For all of you who are members of LinkedIn, you may have noticed an unusually large amount of activity coming from my account. Katie brought it to my attention that I have over 1200 contacts in my outlook, but had only connected with a mere 70 of you on this platform. I must admit, I have held out for a long time in terms of actively using the platform.
I read an article recently that stated, “499 of the Fortune 500 companies have director-level profiles and higher on LinkedIn. Even Barack Obama recently teamed up with LinkedIn to reach entrepreneurs, small business owners and executives, asking them very pointed questions regarding their needs from the next U.S. president.”
Isn’t it amazing how easy it is for all of us to connect in one spot? It’s also hard to believe that this is the standard resume for all professionals; who would have thought this would be the case 10 years ago? Although I’m a novice to LinkedIn, I’m quickly learning about how helpful it can be. My past hesitancy was born out of a strong feeling that relationships of trust and advice-seeking are not built and sustained online. But what I’m learning is that tools like LinkedIn can actually help us communicate more efficiently with individuals in our networks – in a way, these tools help us leverage that relationship capital I talked about in a previous post. I’m glad that Katie convinced me it was time to get more involved – it’s been great to “connect” with many folks who I have not had the pleasure of talking with in a while.
Now I’m considering using LinkedIn as a recruiting platform. Do you have any experience with this?
