When you, in turn, invite someone to join your network, both of your networks merge and grow. In no time you will see thousands of people who you are connected with and are then able to connect with the ones who are a little out of reach. These connections will help you in your future job search or business opportunities.
According to Wikipedia, the purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.
The list of connections can be used in numerous ways:
A contact network is built up in degrees; first degree connections are people you know directly, second degree is their connections, and third degree is the second degree connections. This is valuable information to know who to go to gain an introduction to someone you wish to meet. LinkedIn has links to local, national and international job opportunities. Employers list job openings and search for potential candidates.
Job seekers can view profiles of hiring managers and research which of contacts can introduce them.
Creating a Profile
The first thing to do when you enter the site is to create your profile, which is nothing more than a detailed resume. By doing this it makes you more searchable, so recruiters, potential clients, and former co-workers or lost friends have a better chance of finding you when they're running searches.
Be sure to use as many keywords as you can, making sure that you put full information into your job entries, and load up every section. Everything you write can be counted as a keyword when someone is searching. If you say you enjoy downhill skiing, and someone searches for other skiers in their network, you will come up in their search.
''The easiest and quickest way to build up your profile is to just copy and paste information directly from your existing resume,'' suggests Dave Biskner, LinkedIn guru. ''Put in as much information as you are comfortable with. Then, look at the areas of the profile that weren't addressed in the resume.''
One area might be the ''specialties'' section of the profile. Biskner advises ''to build up your specialties section quickly and easily, pull up other people's profiles and look at what they wrote in their profiles.
Focusing on the more active LinkedIn members will most likely give you the best examples to read for inspiration.
