Welcome to the getting connected with LinkedIn Series. LinkedIn gives you a way to connect with past and present players, classmates and co-workers. Create important connections while searching for employment and even gives you a place to find answers to any questions you may have about in your industry. Begin by creating an account, fill in your personal information like your name, Email, a password, location and select the employment information that best describes you. I am employed so enter my company name and my industry. Then click on join LinkedIn, now choose how you like to use LinkedIn. You can choose items like finding a job, reconnecting with old colleagues or hiring employees or contractors.
You can also choose to have people find you on LinkedIn for things like references for a co-worker. Career opportunities or deal proposals for your company, choose as many items as you wish here. And then click save, to make the most out of LinkedIn, you want to make some connections and build your network. Do this by adding contacts who are already using LinkedIn from your Email accounts. You can also import addresses from your address book, search for previews colleagues or search for old classmates. To find classmates, you will need to add your school information here.
You can then invite people to join you on LinkedIn, everything you do on LinkedIn adds to your profile. You will see how complete your profile is by this indicator bar, it tells you how much you have completed. The goal is to have it 100% complete, to fill out your LinkedIn profile – click on edit. Here you can change your display name, your position, your location. You can also add a photo, just click browse, select one from your computer and click on upload. You can also see who can see the photo, you can add a brief description of what your currently working on, this could be as specific project name or very general. You can add your current position if you have one and you can add your past positions as well. This turns LinkedIn into your online resume which is helpful when you are looking for employment.
I already added my schooling in the second episode of this series. But you can click on education and add it here if needed. Getting recommended means that someone possibly a previous employer or customer has written a recommendation about work you’ve done for them. You can request a recommendation from someone and others will be able to see that. These are your connections and you can also add links to other web sites or blogs you have. You can interest and in groups you belong to honors or awards, this is your public URL. That means that you can give this to people and they can view your public LinkedIn profile.
You can customize it though to make it easier to find and so it represents you. You can also set your privacy levels here of what people will see when they visit your public profile. Choose as much or as little information that you feel comfortable with sharing with anyone who visits your public LinkedIn profile. Then click on save, LinkedIn provides you with an easy way to search for people or information you are looking for. If you are searching for a specific person – you can use the advance search feature which can include key words. Which is like descriptive words for that person, you can add their full name, location information, their employment information and then information you may know about their LinkedIn profile. You can limit it to your network only and choose how the results are sorted. And even select the language, you can also do a reference search which allows you to search for people using a company name and the years they were employed.
You can search for jobs on LinkedIn as well. You can do an advance job search including things like the type of job, the location and job function and industry. There are other types of job functionality with in LinkedIn such as posting jobs, for a fee. I will go over upgrading your LinkedIn profile in the 10th episode in the series. You can also search for answers to questions you may have, you can search for questions and answers or just questions. After you search, you can then view the question, see who wrote it and view their other questions. You can ask questions as well and browse through questions they answer. These will be stored in your account, if you are looking for a specific company on LinkedIn, you can search for that as well. Just enter the industry name and click on search.
LinkedIn groups allow you to join and create groups to further your connections. You can browse to the group’s directory to see featured groups. You can search for groups here by entering in what you are looking for and choosing the appropriate category and language. If you see a group that interests you, you can click on it and read more about it, you can join it and even share it. By sending the information to someone in your LinkedIn network, just enter their name and send it like a regular Email. You can also create your own group, you can add a photo from your computer for your group logo, both large and small. Give your group a name then choose what type of group it is, such as alumni, corporate or non-profit.
Then enter in a summary of what your group is about which will be displayed in the groups directory. And then a full description which will appear on your group page, if you have a relevant web site, you can add that here as well. Then enter in the Email address of who ever is in charge of the group and check the boxes next to the privacy settings you want enable. You can also add a geographical location of the group and choose a language. If you agree to the terms of service which you can find by clicking here then check this box and create your group. Now you have a public profile page for your group and you can begin inviting others to join your group and further your connections on LinkedIn.
Your inbox on LinkedIn allows you to write messages to people in your LinkedIn network. Just begin typing in their name and LinkedIn will auto complete the name for you. Then just enter in the subject and type your message and send like a regular Email. You can also send what is called in-mail introductions, in-mail is mail that you send to a connection and it will go to their Email address as well as show on their profile page. So the next time they log in to LinkedIn, they will see that they have a message from you. Introductions, allows you to request an introduction to someone – one of your contacts on LinkedIn is connected with. To send in-mail, begin by searching for the person which I covered in the fourth episode in the series.
When you find the person you are looking for, you can click here to send them in-mail. To request and introduction, first search for the person you like to be introduced to. Then click on get introduced, you can choose to show your contact information in the Email. Then enter a subject and a message to the person you would like to be introduced to and a message to the person who would like to introduce you to each other. And that is it, you will receive an Email and you can take it from there. Besides just in-mail and introductions, your inbox is also where you can do things like find invitations form other LinkedIn members.
You will be able to see profiles that have been sent to you from other LinkedIn member. Any questions or answers that have been asked, or sent to you as well as a job, opportunities, recommendations or messages from group members. Learn more about groups by checking out the fifth episode in the series. Adding applications to your LinkedIn page helps you to spruce up your profile to make it more efficient. There are many different types of applications to add to your profile and that is entirely up to you what you want to add. I will quickly show you how to add your Amazon reading list to your profile.
When you first click on the application name, you will see the description of the application. This says that you can add books to a reading list and share what you are reading with people in your network. You can then discover what books other people in your network are reading. If they have this application to their profile as well, choose if you want the application displayed on your LinkedIn profile. Just your LinkedIn home page or both then click on update settings and now you can add information to this application. Which happens to be the books you are reading, depending on where you decide to put your application, you will see it either on your home page, your profile or both. Browse around the directory to find the applications that will work best for you on LinkedIn.
Your home page on LinkedIn holds a lot of information about the activity of the people who are you connected to. You will also see recommended connections – these are people who linked in – things maybe good for you to know based on your current connections and LinkedIn activity. You will also see any new messages in your inbox and an activity stream of what your connections are doing. This means that whenever your connections do things like change employment information, update what they are working on or make connection with another LinkedIn member. It will show up here, each user has different privacy settings which all cover on the ninth episode in the series. So you may not see everything about your connections, it just depends on what they want public.
These are applications that have been added to my home page which I cover in the seventh episode in the series. You can remove them by clicking on the X or edit them by clicking on edit. You can also minimize them by just clicking on the arrow and move them around by clicking on them and dragging and dropping them into the order that you like. On the left side, you will see that you can access different parts of the site, like your profile, contacts, inbox and see how many people you are connected to. And how many people had joined your network in the last 30 days or so.
Your account and settings allows you to control one information is shown publicly on your profile and allows you to change what you see in your LinkedIn account. Everything from information on your profile, your photo even your status visibility can be kept public or make it private. You can update privacy levels on your personal information, customize your Email notifications. Anything that has to do with your privacy in customizing your home page is located here. You can choose what sort of updates from your connections you want to see on your home page. Like changes to their status, when they post jobs, information about your groups all of these is shown on your home page. But you can remove any thing you like by clicking on hide.
Remember this is your account and this is how is seen by others. So make sure you update it to best suit your needs. LinkedIn is free to use with limited features and for a lot of people that work out just fine. But there are some things you can do with an upgraded account that you may not know about. You can compare the different features of free versus a business or business plus account. By going to your account settings and then compare accounts, the features that you need if you are just getting started are probably plentiful with the free account. But if you are using LinkedIn or a lot of networking for clients and employees or employers, you may want to read through them to see if you are getting everything you need. If you decide you want upgrade then just click on the upgrade button, select the plan you want and then enter in your billing information. They do haven price for pre-payment so make sure you check that out as well.
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