Do I Need a LinkedIn Profile?

(Preface: if you already have a LinkedIn profile, you can always improve it, so read on!)

Let’s talk about LinkedIn. Launched in 2003, it began as somewhat of a “Facebook for professionals”, allowing business colleagues and friends to connect in order to network and share business ideas and opportunities.

Over time, LinkedIn has grown exponentially into a massive, worldwide web of professionals spanning virtually all sectors of business. According to about.linkedin.com, the network has over 700 million users in more than 200 countries and territories. It’s hard to argue with those numbers!

But apart from allowing business associates to promote their ideas and wish each other happy birthday, LinkedIn can also provide massive value to job seekers everywhere.

Conventional wisdom probably wouldn’t point you to social media when you’re looking for a job. Depending on your industry, you might start by looking around for jobs on Indeed, Monster, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, or CareerBuilder. You might even look to Craigslist or TheLadders.

If this is your approach to looking for a job, you might have some success! However, we think you’re missing a big piece of the pie, for two reasons:

The more obvious, surface-level reason LinkedIn helps job seekers is that it has a massive Jobs section which rivals the best job boards out there. There are millions of jobs listed at any given time, and they are typically linked directly with the organization’s LinkedIn profile page. This allows you (the job seeker) and the company’s hiring manager easy access to each other’s information.

When you apply to a job on LinkedIn, you can submit your résumé just like on any old job board. But what’s cool and unique about LinkedIn is that the information on your profile acts as a second résumé. While your résumé has most of your professional and educational background on it, your LinkedIn profile also makes space for things like volunteering experience, specific achievements, and recommendations from other users. This can provide a massive advantage if utilized properly!

Reason number two is less obvious, but equally important. As an added benefit, your LinkedIn profile can act as a résumé for you, even when you are not actively applying to jobs!

Recruiters and hiring managers are constantly searching LinkedIn with complex parameters, aiming to find qualified candidates for job roles they are trying to fill. This means your profile can come up in searches, and potentially cause these people to contact you for a potential interview, while you sleep (literally).

This, however, is a double-edged sword. Forgive the cliché, but you only get out what you put in. The strength of your profile will determine its usefulness in helping you find great job opportunities. There are many important facets to a highly effective LinkedIn profile, and CareerPulse helps people like you build and customize LinkedIn profiles all the time.

Shameless self-promotion aside, we hope this has begun to illustrate how we feel about LinkedIn. For many professionals in many lines of work, it can be a tremendous asset. Furthermore, if you’re in white-collar business of any kind, having a great LinkedIn profile is practically a necessity in today’s job market.

To officially answer “Do I Need a LinkedIn Profile?”, the answer for most of you reading this is a resounding yes.

To find out more about how CareerPulse can help build or overhaul your LinkedIn profile, please click the button below: