I keep my eye out for news stories about LinkedIn, and when P.J. Louis asks “What’s Wrong With LinkedIn??” over the weekend, I have to respond!
It seems clear to me that P.J. Doesn’t “get it” yet, and I’d like to offer some unsolicited advice;-)
LinkedIn for the Job Seeker
The main point that P.J makes in the article [click here to open up the article in a new window] is that LinkedIn is for people looking for work (versus Facebook being a site for people looking to promote themselves or their art).
He mentions no other use of the LinkedIn site…
It’s not a unique mistake – I am constantly telling readers that LinkedIn is for more than finding a job. To support this statement, I went to the “Jobs” archive and decided that I didn’t have just one example of mentioning in a job search post that people should continue to use LinkedIn as a fully employed business professional!
So for more about that – go look in the jobs archive yourself;-)
It’s not about connecting to people you don’t know!
And here’s P.J.’s second mistake – he suggests that the downside of LinkedIn is that you’re attracting people by showing them that you know (and connect to) others. He goes on to talk about seeing names of connections and hiding them – attributes only given to direct connections.
So his connection policy does not appear to be to connect only to those you know and trust.
And that’s also not a philosophy that I’d advocate…
So yes…
I guess I agree with him – if you’re not going to use the site as intended – by connecting to people you know and trust, and then using your network to reach out and contact the people they know through a warm introduction to improve business relationships, the site is not built properly.
Used properly it’s better than most
Ok – I can’t give a glowing “there’s absolutely nothing odd about LinkedIn” statement… LinkedIn is the best tool of its kind, and is by no means perfect.
One learns to deal with the way it works today, finds better ways to use it, and expects that tomorrow the system might have changed in any arbitrary aspect;-)
But that’s why I’m here
Sure, if LinkedIn had everything perfect, I’d be out of an audience;-) That day may come – but until then you can expect to find insights on the workings of the #1 professional networking site right here.
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
Steven,
You are absolutely correct, P.J. doesn’t “get it”. LinkedIn is NOT about showing off how many connections you have or who those connections are.
LinkedIn is about “leveraging the connections you have” to HELP OTHERS.
In the old days, if we wanted to know if someone we knew knew someone… we would have to contact everyone we know and ask them & they their connections if they knew anyone…
With LinkedIn, you can search for your target (for whatever reason) and Instantly discover who you know who can introduce (and endorse) you.
It is not designed to BUILD a network but it is the Best at Leveraging your network.
Notice too that P.J. post has no way to respond to what he says… I guess he doesn’t want any opposing views…
Regards,
Paul,
Appreciate the comment. And yes, I also looked to try to leave a comment there… oh well.
steve
I tried to leave a comment there too, sad that his business is to inform others, considering how mis-informed he is about these services. Completely agree with you Steve, thanks for bringing this up. Paul, you bring up good points too, though I’d quibble about LinkedIn not being designed to build a network. Obviously, only people do that, but LinkedIn is a good tool for building as well as leveraging your network. I advise even folks just entering the workforce to get on it right away, and start using it.
Peter