LinkedIn is an extremely beneficial website that professionals, in the past couple of years, have learned to take advantage of. This website is an excellent way for professionals, individuals looking for new business ventures, as well as, individuals who want to connect with past co-workers and business partners to network and share their personal experiences. This website, unlike other forms of networking and social media sites, highlights the users professional skills and practices, in order to enhance the user’s business opportunities. However, like many social media sites, it has grown tremendously from when it was created. According to the LinkedIn Press Center, “The site officially launched on May 5, 2003. At the end of the first month in operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the network,” and, astonishingly, this website’s growth continued; “as of June 30, 2011 (the end of the second quarter), professionals [were] signing up to join LinkedIn at a rate that is faster than two members per second.” In addition, the growth of this professional network continued on their path on a steady incline; “As of August 4, 2011, LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 120 million members in over 200 countries and territories.” Moreover, “more than half of LinkedIn members are currently located outside of the United States” and is “currently available in nine languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Turkish and Romanian.”
The sole purpose of the site is to form ‘connections’ with people whom the user has had some sort of professional business relationships with. When you enter this website, you are prompted to create a profile. With each step, in creating a new user profile, the user is asked a question that is tailored to help the user create the best profile possible, with as many details as the user is willing to include. Once current and past education, employers and extracurricular activities and interests are added to the profile, the user has many different options, including uploading their resume and a picture of yourself. The success of the website stems from the opportunities and exposure that the users gain from having a profile on this specific site as opposed to others. “There were two billion people searches on LinkedIn on 2010.” The publicity that each user receives by having a LinkedIn profile can extremely elevate the users professional experiences, a person can be recruited for a job that he or she doesn’t even know is open, simply because they have a professional profile and a recruiter sees their assets and matches them up with the open career opportunity.
One of the attributes that I like the most about LinkedIn that is extremely different when being compared to other networking pages is that you are mandated to cite how you know the individual that you are trying to make a ‘connection’ with. When you find a person that you want to add to your network, you are asked, “How do you know this person?” and you have to pick from the options colleague, classmate, we’ve done business together, friend, other or I don’t know ‘this person.’ Also, another aspect that I learned while researching this website is that “if the recipient of an invitation selects "I don't know", this counts against the person inviting them, and after five such "IDKs" a member cannot invite another to connect without first supplying their recipient mail address” (Wikipedia.com). This asset allows for users to feel a sense of safety and privacy and allow only individuals that they truly know to potentially benefit from their connection.
As I previously explained, there are many professional beneifts for users on LinkedIn. Wikipedia cited numerous ways in which individuals could use their connections:
§ A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact.
§ It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
§ Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
§ Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
§ Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
§ Users can now follow different companies and can get notification about the new joining and offers available.
§ Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs, which they would like to apply for.
From personal experience, I have seen, firsthand the benefits of having a linked in profile. About two weeks ago, I created a LinkedIn profile because I am a senior now and I will be potentially be looking for career opportunities in the near future. After creating my profile and adding my personal education and internship experience, I looked to make connections with my previous employers and co-workers. After I created the profile, I realized that I could track my connections and exposure. My unique profile told me that 5 people have viewed my profile in the past 90 days, I have shown up in search results 20 times in the past 7 days, my 9 connections have linked me to 69,204+ professionals and, finally, there are 1,027 new people in my network since September 22.
Furthermore, the exposure and potential for professional development for individuals on LinkedIn is numerous. Computer mediated communication is Web 2.0, because of the two-way communication, as well as, and 3.0 because of the availability of connecting to the website on the go, such as on the mobile version which was launched in February 2008 in 6 languages. Additionally, according to Wikipedia, “In January 2011, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch, a mobile app maker that scans business cards and converts into contacts. LinkedIn plans to integrate this functionality into their services in the near future. In August of 2011 LinkedIn revamped its mobile applications on the iPhone, Android and HTML5. Mobile page views of the application have increased roughly 400% year over year according to CEO Jeff Weiner.” Finally, proven through all of the assets that I previously explained, this website is extremely beneficial to all users for varying reasons and I recommend that professional individuals worldwide take advantage of all this unique networking site has to offer.
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