Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Power of LinkedIn
As I mentioned last night, I probably spend more time on LinkedIn than other social networks. If you don't already have a LinkedIn account, I encourage you to set one up and link with me.
There have been several articles written about how to make the best use of LinkedIn when you are looking for a job, but here is a recent one from Forbes. Chi has recent experience with this, so hopefully he will share that with us because he was able to get an interview very quickly after setting up his new LinkedIn profile.
Once you set up your profile, let me know what you think. What do you like about it? What do you think it is missing? Do you worry about privacy issues here like you do on Facebook? Do you agree that resumes will be obsolete in 5 years? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
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Thanks Dr. Mishra for introducing LinkedIn to me. In fact, I was planning to set up a profile when I take this class. Maybe I could not wait that long. I joined the LinkedIn three weeks before final. I was just trying to see how it works and did not expect any response. Fortunately, I did some job search and one company contact me right after.
ReplyDeleteChi
Dr. Mishra,
ReplyDeleteI ran into another good LinkedIn article the other night about how LinkedIn is stronger than facebook. Here is the link.... http://www.socialnomics.net/2012/04/24/3-reasons-why-linkedin-is-stronger-than-facebook/
Linkedin is an interesting social network because of the practical application of the site. While it serves one specific purpose, link building for business purposes, it serves that purpose very well. The site is well put together and thought out, but some of the main problems that I have found are the search function for both jobs and people. The search functions for individuals will sometimes return you results that have the person you are looking for buried under a mountain of other names because of the linking structure. The predictive algorithm that they use over emphasizes links and location over past history and direct matches to names. This all can lead to a mountain of useless or semi-useless names. The job search can have the same problems, especially the beta job recommendations. The recommendations for me are always in higher education and specifically tailored toward the field that I was in previously. While that might be helpful for established professionals or recent grads that entered the field that they wanted out of school. The recommendations don't take into account anything other than previous job history. This is not what I want my searches based on. I would rather them take a composite look at the companies that I am following and my skills that I have listed to come up with possible job recommendations. This would be more useful to me instead of having to search for jobs all the time. As for resumes in 5 years, I could see it happening. But at the same time I don't like the idea of creating massive databases of information every. It allows for too many security risks no just for the user, but all of their contacts. A prime example was the uploading of contact information through your cellphone app. With continued inter connectivity of websites and mobile devices the idea of privacy will slowly erode as people give up one more piece of information, justifying the increased publicity by the increased usefulness. This is a slippery slope and can be very problematic, but people ignore the user agreements and willfully sign their information away. While this might sound like paranoia, and it might be a little, the problem is that Facebook has changed their privacy policy and people have been upset about it, but a majority of people who didn't care or were oblivious to the changes because of ignorance allowed the changes without a murmur. This herd mentality believing that because everyone is using an application and forces everyone else to fall under the same rules, does not mean that everyone is safe while using the application. But if 75% of users just agree to go along with changes it forces the other 25% to decide, is increased exposure and no other options for a product worth the continued risk. In any other business other than social media would the company take into account the 25%, but social media is too large and too addictive to most people to step away, so they accept the user agreements they don't agree with because of peer pressure.
ReplyDeleteI have spent that last hour setting up my LinkedIn profile. I found the process to be a bit long, but am confident that it was worthwhile. I am interested to see how long it takes for others to find me, as well as how difficult I will find it to find others. Are there any helpful tips that others have that will increase my usability and enjoyment? How often do you all check your LinkedIn profile?
ReplyDeleteThanks!