In today’s digital age, having a presence on professional social media platforms like LinkedIn has become increasingly important for career success and advancement. With over 740 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform and an invaluable tool for establishing connections, building your brand, finding jobs, and more.
While a LinkedIn profile is beneficial for all professionals, it can be especially advantageous for those just starting their careers or currently seeking new job opportunities. However, some may wonder if having a LinkedIn is really necessary or makes that big of an impact. In this article, we’ll explore some of the key benefits of maintaining a LinkedIn profile and why it has become a virtual necessity in today’s job market.
Expanding your professional network
One of the greatest advantages of LinkedIn is the ability it provides to easily expand your professional network. With just a few clicks, you can connect with colleagues, peers in your industry, recruiters, potential clients, and more. Whereas in the past, building a robust professional network required attending countless conferences, events, and meetings, LinkedIn allows you to accomplish this virtually.
Having a wide network of connections on LinkedIn serves many purposes. First, it gets your name and brand out there to a much wider audience than you’d likely reach on your own. The more people that can discover your profile, the more chances for networking, career prospects, and exposure.
In addition, LinkedIn allows you to leverage your connections to gain advice, insight, referrals, and more. By actively engaging with your network, you can capitalize on the “six degrees of separation” concept and open doors that otherwise may not have been available.
Connecting with past coworkers and classmates
One of the fastest ways to start building your LinkedIn network is by connecting with former coworkers, colleagues, supervisors, and classmates. Chances are many of them are already LinkedIn members.
Searching for familiar names and sending connection requests helps you expand your real-world network into the digital space. Plus, former coworkers and classmates make great connections, since they already understand your professional background and qualifications.
Reaching out to connect with people you already have rapport with is an easy first step to growing your LinkedIn presence.
Joining industry-related groups
Another excellent networking strategy is to join LinkedIn Groups related to your particular industry or areas of interest. LinkedIn Groups contain communities of professionals in the same field or niche and enable engaging in valuable conversations.
By actively participating in Group discussions, you can demonstrate your subject matter expertise while getting to know other Group members. LinkedIn makes it simple to directly connect with those Group members who may be beneficial additions to your network.
Joining Groups aligned with your professional focus maximizes the chances of making meaningful connections suited to your career aspirations.
Following companies and organizations
In addition to connecting with individuals, you can also follow companies and organizations on LinkedIn. Doing so allows you to keep up with their latest news, job postings, events, and more.
Following employers you aspire to work for, professional associations in your industry, influential thought leaders, and major players in your field provides exposure opportunities. When they share updates, they may appear in your network’s LinkedIn feeds.
Staying abreast of organizations relevant to your career path can help you find open positions, discover upcoming conferences, and generally remain “on their radar” by engaging with their LinkedIn activity.
Enhancing your personal brand
Beyond making connections, LinkedIn also provides an unparalleled platform for enhancing your personal brand as a professional. Your LinkedIn profile serves as the central hub for controlling how you present yourself in the digital sphere.
Optimizing your profile and actively engaging on the platform enables you to shape your image and build influence. Developing a strong personal brand brings numerous advantages, from boosting your credibility to landing more job interviews.
Crafting an appealing, keyword-rich profile
The foundation of your personal brand on LinkedIn starts with your profile. This is your chance to put your best professional foot forward. In addition to adding visual flair with a professional profile photo and background image, you should ensure your profile description uses keywords relevant to your expertise and career path.
Optimizing your profile for search engine visibility increases findability – both for recruiters and through LinkedIn searches. Don’t be afraid to include all your skills, accomplishments, awards, volunteer work, licenses, certifications, publications, and more.
Establishing yourself as an industry thought leader
Leveraging your LinkedIn presence to share your insights, perspectives, and knowledge is a powerful way to establish yourself as a thought leader. This can involve publishing LinkedIn posts, sharing recommended articles, commenting on other posts, and contributing long-form content.
The more value you contribute, the more credibility you build. Providing “social proof” of your subject matter expertise boosts your personal brand within your professional circles. LinkedIn analytics help you track post engagement so you can see which topics resonate most.
Engaging with content from influencers and leaders
A key part of LinkedIn best practices is regularly engaging with content from industry influencers, thought leaders, and prominent professionals you admire. This includes liking, commenting, and sharing their posts.
Doing so supports their personal brand while getting your name in front of their wider networks. Be sure to tag them and other relevant connections to expand your visibility. Active engagement can even result in them engaging with your content.
Establishing credibility and authority
Along with strengthening your personal brand, using LinkedIn to consistently demonstrate your competence, leadership, and expertise in your field will help you build credibility and authority.
Obtaining referrals and recommendations
One way to establish credibility on LinkedIn is by acquiring recommendations and referrals. Having connections publicly vouch for your skills and qualifications on your profile carries immense influence.
Be sure to return the favor by providing recommendations for your connections. This mutual endorsement system reinforces professional reputations and enhances credibility on both sides.
Sharing career achievements and milestones
Making profile updates to highlight major accomplishments helps document your professional journey. This could include announcing a big promotion, celebrating years of service, publicizing awards won, acknowledging career milestones, and more.
Big career moments convey your growing experience and expertise. Announcing major achievements also keeps your network informed of your advancing skills and responsibilities.
Signaling your credibility through profile badges
LinkedIn offers the ability to earn profile badges that validate your professional credentials. These include skill assessments, courses completed, volunteer experience confirmation, military service verification, and more.
Displaying applicable badges makes it easy for your connections to see at a glance that you have legitimate credibility in key areas. It transforms your capabilities from claims to bonafide qualifications.
Discovering job and career opportunities
Arguably LinkedIn’s most touted benefit is the unparalleled access it offers to new job postings and career opportunities. With LinkedIn Jobs & Hiring, the platform has become a go-to resource for candidates and recruiters.
Connecting with recruiters and hiring managers
Expand your job search reach by using LinkedIn to directly connect with recruiters and hiring managers at companies that interest you. This gives you an “in” and channel for asking questions, learning about openings, and assessing fit.
Recruiters are already tuned into scouring LinkedIn profiles, so optimizing yours positions you on their radar. Connecting provides a foot in the door to submit your credentials or have them reach out about positions.
Applying for jobs through LinkedIn
More employers are using LinkedIn as a source of qualified candidates by listing openings directly on the platform. The LinkedIn Jobs portal allows you to quickly search, filter, and apply for relevant postings that align with your background and career aspirations.
Applying through LinkedIn enables you to leverage your profile and connections in tandem with your resume/application. This provides a more holistic view of you as a candidate compared to just submitting a resume into the void.
Receiving notifications about relevant opportunities
Based on the data in your profile, LinkedIn’s algorithms will generate automated recommendations about jobs and opportunities that seem like a potential fit. You can also set job search alerts to get notifications about new postings according to your preferences.
Letting LinkedIn do some of the heavy lifting by bringing suitable openings to your attention makes the job seeking process much more targeted and efficient.
Staying up to date on industry news and trends
While certainly a social network, LinkedIn also provides value as a professional news source. Between published content and company/organization updates, LinkedIn keeps users abreast of the latest happenings and need-to-know information related to their industry and role.
Following leading companies and thought leaders
By following target employers, influential professionals, experts, and premier organizations, LinkedIn becomes a centralized hub for relevant news. The content they post will automatically appear in your main feed.
This provides “one stop shopping” instead of visiting numerous websites for updates. You can easily keep your finger on the pulse of major developments, leadership changes, product launches, policy announcements, and more.
Reading relevant news through LinkedIn curated feeds
In addition to your main feed, LinkedIn provides tailored curated feeds based on your profile and engagement. For example, the “My News” feed displays content tailored to your interests and industry.
The “Today” feed highlights trending business and industry news. Reading these curated feeds allows you to digest highly relevant news picked especially for you.
Engaging in your industry’s LinkedIn Groups
The focused discussions and content sharing that occurs within LinkedIn Groups makes them a valuable source of insider information and news. Group members frequently post updates, articles, and commentary related to the Group’s niche industry or topic.
Staying involved in Groups that align with your professional sphere will regularly expose you to breaking developments, issues, and ideas specific to your field. The collective dialogue keeps you informed through crowdsourced updates.
Gaining skills and learning
While LinkedIn facilitates networking and career management, it also acts as a vital learning platform. Between Lynda.com courses and LinkedIn Learning paths, you can leverage LinkedIn to build skills using professionally curated education content.
Taking LinkedIn Learning courses
LinkedIn Learning provides over 15,000 online video courses covering business, technology, and creative topics. They offer skill-building across a diverse set of areas, including leadership, software, design, and more.
You can use LinkedIn Learning courses to pick up new skills or brush up and expand your expertise. Having completed courses listed directly on your profile highlights your dedication to continually developing your capabilities.
Showcasing course certificates
Upon completing LinkedIn Learning courses, you can easily share and showcase your earned course completion certificates on your profile.
Displaying certificates signals to your network that you actively work to enhance your skill set. It also enables you to validate capabilities to potential employers.
Following Company Pages for useful insights
In addition to engaging with individuals, following Company Pages of employers you aspire to work for has value. Their Company Pages frequently contain posts about industry insights, productivity tips, workplace culture, and career advice.
This “behind the scenes” corporate content offers helpful perspective. It keeps you up to speed on what matters to leading employers and top companies in your field.
Conclusion
While a LinkedIn profile requires commitment and activity to yield results, the multitude of benefits make the effort well worthwhile, especially for professionals, career-changers, and job seekers.
The access LinkedIn provides to networking, career management, industry news, online learning, and job opportunities make it a nearly indispensable tool for creating career success and mobility.
In summary:
- Growing your professional connections exponentially increases the possibilities for career prospects.
- Strengthening your personal brand establishes you as an industry authority and thought leader.
- Showcasing your expertise and achievements reinforces your credibility.
- Leveraging LinkedIn opens doors to job openings and accelerated hiring.
- Staying on top of industry news and dialogue keeps you “in the know” and competitive.
- Utilizing LinkedIn Learning expands your skills through professional development courses.
For professionals who are serious about managing their careers, LinkedIn is no longer optional – it’s mandatory. The volume of opportunities and advantages it provides make having a complete, optimized LinkedIn presence vitally important for reaching your full career potential in the digital age.