I had LinkedIn for a long time, but I never had any real use for it. All career, internship, grad school opportunity came from talking to my colleagues or professors that I have interacted with. I joined Nole Connections (my invite is pending approval).
I mostly created a LinkedIn profile because that's what basically everyone said that you're supposed to do if you ever want to have a career. Initially, I updated my profile with information and added connections with people that I have known for a long or went to high school and college with.
This time, I started paying attention to the little details that LinkedIn has to offer. Not only can you add skills, but you can also endorse a skill that a someone in your connection has.
But I do find it a bit disconcerting that some of the recommended connections were people that I never really interacted with in real life, such as my best friend's friends or acquaintances of men that I have previously dated. (Do I really need to be reminded of this??)
Maybe because of my bare resume (or it feels bare compared to other people), I don't feel as if I could compete with other people on LinkedIn. Then again, maybe I just have the wrong perspective of this the social networking site.
However, I do feel that I need to play around with the site more and spend more time on it to really feel as if I am getting some use out of it.
How is everyone's LinkedIn experience going?
I feel the same way about LinkedIn! I try to increase my number of connections, but I don't always know where to start with it. Lately I've been added people who also work at the company I am interning with. I feel my resume is too bare to get much use out of this site, but maybe I just don't know enough about it yet!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could tell you my glowing opportunities through Linked It. I actually do have a decent resume because I'm much older than you gals :) People invite me to connect all the time and I feel like, cool, click, whatever. But I have been really enjoying my community in LinkedIn. I lurk. But its good!
ReplyDeleteI'm happy that you are having these experiences, Michelle! I personally haven't, but my husband reports constantly getting messages with job offers. He's a software engineer, though, so I think some of this is a difference in industry-related demands.
DeleteI'm glad you brought this up because I always feel uncomfortable when I get an endorsement from someone that I haven't really worked with in the past... It's not like you can decline endorsements. Should we really trust these metrics?
ReplyDeleteI've wondered about the endorsements also. The endorsements I have received are from people I know, but why are they endorsing me? I haven't figured out the benefit to them. Do you know? I agree, its not like a real acalade sent because someone was blown away by your amazingness, (is that a word, lol).
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