Get Connected and Advance Your Career with LinkedIn
Finding a balance between your work and personal life can be a challenge. You know you should network and stay connected but maybe you don’t want your coworkers as your Facebook friends. Now there is a social network that is business centered and appropriate for work-related relationships. When you join LinkedIn you can create a professional profile that doesn’t include pictures from your sister’s bachelorette weekend or a wall post from that high school buddy about the good ‘ole days. Now you can begin adding contacts of colleagues and classmates and join professional groups. These groups are a great way to bounce around ideas and discuss the latest industry trends.
Another great feature of this network is the job search and posting aspect. Employers can post jobs on LinkedIn and members seeking employment can search through an extensive database of job postings. Staying up to date on competitors or companies you are interested is crucial to furthering your career, and LinkedIn allows you to follow businesses that are members of this network. Each company has a page where you can read about new developments and activity within that company.
As with many of the popular social networks, LinkedIn has a mobile application. This is extremely useful so you can share news about your company or industry as it happens without waiting until you can get to a computer. LinkedIn is great for professionals of all ages. College students can find internships and get a jump start on their careers and high profile executives can market their company and recruit the best candidates in the industry. There is no cost of creating and maintaining a standard account. However, LinkedIn does offer upgrades to more premium and advanced accounts for various prices.
In this economy, it’s important that you do everything you can to stay ahead, and LinkedIn is a great tool with many features to help employers and employees be proactive in meeting their career goals.