What's the Point of Getting LinkedIn?

By Chandler Bobin on April 5, 2012

Social media has a huge presence within our society, so much so that it’s hard not to be a part of some kind of social networking site. The  problem I often hear many of my peers discussing is choosing which one or or ones to join. The more recognized sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Pinterest are all great ways to connect with others as well as share our own thoughts and interests. Another big name and, what I’d like to consider,  more sophisticated social networking site, called LinkedIn, is a one that I always wanted to join, but I thought I was never qualified enough or lacked job/ life experience to create a profile.

For those of you who aren’t overly familiar with LinkedIn, it is a business-social networking site that operates worldwide.

If you are like many other people struggling to limit your time and loyalty to only one or two social networking sites, I urge you to join LinkedIn as endless opportunities can present themselves on that site.

 Photo from forbes.com

Over the past year I have had the pleasure of listening to many speakers of all ages from all types of career fields in many of my classes. What I took away  from each of their talks was to join LinkedIn. Yet, I still wasn’t convinced. Why join LinkedIn if I am not established in a career and don’t have a lot of relevant career experience to my major?

Well, now that I have taken the plunge, some great reasons that I’ve found to join are: getting back in touch, acquiring and sharing your expertise, and managing your career.

While so many sites that I listed above allow you to get back in touch with old friends, co-workers, classmates, etc., I’ve found that it is a lot easier to find people on LinkedIn than the other sites. LinkedIn is also a site that really just lays all the necessary information out there for all the people who you have allowed into your network. Your profile will straight-up tell someone and clearly lay out your experience and expertise. Also, there are many groups you can join on the site and each group has it’s own job postings, discussion boards, and news boards, where you can create as well as take advantage of tons of great opportunities. LinkedIn will give you an opportunity to manage your future or current career as well because given the instability within the current job market, plenty of people are either jobless or unhappy in their current positions and are seeking out new ones. This site not only allows you to seek out others, but recruiters to seek you out. Coming from someone who doesn’t have a ton of experience within one specific field, I have in fact been presented with job opportunities from recruiters simply looking at my profile.

This site truly creates a greater and more trendy way to connect and get your name out there and I can guarantee that it presents you with plenty of surprisingly interesting opportunities and connections. So, if you haven’t already, join LinkedIn and see what opportunities arise for you!

 

 

 

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