LinkedIn - My thoughts, its purpose, and its business uses.

I have been on LinkedIn for the past few years. When I had my internship with Therma-Tru, most people there had accounts on the site. I was encouraged to create one as well due to the fact that many of my coworkers wanted to keep in touch with me in a professional yet social manner. I found the site easy to use and liked the fact that the site was able to pull information off of my resume without having to have me type out all that information again. I have not had to use LinkedIn to contact any prospective employers and have used it sparingly, but always try to keep it up to date. In the future, I plan on looking to LinkedIn to see if any of my contacts have positions open in their companies that I might want to look into.

LinkedIn is a business related social site. It allows coworkers or contacts to stay in touch in a professional manner. It also allows for recommendations that others can see and lists that persons contacts. It opens new doors for people and takes networking in the business world past business cards. It allows people who may have not met, but may have a professional relationship with one person they both know, and possibly start a new business suiting both. Some people may even have recommendations sent to someone over LinkedIn due to its convenience and professional setup. I know past employers have said they look on LinkedIn for potential candidates which really changes the landscape of job searching. Instead of waiting a week to hear back on a resume that was mailed, someone can send a resume and hear back by that afternoon or sooner from prospective employers.

Businesses looking for help can see who is reliable and trustworthy by checking their LinkedIn before interviewing them. Much time can be saved by screening on LinkedIn before interviewing candidates. If they have amazing recommendations, they may even skip a round of interviews, one never knows. A business can also have employees writing positive things about their place of work, making the business more desirable to work for in the eyes of LinkedIn users. The site has over 100 million users and with numbers like that, I'm sure many great workers can be found for companies willing to look.

Check out my LinkedIn profile here.