LinkedIn for Beginners (Part 1): What is it, why does it exist and is it for me?

Hi, there! 👋 I hope you’re keeping yourself safe during this pandemic period. This is going to be a two-part series.

Let’s answer these questions quickly.

What is LinkedIn?

Show by hand if you have a LinkedIn account? LinkedIn may not be the most popular social networking platform out there but it is definitely the largest professional social networking platform boasting a whopping 675+ million members worldwide(this is massive)

LinkedIn is the community to connect with industry professionals, build a professional network, build your career, and hopefully find the right job or internship opportunity. 

LinkedIn makes it possible to meet and network with other professionals online. You can view job postings, learn new skills and much more on the site.

So basically, as Instagram is to sharing precious moments, LinkedIn is to finding the next precious moment of your career.

Who is LinkedIn for?

The site is for anyone in any professional line of work who is looking to navigate their professional life. That includes students – even high school graduates – to CEOs of Fortune500 companies. From this, we can say that there is a very good chance that LinkedIn is for you (I’ll talk more about this later in this post)

Why LinkedIn?

Okay, we now know what LinkedIn is, and who it is for. So what? Why is it important? Why should anyone spend their time on the site? I will like to answer these by pointing out a few things.

1. You get access to a massive amount of job opportunities and – hopefully – offers.

Once you have completed a proper setup of your profile, LinkedIn uses your profile to suggest connections, companies and job opportunities for you. You can also search and filter these job opportunities to meet your criteria. A solid LinkedIn profile also attracts all the potential employers and recruiters to you. 

A note of caution though: despite the number of opportunities out there, to get an offer would not happen by chance. You have to be proactive and do certain things to get job offers.

This includes following as many people as possible because your potential employer could be your very next connection.

One lady I admire and would encourage everyone to follow is Brigette Hyacinth. She is a Human Resource Influencer who is quite outspoken and encourages her followers to follow each other and those of higher status to help those seeking help and assistance. This is her way of helping her followers despite her 2,571,967 followers. 

My Personal Experience

So I get messaged on LinkedIn by a recruiter who was looking to hire someone of my expertise. This means that; someone is out there checking your profile out without any prior encounter or communication(which is great when you think about it). Is your profile good enough for them to keep going? If yes, they reach out just like they did with me. Having a great LinkedIn profile is pivotal to your career enrichment and advancement.

Another note of caution: you need to regularly check your messages. I once missed a job opportunity because I saw a message from the recruiter about 6 weeks after it was sent.

2. Get and manage a free Professional Portfolio online. 

When you set up your profile on LinkedIn, it immediately becomes available to the millions of people on LinkedIn. You can manage this portfolio by updating your profile.

LinkedIn also allows you to share the projects you are working on, the new skills you are learning and more importantly, your accomplishments. Having the right portfolio online can be the thing that leads you to the next breakthrough in your professional life.

Personally, in recent times when I apply for a job, I either use my LinkedIn profile or portfolio if permissible. These days most recruiters do ask for an online portfolio. Your LinkedIn profile can be more easily accessed by anyone in any part of the world.

When a recruiter searches your name in the browser, your LinkedIn profile may possibly be the first to show up which if you think about it, is a great idea. Your name search takes them to your profile page.

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3. Build and engage with your professional network. 

LinkedIn has a massive and diverse community of professionals: people who share similar career paths or goals and people with industry expertise among others. And as such, it is a great avenue to build your network and community. You get to meet like-minded people like yourself. You can share ideas, teach and learn from this community. You build your network by following people and accepting invitations of people who want to follow you. LinkedIn is a vast community,

4. Your Profile will inspire others

Your profile and accomplishments will inspire people who would like you to mentor them. Which in my opinion, you should give a helping hand if you can.

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Should I join LinkedIn?

Well, it’s obvious! You definitely should. I heard someone once say; “she felt a little intimidated by people showcasing all the accomplishments on LinkedIn”. For starters, it’s the perfect platform to do that if you are seeking employment. Also, by showcasing your accomplishment, you stand the chance of getting your profile viewed by a potential employer or recruiter.

A last word of caution: Do not be intimidated by people’s accomplishments, if anything they should motivate and propel you to do more and be better.

In my next post, I will guide you through how to craft and set up your LinkedIn profile which will help you build networks of industry professionals which will eventually build your career.