Using LinkedIn to Advance Your Career


By Rachel Friederich, ICSEW Communications Chair
The professional social networking site LinkedIn has 133 million users in the U.S. alone and reaches more than 200 counties and territories around the world.
So it makes sense that it can be used for career development. Everything from job searching, networking with other professionals in your field and giving and receiving career advice can all be done on Linked In.
Career Coach Linda Tilson gave a primer on how to set up and use your LinkedIn account at the ICSEW career fair May 21.
Among the tips she offered to make your LinkedIn profile as effective as possible:
Keep an Updated Profile: Members with a profile picture are more likely to get views compared to those that don’t.
Be comprehensive about current skills and objectives: Use your headline to share your main objective if it makes sense and add all of your skills to your page.
Be more than a fly on the wall. Engage with others on LinkedIn, as you would any social network. Post articles you write. Use your connections to seek—and give—career advice. The more you act as a professional, the more you’ll be noticed and build recognition. Get involved in professional groups.
Research your future boss and executive team.  Before going on an interview, or applying to a job with an organization, see if the company or your potential boss has a LinkedIn. You can use it to find out about the company’s and/or your potential boss’ likes, dislikes, important company values, etc. You can leverage this information during the interview and show you’ve done your homework.