Linkedin: The Job Search Revolution
As I approach the latter half of my years as a college student, I am reaching the time in my life when the real world becomes a reality. I just moved into my first apartment, I’m paying my own bills, and I’m taking on responsibilities that force me to “grow up.” Soon I will join those who have already graduated in the daunting task of finding a job.
As a college student, social media is a large part of my life. Now, thanks to social networking, I have another tool to aid my job search. LinkedIn is quickly becoming a popular site for the job hunt. According to an article from Fortune – How LinkedIn Will Fire Up Your Career, The company Accenture plans to hire 50,000 employees in 2010, and hopes to find 40% of their hires over the next few years from social media sites such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn is becoming the future of recruiting for many companies because It allows college students, and other job searchers, to post their resumes and promote themselves to employers.
As a college student LinkedIn, may be a great way to locate a job. With over 500,000 groups based on companies, schools and similar interests, LinkedIn connects you to networks of people with similarities that may not have found you otherwise. I suggest starting early to build up a LinkedIn profile as it is well on its way to the future of recruiting.
Here are three ways Linkedin can be effective in the job hunt:
1. Advertise Yourself—Linkedin is a great way to expand beyond your resume. It allows you to give more detail than a few bullet points, permitting you to show your personality and show what your passionate about. In doing so, it allows an employer to gain a better insight to your background and can separate your profile from the long list of resumes that are all seemingly comparable.
2. Contact In an Informal Setting—Linkedin has a feature that allows you to ask and answer questions with anyone in your extended network. Answering questions is a great way to build up your reputation and gain trust in other Linkedin users. The feature to be able to ask and answer questions allows you to come in contact with other high level employers in an informal setting. It allows them to see your insights and get a better idea of the skills sets you posses.
3. Networking—Linkedin’s networking is unlike that of most social networking sites. When you have a direct contact on Linkedin, you also have access to have access to their contacts and can see the profiles of anyone they know. Even further, you can see the profiles of those people they know, in a sense; you can have a very small contact list but have access to thousands of other contacts. This makes it very easy for people to find you and view your profile freely.
The article referenced in this blog, How LinkedIn Will Fire Up Your Career, can be found by clicking the link below:
