Linked In-terface Issues

During the past week, LinkedIn has been rolling out a new interface for its member profiles. In the usual LinkedIn fashion, they neither announced the change, nor offer any explanations to help users cope with the new interface, nor do they say why they made the changes. This is, unfortunately, LinkedIn's normal operating procedure. 

The same attitude is reflected in the actual changes made. Most LinkedIn bloggers and users agree the new appearance is nicer. The user photo is a bit larger. There's more white space and the upper part of the profile (what media people call "above the fold") is cleaner and simpler. But therein lies the problem. In exchange for good looks, LinkedIn has sacrificed the user's abilty to quickly "push" info out to the reader. 

This is hard to explain to anybody who may not have actually seen the new interface. (If you haven't, you are excused for a few minutes to take a look at your or your friends' profiles and see what I'm talking about.)

Yes, most of the same info is available, but hidden. If you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the down arrow next to the Send a message button of somebody you are connected to. Here you will find a menu that let's you:

• Suggest a Profile Update (a rather cheeky suggestion to start the list with),
• Recommend, (a non-cheeky and very nice thing to do), 
• Find References (useful to HR and other people), 
• Share, 
• Export to PDF, 
• Save (Which works IF you have a paid LinkedIn account. If you don't, it sends you to a LinkedIn ad page which suggests that you pay for the service.)
• Flag (useful if you run across an obviously fake LinkedIn profile).

Question to LinkedIn interface engineers, why would a user automatically connect all these functions to sending messages?

However, if the profile you are looking at is for a 2nd degree connection, you see a "Send InMail" button with an attached arrow with a shorter menu:

• Get introduced,
• Find references,
• Share,
• Export to PDF,
• Save.

If you aren't connected to the person, you have even fewer choices:

• -Find references, and
• -Save.

The choices might be different for those who have a paid LinkedIn account. I wouldn't know.

Click on the Rolodex-card looking button, you can also see contact info for the owner if they supply it: email address, snailmail address, blog and other links, and phone number. The one thing they don't include, which really ticks me off, is the vCard download button (which is what you used to get if you clicked on the Rolodex-card-button. (More on that in a sec.)

So, there's a lot of information available here, but much of it is tucked away behind buttons and clicks. To find some info, like the name of one more employer, or your most recent Status Update, the reader has to scroll down. Other info or tasks are behind a tab or button. The layout of the contact info *is* nicer and it is nice to see it in one place.

However, if you work in HR, recruiting, or sales, you don't see much of the info you're used to without resorting to an extra click or two or three or four. If you believe that extra clicks mean less productivity, then that is a problem. Previously, at a glance, you could see the usual info plus a status update, look at the blog or internet links, and see up to three recent employers. That may have been enough for the reader to decide whether to look further.

The information was pushed out to the reader better in the older view. If you're a job hunter, the change is particularly important, because it makes the people looking for you a little bit less efficient and makes you easier to pass over. (It also puts an exclamation point over the need for a good, professional photo and keywords in your headline.)

OK, now to that vCard link. Most LinkedIn users probably didn't know it was there and won't miss it, that's true. However, those of us who use Outlook or another contact manager on our computer often clicked it. I, for one, liked to add a new contact's photo and contact info to Outlook, along with the date that I connected, and a few relevant comments. (Whether I actually follow up and USE that info is another matter, and might be  the subject of an "I really should do this..."-type blog post.)

Yes, that functionality is still available IF you see your new contact's photo pop up in your home stream. (Click on their name and, when the little popup window, well, pops up, you still see the vCard button -- which also means that LinkedIn is using the same icon for two different functions.) But having somebody show up on your stream is a bit random. Also, that popup screen doesn't pop up if you're viewing from an iPad.

You can also see the same thing in Groups if somebody's post comes up in the discussion list. That's also pretty random.

And, yes, you can download a vCard file of ALL your contacts from your contacts list, but that's like using a machine gun to get rid of crabgrass. It's overkill and unusable for adding one or two contacts.

And, yes, you can copy the info onto your clipboard, then paste it into the notes section of a new Outlook form, and then parse, copy, and paste the info into the correct fields, but that was what the vCard was supposed to automate in the first place.

So, I give LinkedIn a definite Thumbs Down on vCard usage. (And I suspect they will be getting rid of the vCard option on those popups when they get around to it.)

Yes, I agree the new profile look is prettier. No doubt about it. But I don't recall ever hearing a LinkedIn user say, "I'd be so much more effective on LinkedIn if only they had a prettier interface that looks more like Google+!"

So on appearance, I grade the new interface a B-plus. On improved usability, I'd grade it D-minus. On helping users learn how to use the new interface, I'll give LinkedIn the usual F. 

If you are a job hunter on LinkedIn, you better check and make sure that your photo looks professional and that your headline includes the key words for the job you want. And, of course, you need to also do many other things on your profile to make a professional impression.

And if anybody knows of a third-party software solution to add a vCard to my profile, please let me know. It won't help me download any info, but I can at least show LinkedIn that I miss it.

Discovering Full Names on Linkedin

Part 2 of Guerilla Search Techniques on LinkedIn

As discussed in our previous post, if you do a People search on LinkedIn and get results with only last initials (or no name at all), don't despair. You just need to do some more work. Find a partial name you think will be a useful contact. Click on it and look at their profile. There may be several ways to find their full name:

1. Check their profile. They may have their full name elsewhere in the profile, along with their email address. (If they entered their full name in their Professional "Headline," as described in the earlier part of this series, you already see it.)

2. If they have links to a Twitter account, a blog, or an online résumé, click on the link the find their full name. (On most browsers, use the right-click button to open the link in a new window or tab.)

3. Also check their business name. If Alfred B. is owner of Baumann’s Flowers, there’s a pretty good chance that his last name is Baumann.

4. See if you already share a group with the prospect. If you do, click on the link to the group and use the group's Members search tools with the first name and initial. If necessary, copy the first few words of their Headline, too. You should be able to find the full name for the fellow group member. Click on that search result, and now you may see the profile with the full name. (You could conceivably join a group just to search for that contact, if all else fails.) This technique might not work with the newer open groups, though, and LinkedIn is getting better at hiding some people’s last names in groups, too. (For the life of me, I can’t figure out why they would want to.)

5.  Here’s my favorite trick and it works almost every time. Look at your prospect's Recommendations, both given and received.

If your prospect has a recommendation, see if the person entered the full name of your prospect when writing the recommendation. If not, click on the recommender's name to go to their profile. Even if you can't see the recommender's full name, look on the right column for Firstname Recommends. Click on the link to See all Recommendations. There, you should find the partial name of your prospect. When you click on the partial name, you go back to the original profile and now see the full name.

The same technique usually works for recommendations written by your prospect. Go to the Recommendee's profile and search for who gave that recommendation (located at the bottom of each recommendation). This will only work, of course, if the the recommendee approved the recommendation for viewing.

6. If all else fails, check the names of others who have looked at that profile. If you find one from the same company who is also a connection to you, click on that profile and check their contacts. They might already connect with your prospect and you can see the full name. You may need to check several profiles for success with this technique.

If none of these techniques work, then it’s time to ratchet up the search to include Google or Bing. The next part of this series will show how you can do advanced searched for LinkedIn using the search engines.

                                       

Keywords: LinkedIn, search, names, members, guerilla, recommendations

Making Yourself More Visible to Others on LinkedIn

Part 1 of Guerilla Search Tactics on LinkedIn

 LinkedIn is The Sphinx of the social media networks. The (mostly anonymous) people running it tend to make major changes in the interface and features without any announcement, explanation or even instructions. Often, the changes are useful to the average user (improved interface, the ability to follow companies, job search tools, etc.), but sometimes they do something that's obviously designed to make more money, the users be damned.

That's what LinkedIn did October, 2010. In the good ole days (say, the previous September), when you did a People search on LinkedIn, your search results could include 1st level connections, 2nd level connections, 3rd level connections, members of your groups, and either the first name of non-connected people or just their title. For your 1st, 2nd, 3rd level and group connections, you would see their full name and could click on their link and see their full profile. You could search all your groups at once (handy if you belonged to a lot of groups), search for new LinkedIn members, and use other criteria.

Then, without any warning or explanation, LinkedIn began changing search results. 1st and 2nd level connections show up as before, but 3rd level connections and even fellow members of groups often show up with only their first name and last initial. Click on the link to their profile and you still don't see their last name. If you click on the link that says "See Full Name," you get a window which says, in effect, "Either get more connections or cough up $99.95 per month, sucker." LinkedIn also now requires a subscription to search for people using the categories: Groups, Years of Experience, Interested In, Company Size, Fortune 1000, and Recently Joined. (Function and Seniority Level are new paid search categories, too.) So, LinkedIn now has the dubious distinction of being the only social media site that makes it HARDER (or more expensive) to search for other people on their network. (Don't get me started on their pricing policies.)

                                                         

You might respond, "So what? I don't use the People search that often. I don't try to convert 3rd degree connections into 1st degree connections, either." This may be true, but if you're job hunting, you want hiring managers, freelance HR people, and even old friends TO BE ABLE TO FIND YOU!

That's where these changes really bite you in the ankle. Sure, HR professionals who regularly search on LinkedIn for potential employees will cough up the higher fees to get better search results.  But what about hiring managers who only do occasional searches, small business owners, consultants, freelancers, or people who are unemployed and looking for work?

Fortunately, there are several things you can to do make it easier for others to find and contact you. There are also ways you can search for these missing names, both on LinkedIn and off. In this post we’ll show how you can make yourself more visible on LinkedIn. Then we’ll look at some guerilla techniques for finding other people on LinkedIn.

Make Yourself Easier to Find – Even When LinkedIn is Trying to Hide Your Name

               

First, make a simple change on your profile. On the LinkedIn menu bar, point at Profile and click on Edit Profile. Then, click on Edit, next to your name. Below your name, you'll see a block for entering your Professional "Headline". All you need to do is repeat your name in this block. Instead of just entering your job title, write something like, "Andrew Brandt writes frequently about his love/hate relationship with LinkedIn." (Better yet, write something appropriate to your profile.) You decide whether to use first or third person in the headline, just be consistent.

Some people do put their email address here, too, although that might be a technical violation of the LinkedIn terms of agreement. I suggest you make your email address prominent somewhere else in your profile. (NOT in your name field, though!) Hiring professionals often like to see email addresses rather than go through LinkedIn with expensive InMails.

After this, go to Settings (on the top right of the page). Under Profile Settings, click on Public Profile. There, select the Full View option (or think carefully if you still want to restrict info on your public profile). You should already have customized your LinkedIn URL to add your name. If not, do it now. Save your changes.

Another way to make sure your full name always shows on your profile is to ask people who are writing recommendations for you on LinkedIn to include your full name in your recommendation. (Most people only use first names.)

(You used to be able to customize the link title to your blog and internet connections with your name, too. LinkedIn, playing cat and mouse with its users, no longer lets you do that.)

If you belong to groups, check your group settings to see if the group name and logo shows up on your LinkedIn profile page. (In the group menu—not the top-of-the-page menu—point at More...  and click on My Settings.) If you want others from the group to be able to find you more easily, click on Display the group logo on my profile. If you belong to 10 different job hunting groups, though, you might not want to show all of them, especially if you're still working. (Your boss might read your profile and not like the idea that you're trying to jump ship!) There might also be a few groups you want to keep private, like that Cat Lovers Who Knit group that doesn't exactly fit your Construction Foreman professional title.

Of course, the best way to make it easier for others to find you on LinkedIn is to have more connections so you show up more frequently as a 1st and 2nd level connection. You don't have to become a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) who accepts any invitation on LinkedIn. (You can bet that open networkers are feeling vindicated nowadays, though, after taking so much heat from LinkedIn.)

If you belong to a group and send an invitation to a even just a couple of LIONs in that group, you'll make it a lot easier for all your group members to find you. (Invite other group members and friends, too.) You should do this, at least, for your professional groups related to your job hunt.

  

Another way to help HR people find you (especially if you are in a job hunt) is to add the Skills application to your profile. Go to the More menu and select Skills beta. (The beta, or test, indication may come off soon, since it’s been around for some time, now.) Add keyword skills to create a list on your profile. With this list it will be easier for HR people and others to find you based on a search of keywords.

If you want to add optimized search words to your profile (actually, repeating certain keywords in your profile so you show up higher in LinkedIn’s search ranks) you need to first find out which words you should emphasize. Here’s one way to do this:

1. First, find 3 or 4 detailed job descriptions for positions you think would be perfect for you.

2. Copy and paste these descriptions into a single text file. (If you use Word, save the document as a text only file.) Copy this entire file onto your clipboard.

3. Go to the website http://www.wordle.net/create.

4. In the box below where it says, “Paste in a bunch of text:” paste in those job descriptions from your clipboard and press the Go button.

5. This creates a word map, where the most frequently used words (other than “a,” “the,” and the like) are presented most prominently. This gives you a pretty good idea of which keywords are most important in your dream job. Make a list.

6. Make sure those keywords are used frequently in your LinkedIn profile. The top one or two probably should be in your headline. Repeat those and others in your summary and make sure they also show in your Skills section that we described earlier.

7. Do a search for those top job skills with LinkedIn’s Advanced Search tool. If you still don’t show up on the first page, look at profile for the person on the top of the list and count how many times they use the top search terms.

The important thing is NOT to make it look like you’re trying to load up your profile with lots of search terms. Writing style and communication are more important. But this might make it easier for hiring managers to find you on LinkedIn.

Next: Finding Full Names on LinkedIn, even when LinkedIn is hiding them

Keywords: LinkedIn, search, jobhunting, HR, guerilla, keywords, SEO

New Link-Fest for all things LinkedIn

Have you ever wished it was easier to find information about LinkedIn from all the different resources on web? Well, as of today, it IS a bit easier.


Nathan Kievman, the founder of LinkedStrategies and a frequent speaker, trainer, blogger and writer about all things LinkedIn, has just created a wonderful new central resource of links for finding all kinds of information about LinkedIn.


http://www.linkedstrategies.com/about-linkedin/


The list includes sections on:

• LinkedIn Facts (historical and current)
• Official LinkedIn Resources
• Official Groups for LinkedIn (including some for employees only)
• Statistics on LinkedIn Membership Worldwide
• A list of almost every published book written about LinkedIn with links
• A collection of LinkedIn Profile SEO optimization guides, including videos
• Articles on Career Management and Job Search using LinkedIn
• And, naturally, a collection of articles and resources on how to network on LinkedIn
• There's also a short list of links to some of LinkedIn's best known consultants and writers

As you would expect from a LinkedIn consultant, the site appears to be well tagged and SEO optimized for easy finding through the usual search engines, too.


This is also a good place to start your own research about LinkedIn. Be sure to look around the rest of Nate's site, too, for blog posts, books and more.

Tags: LinkedIn, Nathan Kievman, blogs, consultants, LinkedIn facts, social media

Focusing Your LinkedIn Profile for Multiple Careers, Interests, and Job Hunting

Dealing with LinkedIn Multiple Personalities

Four Solutions

Life is complicated and so are people and careers. You can argue that it was simpler when one worked for one company all week for 40 years and then retired at 65. You got a gold watch and a pension. Life was good. (Maybe.)

Today, when the social contract between workers and employers has been shredded, stomped-on and burned to ashes, when pensions are replaced by 401(k)’s (or 403(b)’s) or retirement plans just don’t exist, and when most employees stay with an employer for 2 to 3 years and when most employers are looking for temps and part-time workers, things ARE more complicated. As a result, many people now like to advertise their multiple careers, career changes, hobbies turned businesses, consulting gigs, blogs, freelance work and, when necessary, they may be looking for multiple jobs. (This doesn’t even touch on those of us with multiple personality disorder.)

But LinkedIn, bless their networked hearts, insists in their User Agreement, that you can have one profile and one profile only. And this is one of the rules that they actually enforce!

Very recently, Viveka von Rosen, CEO of Linked Into Business, and known on Twitter by the handle @LinkedInExpert wrote a great blog post on the subject, “7 Ways to Deal with Multiple Businesses on LinkedIn.” (Yes, you should read it!)

Viveka also hosted a session of #LinkedInChat (on 1/17/2012) where the same issue was the main part of the discussion.

So how do people balancing multiple careers, new careers, encore careers, consulting businesses, flea market sales, dog sitting sidelines, freelancers and job hunters all fit everything into a single profile?

(This is entirely separate from the issue of people who, intentionally or by accident, set up more than one profile. Almost any day of the year, there’s somebody asking the question, “How can I consolidate two – or more – profiles into one. We’ll have to deal with that in a different blog post.)

Viveka herself brought up Solution No. 1: Focus on one thing at a time. Focus intensely on what you want to accomplish in the next six months: whether it’s your career, your freelance work, your consulting, or you job hunt. Then adjust your profile accordingly.

Some of things you may want to do:

• Make sure your headline reflects your choice (use your 120 characters well). You don’t have to list everything. Focus. 
• Your Summary should use your keywords for search purposes. You have 2000 characters here, so edit carefully. 
• Your Experience section (that stuff “below the fold” in your profile, if you know the newspaper reference), no longer has to be listed chronologically. So move up the sections that emphasize the things you are focusing on (a specific career, service, job search target). 
• Make sure your search terms (or SEO terms) reflect your focus. 
• Use recommendations that match that focus. (You can hide and show specific recommendations.) 
• Your LinkedIn profile does not have to be a complete résumé, nor does it have to reflect your entire life. 
• Use the new Skills section to add skills – which are actually keywords people can use to find you. 
• As Viveka says, “Use your LinkedIn Real estate!” The character counts for different sections: “Summary 2000, Specialties 500, Interests 750, Contact Me 2000.” 
• If you have Honors and Awards, there are new sections for that. If you have volunteer experience, add that, too. 
• If you are fluent in more than one language, you can have your profile in more than one language, too.

So if you like to train Labrador Retrievers but need to focus on finding a job as a COO, focus on the chief operating officer job search for now and retrieve the Retrievers later.

Solution No. 2

List your different careers / personalities and describe them concisely. If your different careers are somewhat related, this might be easier. For example, this might be a better solution if you are an off-Broadway actor at night and a voice-over artist by day. They are different careers, but one complements the other.

• Match your history to the different careers. Group related job experiences together. They do not need to be chronological. 
• Use keywords for both. 
• Use add-on tools to showcase both, either individually or together

For example, use Presentations to explain your different careers, interests, history. Box.net is great for sharing work samples from within your profile. You have places for links to Twitter and three other links to blogs, online résumés, and other social media.

Solution No. 3

Use different social media for different fields.

• Use LinkedIn for your “professional” focus. 
• Use Facebook or Google+ personal pages (or business pages) for your alternate careers or interests, say for your Flea Market Antiques sideline. 
• Create a business web page for your individualized greeting card line and Facebook for your professional oboe career (to use a real example). 
• Use links to your different online sites to refer people to your other interests.

There is a danger here in fragmenting your social media exposure. If you want to create a unified SM appearance, this would not be the best choice.

Solution No. 4 for Job Hunters

Job hunters may need to be especially creative and careful, especially if you are looking for more than one type of job opening. Say you are doing freelance work and consulting while you are also looking for a full-time job in a similar or non-related career. Plus you are doing volunteer work and networking to find jobs and clients.

A full-time employer doesn’t want to hire you just for a full-time 40-hour-a-week job anymore. They want to pay you for 40 hours and expect you to be available for phone calls, “paper” work, and online telecommuting for another 20 to 30 hours a week. So, if they know you’ll be working every weekend at flea markets, or training dogs, or playing jazz gigs at night, they might not consider you a good prospect for their job. This may not be fair, but if you encounter this, then you should reconsider using Solution No. 1 above.

But even employers know life is complicated. Use your experience in multiple careers to show your ability to meet deadlines, juggle multiple tasks, and prioritize your schedule.

For example, my previous career as an orchestral bassoonist might not seem to have a lot of relevancy with a new career in nonprofit fundraising. Yet, I can discuss the fact that my musical career involved in long periods of self-directed reed making and practice followed by rehearsals taking minutely-detailed supervision under conductor/supervisors while working smoothly with a large team of co-workers. All this while intensely focused on meeting serious deadlines. (You can’t stand up in front of an audience and say, “Sorry, I didn’t get to practice as much as I wanted this week, but if you come back on Monday night, I can give you a highly polished performance.”)

Consider not posting résumés on your LinkedIn profile (with the Box application, or with
links to your online résumés). Instead, create a Marketing Statement, which might look similar to a résumé, but features a list of your 50 top employer prospects. (This might be a good place to use a task-based résumé format instead of a chronological format, too.)

Use this marketing statement to:

• Get recommendations for contacts in these specific companies.
• Get introductions to leaders in that field. 
• Find other smaller/larger/regional employers who would complement your list, to expand your job search. 
• Find similar employers in alternate geographic locations.

You can create marketing statements for more than one job area. For example, if you are an accountant with experience in corporate taxes and also serve on nonprofit boards – you could have one marketing statement (and list of target companies) for a tax accounting position, and another for a non-profit chief accounting position with experience in filling out IRS 990 forms.

So, when life is complicated, use that varied experience creatively to stand out from other job hunters, freelancers, consultants, gurus and workers on LinkedIn and elsewhere.

Tags: LinkedIn, profiles, job hunting, hiring, life

Networking Styles Part 2, for Job Hunters

Finding your LinkedIn "Style" of Networking

PART II Your networking style if you are in a job search.

In our last post  we discussed the different styles of online networking, from timid to gregarious.

Your decision on which networking style you want to use should depend on your networking goals.  Your personality and approach to marketing Me, Inc., are also factors. Some people who are bashful in person-to-person networking (my kind of people, actually) may find online networking more comfortable. Those who are trying to create networks in new career fields or in other physical locations (say, Chicago, San Francisco, Boise, Lubbock or Shreveport) may find online networking and phone networking essential.

When is the best time to grow your network for a job hunt? This question is similar to the (Japanese, I believe) adage:

When is the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago.

When is the second best time to plant a tree? Today.

Likewise, the best time to grow your network for a job hunt was three or four years ago. The next best time is right now. (If you actually did start to network on LinkedIn, collect recommendations, and develop your profile years ago, congratulations! Now is a good time to get a bit more aggressive.)

If you are job-hunting, there are practical reasons for creating a larger network. Many companies are now using employee referrals to vet potential hires. Some companies even give bonuses to employees if those referrals result in hires. One of the current trends in HR circles is to use employee's connections to help find new employees instead of using expensive search services and recruiters

[See earlier blog post. ]

Therefore, to find connections from your list of target companies, you want to use the LinkedIn's Company listings. Look for people in your geographic area or work in the same locations you want to. Find out what professional (or other groups) they belong to that are of mutual interest. Join them.

If that seems too much like stalking, see if they have a Twitter or other social media link on their profile. If so, that's an invitation to connect with them there. Also check and see if they advertise themselves as a LION. If so, feel free to send them a personalized invitation. Note that some LIONs get so many requests to connect, it could be difficult to get noticed in the crowd. If they have a blog, that's also an invitation to read it and leave a comment.

Once you get to know these people, they could be great advocates for you if the right job opens up. (This is similar to the approach that Richard Bolles has espoused for many years in What Color Is Your Parachute?, way, way before online social networks.)

When you join professional groups on LinkedIn, if you have a free account LinkedIn may still put a few obstacles in your path to contacting 3rd degree connections. Mainly, they may hide the last names of 3rd degree (or further) connections and make it difficult to send them a message (unless it's one of their $10 InMail messages.) There are many ways around these restrictions, but one way is to connect with one or two LIONs in that group. (LION = LinkedIn Open Network.) Do that and nearly everybody in that group, however large, will be a 2nd degree connection. That's a good incentive to accept an invitation from a LION in that group, too. How do you know if a person is a LION? Look at their profile. Many LIONs actually post in their profile the term, LION, or announce that they accept all invitations.

You can also make it easier for other people to find you when they have the same problem of indentifying you. It’s easy. Just re-type your name in the Headline section (just below your name, next to your photo). You do that by clicking the Edit button next to your name when you edit your profile. This way if a group member points at your photo in a group, they might see your first name and last initial from the name field, but they will also see your full name in your headline. You can also add your full name to your links to your Twitter address and other accounts on your profile. This can make it much, much easier for people to find and identify you for jobs and networking.

Also, when people write you a recommendation on LinkedIn, simply ask them to use your full name in the recommendation. If an HR person is searching recommendations instead of entire profiles, your name will pop up there, too.

You can also be strategic in accepting invitations, especially if you get one of those boring, canned "I'd like to invite you to join my LinkedIn network" invitations. When you get that invitation, that could mean one of three things:

1. The person sending the invitation doesn't know how to personalize their invitation, especially when LinkedIn gives them the option to connect with people. (That means they’re a newbie and might not be particularly helpful to you.)

2. The person doesn't really care enough about you to send a personalized invitation, they just want to collect connections. (Why would you want to connect with somebody who won’t even take the time to personalize an invitation?)

3. They assume you are an open networker and will accept most if not all invitations. (A less impersonal, but still careless error unless, of course, you actually ARE an open networker.)

There actually is a fourth possibility: they clicked the wrong button and sent you an invitation by mistake. It does happen. Again, this is not usually a great way to start a networking relationship.

If you get one of these impersonal invitations from somebody, be strategic. Look at their profile. If that person is in your field or one of your groups, consider accepting the invitation and writing back, "I'm happy to connect. Was there a particular reason you sent me an invitation? How can I help you?" This could be a good way to start a conversation. If they don't write back in a reasonable time, you can always disconnect.

If that invitation is from a person in the HR field, they might be working strategically to build their network for their specialty, or they may be flailing, randomly sending out invitations to anybody they can find who is connected. Again, if they are a specialist in your field or in your region, consider accepting the invitation. If (as in some recent invitations I've received) they work in an entirely different part of the country (or world) and/or place clients in a field unrelated to yours, you can simply hit the Ignore button with a clear conscience.

When job hunting, you also need to make sure your profile is close to or at 100% completion. Use keywords for your occupation in your job descriptions and use those to make it easier for HR people to find you, too. There are other techniques we'll talk about in other posts, too.

If you are thinking of planting your tree now, start digging.

Networking Styles

Finding your LinkedIn "Style" of Networking

On LinkedIn, as elsewhere online, there are all kinds of networkers. Each has their own style, related to their networking goals and desires. One way to think of networking style is to think of a continuum of networking approaches ranging from a private, select group of contacts to a gregarious, recruit-everybody-into-my-personal -network style.

Since the beginning of LinkedIn, there have been emotional debates arguing Quantity vs. Quality. Although LinkedIn officially recommends caution when adding people to your network, they also reward those who collect many contacts by allowing them to see more connections when they search for people and make it easier for people to find you.

LinkedIn's official stance is to only invite people into your network that you know and trust. These people would include school and corporate alumni, co-workers, other academic connections, friends, and people from your live networks. We could call this the "LinkedIn is a dangerous place" approach.

"Power networkers" thumb their noses at LinkedIn's warnings, arguing that you wouldn't attend a live networking meeting and only talk to people you already know. The whole purpose of networking is to find new connections and learn new things. If you find somebody on LinkedIn you would like to talk to in real life, invite them into your network. (And some people would like to talk to everybody.) This could be called the "LinkedIn is a rich place of incredible diversity and knowledge" approach.

In reality, they are both right. The first approach is probably the one that LinkedIn's lawyers are comfortable with spreading. The second approach could make you vulnerable to corporate intelligence collecting, scams, people "stealing" your connections, and whatever it is that those people who create fake LinkedIn profiles do. However, it can also help you find lots of people willing to help you in your online endeavors.

The Quantity vs. Quality debate ignores the vast area inbetween the two extremes. It also ignores every person's networking goals. Your goals could vary greatly, and could include such things as:

• Creating a network of trusted friends.
• Helping mentor others in your field (or about LinkedIn).
• Become a professional Go-To person in your field.
• Support your blog.
• Learn about your field of endeavor from the pros.
• Find a new job.
• Find a new career, find a job coach, find a mentor, or change careers.
• Read current news in your field.

You could argue that no two people are online for exactly the same thing.

I think of networking style more as a continuum, ranging from a private, timid connection to a power networker. Somewhere in-between is a "Normal Networker" which could include you and me. Here are my four categories of networkers.


THE LURKER
The lurker is not a real networker. It could be somebody who just joined LinkedIn (or another service) and wants to look around and get a feel for things before proceeding. In many online discussion groups (or in many LinkedIn groups) this is not necessarily a bad approach.

The lurker could also be a person who created a LinkedIn profile because somebody else (perhaps their boss) told them to. They only have 1 to 3 connections in their network, which means they're not even trying. They do not join groups. They have no recommendations. Some have not even finished filling out their profile basics. (One profile I saw only had the person's initials and no viewable information. Ironically, he listed his career as "Communications.")



THE NOVICE NETWORKERS
They might also be referred to as Timid Connectors. Novice Networkers may network because they have to or because they are curious about all this talk of online networking, but they are not yet enthusiastic about it.

They have a few people in their network, but those may be people they already network with in person.

They might belong to a few discussion groups, but only participate occasionally.

They may connect only once a week or a couple of times a month. They're not growing their network and they're still trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.



THE NORMAL NETWORKER
This category includes NPLYOM's (Normal People Like You or Me).

These are gradually more active networkers, probably like you. You may have anywhere from 25 to 600 first level connections. Here are some strategies you can use to develop your network:

Don't invite everybody into your network, but DO try to get a variety of people (alumni, co-workers, other people in your field, some creative types, and a few Power Networkers) into your network.

Also join Groups so people can find you and contact you without having to use expensive InMails. Join several professional groups so you can find who the leaders are in your field, and so others in your field can find you also. There are several large groups (including some job search groups) which span many professions and are good just for connecting you to a diverse portion of LinkedIn.

Your LinkedIn profile should be at least 80% complete. Make sure it includes your basic contact info (whatever you feel comfortable sharing online), your full name some place other than the name field, connections to other services (I share my Twitter and Google+ IDs, but not my Facebook one, which I use mainly for older friends). Get a few recommendations if you can.

Answer questions in the appropriate user groups and collect some "Best Answer" credits and some Recommendations.

Grow your network gradually and steadily. Set LinkedIn to forward InMails, Invitations and Introductions via email and respond to them promptly.

Communicate with the people in your personal network from time to time, but don't pester them and NEVER send them sleazy marketing invitations.


POWER NETWORKERS
Often called LIONs on LinkedIn, for "LinkedIn Open Networkers," this group includes many HR recruiters, sales people, politicians, and other people who feel they want to have a huge network. They may also be bloggers, writers, speakers or other freelancers and get leads for future gigs online.

These people will normally allow almost anybody into their personal network. Some have thousands or tens of thousands of 1st degree contacts. They like being able to see everybody's profile on LinkedIn and to be able to find a connection with every company.

Some are very generous with their time on discussion groups and may spend hours per day on LinkedIn as well as other services.

Invite a couple of LIONs into your network and see your 3rd Level contacts grow while you sleep.

So it is important for you to decide what style of networker you want to be. That style can change as you mature as a networker. However, as you expand your style, it is difficult to dial it back from an open networker to a more moderate style. So proceed appropriately.

In the next post, we'll discuss how being in job search might be a good reason to change the way you network.

First LinkedIn Dating Service Launches

It had to happen, especially with LinkedIn’s demographics showing the wealthiest average membership of any of the social networks.

LinkedIn now has a dating service. Actually, the service is Hitch.me (which, unfortunately, sounds more like a horse rental site than a dating service to me, but maybe I don’t know the current dating scene).

Membership is free with access to your LinkedIn credentials. LinkedIn members looking for love (UnLinked Lovers? – lots of possibilities for new LinkedIn group titles here!) can join free, but you need to purchase credits to contact others. You can view LinkedIn profiles before making contact.


No word on keyword or premium searches, or on new dating sections for your LinkedIn profile, yet. Presumably you could create a dating presentation and post on your LinkedIn profile with Google Presentations or Slideshare. And you could post photos of your sexy, premium-gym-sculpted body using the Box.net application.


Nevertheless, either this move is genius or an effort doomed to fail due to excessive geekiness and soon-to-arrive SEO marketing keyword overkill in daters’ profiles. (I hesitate to mention the fact that, even with current LinkedIn head shots, its obvious that many members haven’t been actively working out for a while.)


As Hitch.me says in its FAQ sheet, “It is safe to assume that majority of the members on the site are corporate professionals looking for love. Having said that you should take all the necessary precautionary measures of dating someone online.” (And we all know that corporate professionals never indulge in inappropriate behavior in or out of the workplace.) <Insert your own Herman Cain joke here>


And we just needed one more incentive for establishing fake LinkedIn profiles, didn’t we?


In any case, I’m sure much, much more will be written about the service, serious and tongue-in-cheek.




For Veena Bissram’s original article on Mashable, see

http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/hitch-me-linkedin-dating-site/

Hitch.me is at http://www.hitch.me/

Kewords: LinkedIn, Love, dating, singles, hitch, SEO

Time for a LinkedIn Tune-up?

If you've been using LinkedIn for a while and you rely on it for your job search, to build your business, or just to build your network -- the end of December and early January might be a good time to give your profile its annual tune-up. (Thanks to members of the Twitter-based #LinkedInChat for several of these ideas. Join us on Tuesdays at 8:00 pm EST.)


Update your profile:

• If you haven't already done it, add the new skills tool.
• If you learned new skills this year, be sure to add them.
• Also add any training you received, awards or commendations.
• Update the links on your profile. If you haven't done it recently, check to make sure all your links work.
• If you are working and have changed roles, update your headlines accordingly.
• If you are looking for work, make sure your headlines reflect what you are currently looking for.
• Rearrange the parts of your profile to emphasize what's important to you and your goals.

Other tune-up ideas:


Review your groups. Are they providing you with leads or information, expanding your reach, or providing inspiration (or fun)? If not, drop those and add better ones. With a rumored 1million groups on LinkedIn, you should find some good ones for you.

Take some free time and add tags to your connections. (In Contacts, in the left column, find "Tags" and click on "Manage."

Add an app to show off your work samples:

• Box.net provides links to your uploaded sample files.
• Google Presentations and Slideshare can be used to show off whatever you do. It can be as simple as one-page with your business card or as sophisticated as embedding a video of yourself.
• If you blog, use the BlogLink or WordPress tool to show off your new blog posts.

If you already use Box.net or another site to share work samples, make sure your documents are up-to-date. You don't want stale material on your profile.


Check with your contacts and see if there is anyway you can help them.


If anybody on LinkedIn did you a good turn or gave you good service this past year, write them a recommendation.


If you are a veteran, go to the LinkedInlabs site and check out the new veterans apps.


If you are not a veteran, go to the LinkedInlabs site and check out the other experimental apps.


Consider writing one recommendation a week. It's a great way to pay it forward and you may get a few good recommendations back, too.


If you have other ideas for an annual check-up for your LinkedIn profile, please leave a comment describing it.


Now, please excuse me, I have to go to LinkedIn and start a tune-up.


Tags: LinkedIn, tune-up, profile, networking, job hunting