Just as professionals prefer the Blackberry to the iPhone, they are also increasingly choosing LinkedIn over Facebook and MySpace as part of their online global networking tool set.So what does LinkedIn offer that others do not? While the fluff and fun of social networking sites is undoubtedly good to pass a few hours, LinkedIn has a more serious edge to it. Filled with experts, corporate leaders, and industry mavens, it is a place where you can find strong contacts, leading edge candidates, job opportunities and consulting offers, as well as the ability to perform some pretty in-depth research in almost any field.
Reference Collecting
One of the more useful aspects of LinkedIn is as a place for you to detail your professional track record for all to see. Recruiters, prospects and potential partners can use this to check on your history, the sorts of people who are willing to refer you, and they can use the information to see if somebody in their own network is somehow connected to you.
Those who use the site tend to collect references, comments and endorsements that enable people to get a strong first opinion of who you are and what you are capable of.
Recruiting
Many companies that are actively looking for consultants, or candidates of all flavors, make this site their first stop today. This gives them two distinct benefits;
1) They get to speak to people who are self selected and are already engaged with the networking and job markets in one way or another and
2) They get to speak to candidates who had not considered moving previously, therefore giving them a "first mover" advantage on resources not yet in play in the job market.
For the people in the network, there are job site also. With the ability to quickly scan through the job postings.
However, more than anything else there are a range of real high flyer networks. These are pay to join networks such as ExecSuite, which I subscribe to.
ExecSuite actually holds a range of jobs in the $150K plus range and boasts an impressive level of CEO's, VP's and other senior business executives. This has been one of the best investments I have made personally in networking.
Research
A lot of the research I do for this blog comes from LinkedIn and the network I have created there. The Question and Answer section is well divided into relevant areas and all the questions I have posted have drawn answers from people who I could only describe as experts within their chosen fields.
I am sure there si a lot more that could be done there, like announcing your availability, testing the waters for Interim management work or even looking for consulting or contract work.
Staying in Touch
Like most of us the vast majority of my life as a consultant is either at work, traveling to work, or returning from work. So most of my contacts, either social or professional, have arisen out of my business dealings.
Like me, they are also very busy people with more work than time to do it, so LinkedIn provides an easy way for me to get in touch with them again. Through this tool I have touched base with people I had lost contact with long ago - great stuff! (Seeing as we are all a bit older and a little swollen looking these days)
This is only the tip of the iceberg, I am pretty new to this so I am sure there is a lot there that I have only just begun to discover. Have a look for yourself, and feel free to link to me if you do!
