Students and Graduates: Got LinkedIn? Posted by Irene Koehler in LinkedIn on May 7, 2009 | 6 responses Do you hear that sound? It’s your future knocking. Have you done everything you can to show that you’re ready? You’ve worked extremely hard in school, took all the right classes, grew as a person and a budding professional. With just a bit of work, you can now look as impressive online as you are in real life. If you are a college student or graduate, there is no better time to get started on LinkedIn. What’s that you say: LinkedIn is really just Facebook for old people?
What’s that you say: You heard that there is no reason to set-up a profile on LinkedIn until you are ready to look for a job? During the course of your college career, you will be making connections and building that all-important network which will support you for years to come as your career blossoms. LinkedIn Tip - Mom was Right, Manners Matter. Posted by Irene Koehler in LinkedIn on December 31, 2008 | 15 responses Let’s give a quick shout-out to Mom, who taught us many important lessons.
Even though she may have exaggerated a bit when she said we’d ruin our eyes if we held them cross-eyed for too long and that sitting too close to the TV would rot our brains, she was right about a lot. Remembering the value of using good manners and being respectful of others were two of the lessons which have stood the test of time. Even as we move much of our communication online, these lessons are no less applicable. In fact, they are likely more important than ever as stark words on a computer screen are easily misunderstood if we’re not careful.
One small example of this relates to the LinkedIn invitation. If you’d like to heed your mother’s advice and demonstrate your good manners when inviting others to connect on LinkedIn, I recommend that you take a moment to customize the text in the invitation. Anyway, I think you get the idea. LinkedIn Tips - Hey, Baby, what's your URL? Posted by Irene Koehler in LinkedIn on December 30, 2008 | 10 responses You meet someone at a conference or a networking event and want to stay in touch. You exchange business cards and decide to connect on LinkedIn.? She asks for the link to your profile on LinkedIn so she can send you an invitation to connect. If you reply begins with, “Uh, well…” don’t worry. Help is on the way. Each LinkedIn profile is given a default URL, which is a combination of the LinkedIn domain and a bunch of numbers.? Neither memorable nor impressive – especially when you can easily customize this in about 15 seconds.? Now that you are the proud owner of a customized LinkedIn URL, use it for personal branding purposes.
Side note: Unlike most sites, what you see in the address field of your browser when viewing your own profile is not the link to your profile. If you’d like to learn more about kicking your efforts on LinkedIn into high gear, be sure to subscribe to Almost Savvy through RSS or email. LinkedIn | Almost Savvy - Part 2. LinkedIn Tips Complete Profile. Posted by Irene Koehler in LinkedIn on December 29, 2008 | 7 responses Dear Professional, You and I were set up on a blind-date of sorts. The only reason you consented to give me a try was because a friend of yours continually nagged you, something about I “could be very useful to you in the future.” You didn’t feel I was worth the time, but it became easier to give me a try than to deal with your friend who kept reminding you to take a chance with me.
I appreciate that you meant well at first, but I feel I must be honest. I miss you. Fondly, Your (incomplete) LinkedIn profile The number of incomplete profiles I see on LinkedIn is huge, but not surprising. A few tips to keep in mind when completing your profile: It is not a resume. Hope you’re ready to tackle that lonely profile now. If you’d like to learn more about kicking your efforts on LinkedIn into high gear, be sure to subscribe to Almost Savvy through RSS or email. Additional comments powered by BackType. Back-up Your LinkedIn Information. Posted by Irene Koehler in LinkedIn on April 12, 2009 | 32 responses Contact information for all of your connections You’ve taken great care in building your LinkedIn network of connections because these are the folks you’ve known throughout your career, those friends from school with whom you’ve recently reconnected and professionals who are just plain helpful and wise because they might be excellent resources in the future.?
Are you comfortable with all of that information residing on a website over which you have no control? What if you need to access contact information for one of your connections and the LinkedIn site is down temporarily? For many reasons, I strongly sugggest periodically exporting and saving your connections. How frequently you should do this depends on how often you add new people to your network. Exporting your connections is easy. Profile and recommendations While you are in a housekeeping mood, let’s take it one step further. So, what are you waiting for? LinkedIn Tips - Got Street Cred? Posted by Irene Koehler in Business, Career, LinkedIn, Networking on January 2, 2009 | 7 responses There was a time when a recommendation from your mother that you were a real catch was enough of an objective opinion to satisfy others’ due diligence to determine if you were all you claimed to be.
Following the time when Mom’s praise was enough and prior to today, there was also a time,when customer testimonials printed on marketing brochures were all the evidence we needed to know you were the bee’s knees. Thanks to the internet, those days are but a distant memory, and it’s a good thing (I’m not terribly sure what my mother would say about me). With our hyperconnectedness online today, it is extremely easy to effectively assess someone’s street cred, their credibility, their reputation, from first-hand sources. LinkedIn has come to be a relied-upon source of professional recommendations due to the level of transparency it provides. What are your thoughts of these suggestions? LinkedIn Lets You Show Off Your Best Assets. Posted by Irene Koehler in Business, Career, LinkedIn, Tips on February 5, 2010 | 5 responses So you think LinkedIn isn’t as sexy as Twitter, Facebook or other networking sites?
I encourage you to think again. If providing the most powerful professional networking and job search platform around is sexy, then I’d say it’s pretty sexy. And, it just got a little sexier in that you can now show off your best assets more prominently. No, I’m not talking about push-up bras; the change I’m talking about allows you to bring more attention to your professional assets.
Until now, the LinkedIn profile was very structured and inflexible in its design: Summary and SpecialtiesApplications (i.e., Blog, SlideShare, etc.)ExperienceEducationRecommendations These sections were listed in this order and there was nothing you could do to change things around. Enter drag-and-drop. Kudos to LinkedIn for allowing us to take more control over the look and feel of our profiles.