How to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job - Or Have a Job Find You

For seniors who are graduating soon....LinkedIn.com might be a very good social sites to get good job.

-Create a Profile. Create a detailed profile on LinkedIn, including employment (current and past), education, industry, and web sites.

-Consider a Photo. You can add a photo (a headshot is recommended or upload a larger photo and edit it) to your LinkedIn profile. Note that it must be a small photo - no larger than 80x80 pixels.

-Keywords and Skills. Include all your resume keywords and skills in your profile, so your profile will be found.

-Build Your Network. Connect with other members and build your network. The more connections you have, the more opportunities you have, with one caveat from Kay Luo, "Connect to people you know and trust or have a business relationship with, no need to go crazy and connect with everyone."

-Get Recommendations. Recommendations from people you have worked with carry a lot of weight.

-Search Jobs. Use the job search section to find job listings.

-Use Answers. The Answers section of LinkedIn is a good way to increase your visibility.
Respond to questions, and ask a question if you need information or assistance.

-Siew Ching-

References: About.com, Job searching, LinkedIn, "LinkedIn and your job search", retrieved on
20th March 2009
URL: http://jobsearch.about.com/od/networking/a/linkedin.htm

Facebook, you are not the only one ok......

Here are some others SNS:

• Twitter.com — Micro blogging anyone? what is micro blogging anyway? Twitter only allows a maximun of 140 characters. That’s really short but that’s what it means by Twittering, just for others to follow and not make long announcement. Short announcement. Really short. Just enough to let people know what you are up to. Is it really useful? Some people says it does. However I can’t seem to find it useful. After all, you could make short announcement in your Facebook or in your MSN messenger. As a web site made solely on short announcement for people to follow seems a little offbeat. Sign on anyway just to make short announcements! Ha-ha! As an added usefulness, you can link it to Facebook and put a twitter badge on your web site too!
• Jaiku.com — Similar to Twitter but at this moment still in beta testing stage. Can’t really review it because sign up is by invitation only. Its interesting feature is that you could install their app into your phone like Nokia E66 or even a Java enabled phone.
• Placeshout.com — Another micro blogging site which we rarely heard of. As what their name is about shouting out a place, a location where you can rent or rave about the place. And the places to shout about? Mostly restaurants located in USA and Europe. Not so useful for Asia Pacific and Australian region.
• Yelp.com — Another restaurant micro blogging site. Similar to Placeshout. Usefulness? USA only.
• Delicious.com — This is about sharing personal bookmarks online. In time it also became a place where you could use it to promote a bit of your web site too, however with the rel=”nofollow” in the link you can’t use it to raise your Google page rank, but still a good way to check your web site popularity and see how many people save your site on their delicious bookmark.
• Digg.com — Similar to delicious.com but not as a bookmarking site but more like a popularity contest. The more people digg your site or article, it gets promoted to their frontpage which in turn increases more exposure to your web site or article web page.
• Stumbleupon.com — Similar to digg.com and well as per namesake, while happily browsing around, you stumble upon some interesting website or page and decided it is worth sharing with others.
• Flickr.com — Now part of Yahoo and quite a popular social photography web site. As a hobby site to share and showcase your photography ability. Could also be use in conjunction with your photography or travel related web site. Usefulness? Get a kick out of the number of people admiring your photos.
• LinkedIn.com — This one is different from Facebook. This is where professional network to look for jobs and contract. Call this business version of Facebook. This is a no nonsense social web site. It would do no good to have your partying photo shown to potential employers or business associate would it? This is where you post your work experience and show your best foot forward.

-Siew Ching-