00a0This provides the user an opportunity to look at the resume of the interviewer and allows the user to see previous people who held the position.\u00a0 This search comes in handy since it provides a better idea about the company and that specific department and\/or position.<\/p>\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Increase job search by skills! <\/strong>Rather than searching by people and\/or employers, you can type in a skill and have a list of companies with positions seeking those specific skills.\u00a0 For example, by searching \u201cJava\u201d under the Job search, many \u201cJava Developer\u201d positions show up.<\/p>\n

5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Research companies with LinkedIn!<\/strong> Rather than visiting the employer\u2019s official website, LinkedIn has asked for companies to create a generic \u201cprofile\u201d page for users to briefly review their information and testimonies from their employees.<\/p>\n

Of course with all of those tips, there are a couple of things that you should be careful about.\u00a0 These tips come from Dr. Rachna D. Jain\u2019s \u201cFive Things you should never do on a social network:\u201d<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do not leave negative feedback.\u00a0 That comment and feedback will generally stick around for a while.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do not lie, and be honest.\u00a0 Companies look for integrity in their employers and their potentials.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do not spam!\u00a0 Spam is NOT a push marketing strategy.\u00a0 Most people hate spam and would prefer not to hear about promotional material.<\/p>\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do not gossip!\u00a0 It\u2019s immature and makes you look very unprofessional and takes away any classy image you might have.<\/p>\n

5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do not oversell yourself.\u00a0 Arrogance is accepted to an extent.\u00a0 If you say you can do something, companies will expect that you can follow through.<\/p>\n

With that said, start making your LinkedIn<\/a> profile today!\u00a0 Be sure to join the Oregon State LinkedIn group<\/a> after you signup.<\/p>\n

Sources: BNET<\/a>, Guy Kawasaki Blog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Tim Chen, OSU Student and Career Services Career Assistant According to a national study by Grunwald Associates, 96% of Generation Y uses social media tools.\u00a0 Currently, Generation Y outnumbers the Baby Boomer population. With that said, more and more businesses are switching over to social networking as means of interacting with the growing… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":443,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,694],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-job-search-strategies","category-networking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/443"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}