The well-known career platform LinkedIn has been a great contributor to many careers for years, but nowadays the essence of a solid personal brand is greater than ever – especially now that working from home has become the norm in many fields. Your profile leaves a first impression and serves as a digital business card to recruiters and hiring managers. Don’t see the value of it yet? Time for Josie to change your mind.
A small history lesson on the origin of LinkedIn takes us back to the year 2003 when co-founder Reid Hoffman officially launched the career platform from his own living room. Now, 18 years later, it’s the world’s leading career platform with a staggering 765 million users in over 200 countries worldwide. So, is having a LinkedIn profile really necessary to make the most out of your career? The answer is yes. Even if you have a distaste for social media, it is definitely worth only half an hour of your time to at least set up a page and update it every once in a while. The truth is that LinkedIn can work wonders for your career advancement, as both recruiters and employers use it to scout new candidates these days.
Advance your career easily
Having a LinkedIn account doesn’t only mean you can be found more easily by being present on the site, it also means you can use it to your own advantage by researching companies, interviewers, recruiters, to help you prepare for sending out applications and job interviews. Even if you’re currently not actively seeking, having a profile comes with a lot of extra benefits such as the ability to connect with your current – or former co-workers. Even people you met a long time ago, can be still useful to you in the future. LinkedIn allows you to stay connected to those people you meet at networking activities and conferences, instead of ending up as a crumpled piece of paper in the back of someone’s wallet. Setting up an account not only demands a minimal chink of your time, using LinkedIn is also free of charge (unless you go for the premium option). Besides, in this digital day and age, most companies merely make use of online application processes, and it’s often the rule rather than the exception to upload your LinkedIn profile alongside your resume. If you put in just a little effort to create your own personal LinkedIn account, the pay-off could be massive in terms of your career advancement. And be honest, do you really want to miss out on great opportunities, just because you never felt like creating an account?
Use LinkedIn on your terms
Although LinkedIn is the ideal way of finding opportunities a lot easier than the traditional way, statistics shows that millennials are hesitant to use it, and they seem skeptical about using the platform for a couple of reasons. First of all, they seem to find setting up an account quite overwhelming because of all those different questions and sections, which can be quite confronting if you lack experience. We all need to start somewhere, and just being 100% open about it doesn’t have to stop you from hitting the ladder through LinkedIn. As long as you show your willingness to learn, there are still recruiters scouting for new talent everywhere. Another reason why some people seem to particularly dislike LinkedIn as a social medium, is the lack of privacy. Everyone can see when and whose page you visit, and you even receive notifications when someone’s been peaking at your profile and vice versa. Besides, you definitely do not want your current boss to find out the hard way that you’ve been a lot more active on LinkedIn than usual. What a lot of people don’t know, however, is that LinkedIn had privacy settings for a reason. When you’re looking for a new opportunity, you want to be as discreet as possible. As open as LinkedIn can be, eventually, you can make it as private as you want. LinkedIn is one of the most private social networks, it is entirely up to you to decide who you connect with, who can track your activity and what you want your followers to know about you. That’s the beauty of it right? With LinkedIn, you get to decide to what extent you want to be out there.
