Linkedin - How to use it for job-hunting.

Every second thread I reply to I've ended up recommending LinkedIn so I thought a guide to it might be useful on this forum. I've no association with them btw, just found it extremely useful for job-hunting.

So, what is linkedin?
It's a social networking site that's focused on the professional world. So, it's like a Facebook for your career.

Why use it?
If you go to a recruitment consultant at the moment, the first thing they'll do with your CV is check their existing database of jobs, after that they'll check their linkedin contacts to see if they can find someone who your skills might be of interest to. In a recessionary market, recruitment consultants are only of so much use to you. Why would a company bother hiring one when there's plenty of candidates out there already who they can get to apply directly?

As millionaire pointed out in his posts (here and here, the best way of finding a job is to contact a hiring manager directly. HR departments will only know if a vacancy exists, they won't know that a senior manager may be prepared to create a position for someone of the right skillset!

How do I get started?
Well, open an account and build your profile. A good profile should be based on your CV, show your education, your job history, interests etc.

Next, you need to build your network. Your starting point should be to try and connect to anyone you've ever worked with. This lets their contacts see you and vice versa. Next look for old clients who you got on well with / could recommend you. Finally, add friends, family etc. Even if they work in totally different areas than you, it's likely they have other contacts within your area or their contacts may have contacts who do. The more people you have in your extended network, the more you'll appear in search results and the more people you'll be able to find. Ireland's a small place and with only 3/4 degrees of separation it's not hard to find a link to someone you might want to contact.

Don't be afraid to ask for recommendations, these are what get you noticed. Ask former colleagues or clients for recommendations and write short recommendations from those you'd either like to get reommended back by or those you'd simply like to do a favour for. Both raise your profile on the site.

Finally, join groups that are relevant to your career, your college's alumni group or your interests. For example, here's the boards.ie group on linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1386797. You can choose not to display a group's logo on your profile if you want to build your network with it but not to have it obvious that you spend half your work-day on boards for example!

So, I've got a profile and build a network, what now?
First off, keep building your network. It's the key to any form of networking and that's exactly what this site lets you do. I didn't think I'd much in the way of industry contacts until I started building my profile and now I'm finding opportunities through it left, right and centre. Not very many of them suit me but it's better to be hearing of them and getting the ego boost that someone's interested in you than just firing off cv after cv to recruitment agencies on job sites and hearing nothing back.

Irish people seem very open to networking opportunities so don't be afraid to contact anyone you even half know. Build your network and use it.

Now, the important bit, and a point that dove-tails nicely with what millionaire pointed out in his posts on the recruitment agencies thread that I linked to. If you've worked with a company that sold services, your skills may well be of interest to their clients. So, find them and see who shows up as a first, second or third level contact for that firm. If you can't contact them directly, find someone that has a direct link to them in your network and ask for an 'introduction'.

If you developed or installed a system somewhere, aren't you an ideal candidate to support that system for them? or to extend it's capabilities for them? So contact a senior manager in that organisation via linked in and ask if they might be interested in your skillset as a former employee of their supplier.

Summary
Essentially, linkedin can get you access to the people with the power to hire you. They may be interested, they may not. But if you've made contact, the odds are they'll remember you if they do need someone in the future.

If you're out of work, the worst you stand to lose by putting the effort in is a bit of time and that shouldn't be a worry. If you already have a job, what harm is there in putting yourself out there for a headhunter to find you?

Another benefit I've discovered from creating my profile there was that it got me access to how a lot of former colleagues describe their roles in their CV. This has helped me improve my own, spotting things about old jobs that I hadn't seen as selling points before etc.

Hope this is of some use to those who haven't tried it out, or who've just registered and left their profile half-empty with only a contact or two and wondered why everyone else seemed so enthusiastic about it. If anyone has tips I've left out please add them to this thread so that we can all benefit from it. If you've a question post it here and I'll try my best to answer it, though I'm unlikely to be more than a page or two ahead of you, I'm new to this myself but have found it so useful I felt I had to share it!