What is LinkedIn and how can it help my career?

What is LinkedIn and how can it help my career

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Have you received a LinkedIn invitation from a past colleague? Or had someone ask you if they can find you on LinkedIn? If you're new to social networking sites, you might be wondering what online networks such as LinkedIn do, how they work, and how they can influence your career and professional life.

LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking site. With over 80 million members it is the largest professional network in the world. Individuals can create a professional business profile, and then connect with other professionals via the LinkedIn platform. Users invite contacts or are invited by other contacts to be listed as respective connections. They then manage their profile and maintain and interact with their connections in a number of different ways.

Here's a rundown of what you can do with a LinkedIn profile.

- Establish a professional online profile. In today's business world, managing your online profile is important, and LinkedIn gives users the ability to create an online identity that reflects their professional skills and aspirations. It also allows them to control how they are defined by the web LinkedIn ranks well in Google, so it is your LinkedIn profile that will be listed first if you search your name.

- Maintain connections with colleagues and friends. LinkedIn provides the tools to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, friends and other professional contacts. Users build up a contact network made up of direct, second-degree and third-degree connections. Users then utilise these networks to gain introductions to their contacts' contacts via introductions. By connecting with professional contacts on LinkedIn, your address book stays up-to-date, and you can stay on top of your contacts' jobs, contact information and potential employment options.

- Connect with experts and ideas. As well as individual profiles, LinkedIn users have access to extended professional networks such as company or interest groups as well as answer and search tools. Users can narrow their search and connect with individual names, titles, companies, locations and other subject areas that are relative to their professional field. Those involved in - or looking for information regarding - legal jobs for example, can join legal networks where they can exchange information and ideas with other in the field. Try the twosteps network for legal professionals', where legal professional from around the world engage in discussions, exchange ideas and share valuable job and industry information.

As recruitment and job seeking continues to move into the online realm, being active in online professional networks will improve your employability as well as the information a potential employer will be able to access when searching your name or researching your history and online reputation. If you've applied for employment law jobs, for example, your prospective employer might look at your LinkedIn profile to find out more about you. By having a LinkedIn profile, you not only give yourself greater visibility, but take control over the information that is available about you to your professional colleagues and employers.

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