I'm on LinkedIn--Now What??? (First Edition): A Guide to Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn

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I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What???A guide to getting the most OUT of LinkedIn

by Jason Alba

Copyright © 2007 by Happy About®

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without writtenpermission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed withrespect to the use of the information contained herein. Although everyprecaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, thepublisher and author(s) assume no responsibility for errors oromissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting fromthe use of the information contained herein.

First Printing: September, 2007Paperback ISBN: 1600050697 (978-1-60005-069-5)Place of Publication: Silicon Valley, California, USAPaperback Library of Congress Number: 2007936567

eBook ISBN: 1600050700 (978-1-60005-070-1)

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Praise for I’m on LinkedIn -- Now What???

"Jason offers a unique perspective on networking that's of interest to anyone that is a job seeker, entrepreneur, or networking enthusiast. He has been all of these and his experiences with LinkedIn enable him to offer an integrated review for anyone to make the most of the LinkedIn tool. His book is a reflection of his deep understanding of people, technology and change in the market and can easily save the average new user months of time in trial and error."Nadine Turner, Six Sigma Black Belt

"This book takes the guess work out of how to utilize LinkedIn and is unquestionably a friendly user's guide! This book is not simply for beginners, but for those who are serious about professional and personal networking. Kudos Jason!"Lori Russel Boilard, CEO, Executive Careers & Psychologist

"If you are new to LinkedIn, you are in for a treat when you read 'I'm On LinkedIn--Now What???.' If this book were available the first year LinkedIn started, it would have helped LinkedIn to be better understood and would have helped thousands of professionals get the most out of LinkedIn."Vincent Wright, Chief Encouragement Officer, MyLinkedinPowerForum.com

"Jason's Personal Brand is consistent in each project he works on, especially in 'I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What???' Throughout this book he narrows down exactly what LinkedIn SHOULD be used for so that readers don't confuse it with other social networks. You will encounter information on how to set up your profile, network through groups and proper etiquette to use as you grow your LinkedIn database. Jason's thoughtful and honest viewpoint on LinkedIn will teach everyone from youthful professionals to experienced entrepreneurs how to succeed with this tool."Daniel Schawbel, Publisher, Personal Branding Magazine

"Alba's book is the link you need to power up your LinkedIn results!"Kent M. Blumberg, Executive and Professional Coach, KentBlumberg.com

More Praise for I’m on LinkedIn -- Now What???

"'I'm on LinkedIn - Now What???' provides a useful guide for all those looking to better utilize the power of LinkedIn. As Jason writes, LinkedIn is NOT the silver bullet of networking sites; such a site does not exist, and this book does not try to make that point. What this book does incredibly well is show how you CAN use the tool to your advantage; to make connections, to help others, and ultimately, to help yourself! 2 handshakes WAY UP for this great book!"Phil Gerbyshak, public speaker and author of 10 Ways to Make It Great!

"Jason Alba has established himself as a well-known and widely respected expert in the employment arena. His success in establishing himself and promoting his extraordinary career toolset JibberJobber.com prove that he knows what he's talking about. His understanding of personal branding and networking come together in his new book about using LinkedIn. Authoritative and insightful, this book is a great primer for ‘newbies,’ yet it's comprehensive enough to offer something of value to even the most seasoned LinkedIn users."George Blomgren, Director of Marketing, MilwaukeeJobs.com

"Jason’s book is an easy-to-read, well-written, step-by-step tutorial for the novice, or for the person who’s already linked in. He reveals his mastery, once again, at making the complex simple, just as he did with his invention of JibberJobber."Billie R. Sucher, Career Transition Consultant & Author, BillieSucher.com

"You don't have to be a full time social networker to use LinkedIn as a connection making tool and Jason Alba lays this out point by point in ‘I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What???’ where he explains exactly how to use LinkedIn in a way that works for you. A book that I've long needed to explain just what LinkedIn is and isn't to countless friends and clients without buzzwords or hype, it's high on my list of recommendations."Susan Reynolds, New Media Consultant, ArtsyAsylum.com

and More Praise for I’m on LinkedIn -- Now What???

"In an age of social networking, LinkedIn remains one of the best for business people. Mr. Alba gives a wonderful first-hand insight on the how-to’s of using the service: this guide has been a long time coming. I am delighted that he's taken the time to put together, in a single volume, how to get the best out of the service."Jack Yan, CEO, Jack Yan & Associates, JackYan.com

"Jason has written a great book 'I’m on LinkedIn Now What???' for the beginner and those that need some more detailed instruction. This book is an easy read with some great descriptions of how to accomplish your LinkedIn networking tasks. I recommend this book for all users of LinkedIn."Jim Browning, Co-Owner/Lead Moderator, LinkedIn Atlanta & President, Browning Business Solutions, LLC, NetworkingGA.com

"Jason has written a highly practical guide to Linkedin that will quickly allow a new user to understand and utilize Linkedin. It's also a great guide to the Linkedin's hidden gems - finding high quality people through endorsements and off Linkedin content such as groups and identifying thought leaders through blogs linked from profiles."David Dalka, Senior Marketing and Business Development Professional, DavidDalka.com

"LinkedIn is a very powerful tool and Jason Alba does a tremendous job of helping a new user get the most out of it."Carl Chapman, Founder of CEC Search, LLC executive search firm for restaurant professionals, CECSearch.com

"This is a great book. I think Jason did an excellent job. I would recommend it to anyone who is just starting to build a LinkedIn network or for someone who has been a member for some time but is just now seeing the advantages LinkedIn provides.”Thom Allen, IT Career Coach, MyITCareerCoach.com

Author

• Jason Alba, http://www.ImOnLinkedInNowWhat.comLinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonalba

Publisher

• Mitchell Levy, http://www.HappyAbout.infoLinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/happyabout

Executive Editor

• Scott Allen, http://theVirtualHandshake.comLinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottallen

Cover Designer

• Cate Calson, http://www.CalsonGraphics.com/LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/calsongraphics

Layout Designer and Copy Editor

• Suhag Shirodkar, http://www.Teclarity.comLinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/e/fpf/2002741

Dedication

To Kaisie, Samantha, William, Taylor and Kimberly.

Acknowledgement

This book came about only because of the many career coaches,resume writers and career bloggers that I've encountered over the lastyear - many of whom already have at least one book in print - toomany to name (you know who you are). Also, I have profoundgratitude towards networking gurus like Keith Ferrazzi, Thom Singerand Vincent Wright who have helped me understand that networkingis not just about passing business cards. Aside from my own personaljourney to enrich my career, I have learned from thousands ofprofessionals and job seekers across the world. Not only have theyexpanded my understanding of job security and employment, theyhave continued to feed me with the passion to help others through jobtransitions.

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Other Happy About books available include:

• Happy About Online Networking: http://happyabout.info/onlinenetworking.php

• Happy About LinkedIn for Recruiting: http://happyabout.info/linkedin4recruiting.php

• Tales From the Networking Community: http://happyabout.info/networking-community.php

• Scrappy Project Managment: http://happyabout.info/scrappyabout/project-management.php

• 42 Rules of Marketing: http://happyabout.info/42rules/marketing.php

• Foolosophy: http://happyabout.info/foolosophy.php

• The Home Run Hitter's Guide to Fundraising:http://happyabout.info/homerun-fundraising.php

• Confessions of a Resilient Entrepreneur: http://happyabout.info/confessions-entrepreneur.php

• Memoirs of the Money Lady: http://happyabout.info/memoirs-money-lady.php

• 30-Day Bootcamp: Your Ultimate Life Makeover: http://happyabout.info/30daybootcamp/life-makeover.php

• The Business Rule Revolution: http://happyabout.info/business-rule-revolution.php

• Happy About Global Software Test Automation: http://happyabout.info/globalswtestautomation.php

• Happy About Joint Venturing: http://happyabout.info/jointventuring.php

C o n t e n t s

I’m on LinkedIn -- Now What??? ix

Foreword Foreword by Bob Burg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Part I Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 2 What is LinkedIn?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 3 Your Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 4 Account and Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 5 Connecting with Others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Part II Making it Work for You. . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Chapter 6 Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Chapter 7 Understanding Degrees of Separation. . . . 55

Chapter 8 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 9 Jobs & Hiring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Chapter 10 Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Chapter 11 LinkedIn Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Chapter 12 LinkedIn Answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

x Contents

Part III Wrapping it Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Chapter 13 LinkedIn for Personal Branding . . . . . . . . . . 85

Chapter 14 Shady Practices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 15 On Netiquette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Chapter 16 Complementary Tools and Resources . . . . 97

Chapter 17 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Author About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Books Other Happy About Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

F i g u r e s

I’m on LinkedIn -- Now What??? xi

Figure 1 Public Profile Preview.................................. 28

Figure 2 Account Types.............................................. 32

Figure 3 Message Settings ......................................... 33

Figure 4 Email Account and Business Account....... 35

Figure 5 Connect to People........................................ 39

Figure 6 Import Contacts............................................ 41

Figure 7 LinkedIn Basic Search ................................. 50

Figure 8 LinkedIn Special Search .............................. 50

Figure 9 First Three Degrees of Connections .......... 56

Figure 10 Third-Degree Contact................................... 57

Figure 11 Recommend Contact ................................... 60

Figure 12 Clarify Relationship...................................... 60

Figure 13 Written Recommendation............................ 61

Figure 14 Display Recommendation ........................... 61

Figure 15 Show/Hide Recommendation...................... 62

Figure 16 Limit Search.................................................. 75

Figure 17 Edit Profile .................................................... 86

xii Figures

I’m on LinkedIn -- Now What??? 1

F o r e w o r d

Foreword by Bob BurgSeveral years ago I began receiving requestsfrom friends, inviting me to join a new onlinemembership site called LinkedIn. Soon I wasgetting e-mails from people I barely knew, askingme to "join their LinkedIn network." Although I'dbeen using the Internet for networking and rela-tionship-building for some time, I really wasn't allthat interested in LinkedIn. Still, not wanting tohurt these people's feelings, I accepted.

I went through the process of posting my profile,but didn't do much with the site. As time went on,more and more people sent me invites.

Every so often, I’d be asked for help connectingsomeone with someone else, who apparentlyknew someone who knew someone I knew.From time to time, people from specific groupswho'd read my book, ‘Endless Referrals’1, wouldnotice I was a LinkedIn member and ask me tocontribute an article for their newsletter. I guessyou could say I'd become a part of the LinkedIncommunity. Yet still, I wasn't really utilizingLinkedIn in any active or significant way.

Why not? No perceived need, and no desire.(You might remember those two reasons fromSales Training 101 as the two most commonreasons prospects say "no.") And why didn't Ihave any perceived need or desire? Because Ihad frankly no idea what to do or how to makeLinkedIn a positive experience for me.

1. Bob Burg, 'Endless Referrals,' McGraw Hill, 2005

2 Foreword

That's exactly where this book comes into play. Jason Alba has done afirst-rate job of solving that challenge for me, and he will for you, too.

A former unemployed IT professional and business strategist, Jasonfound that finding a good job, even in a "job seeker's market," was apretty daunting task. Today, he runs a career management company,called JibberJobber. In 'I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What???' he presentsus with an actual system to tap into the power of the LinkedIn service.

And that's the key word here: system. That's what I was lacking in myearly LinkedIn experiences.

Why is having a system so important? I define a system as, "Theprocess of predictably achieving a goal based on a logical and specificset of how-to principles." In other words, if it's been proven that bydoing A you'll achieve B, then you know that all you need to do is followA and you'll eventually achieve B. As Michael Gerber points out in hisclassic, ‘The E-Myth Revisited’2 (slightly paraphrased): "Systemspermit ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results . . . predictably."

Whatever the B is you want to achieve here, 'I'm on LinkedIn -- NowWhat???' provides you with the A for getting it. After an excellent intro-duction explaining exactly what LinkedIn is and how it (basically)works, Jason then walks you through a guided tour of clear principlesand powerful strategies for getting the most out of your LinkedIn expe-rience.

While Jason sees LinkedIn as an excellent business-building tool, healso looks at the site with a carefully critical eye. Jason himself beganachieving great success utilizing LinkedIn only after floundering with ithis first few months, and he does not hold back in pointing out its weak-nesses and suggesting areas where LinkedIn could improve and makeits service more valuable for its members. And I found especially re-freshing those passages where he points out the areas of LinkedInwhere he has still not grasped its highest use. Someone that humble,I tend to trust.

2. Michael Gerber, 'The E-Myth Revisited,' HarperCollins, 1995

3 Foreword

Jason tells us that LinkedIn is not a replacement for your networkingefforts (online or offline); rather, it is an excellent tool for facilitatingsome facets of your networking strategy. I absolutely concur. The creedof my Endless Referrals System®3 is that, "All things being equal,people will do business with, and refer business to, those people theyknow, like and trust." And no computer or online medium is going toreplace that personal connection—but it certainly can enhance it andprovide potential networking contacts with more opportunities toconnect. In this book, you'll learn how to do exactly that, whether it's fordirect business, resources you need, helpful information, finding jointventure partners, hiring a new employee, or getting hired for a new job.

Something I particularly appreciate about Jason's approach is that heshows us not only how we can gain value from LinkedIn but, just as im-portantly, how we can utilize LinkedIn to provide value to others. As anytrue networker knows, this is not only immensely satisfying in its ownright, but it is also the best way to receive even more value oneself.

As you travel through this excellent guide, be prepared to learn from aman who has done his homework. Jason has learned what he knowsthe hard way, through trial and error, both his own and many otherpeoples', and put it all between the covers of a book so that you and Ican learn it all the easy way!

Best wishes for great success,

Bob BurgAuthor of ‘Endless Referrals’ and coauthor of ‘The Go-Giver’

3. http://www.burg.com

4 Foreword

Part IGetting Started

Part I is all about getting started on LinkedIn.

• Chapter 1 talks about my personal experiencewith getting started, and why I decided to writethis book.

• Chapter 2 talks about what LinkedIn is andisn't, which is critical to understand since somany people are expecting one thing and seesomething totally different.

• Chapter 3 is a crash course on your profile,and what you need to do to set it up correctly.

• Chapter 4 talks about setting up your accountand settings so your contacts’ interaction withthe website reflects your style.


C h a p t e r

1 Introduction

I remember when I was first introduced toLinkedIn. It was February 2006 and I waswalking out of a networking meeting with a guywho came to tell us he had just landed a new job.As we were walking out, he recommended Icreate an account on LinkedIn. Of course, I didn'twant to because I already had too manyaccounts with other websites and wasn't quitesure what value this would add to my job search.

I did get an account, and found LinkedIn to be avery lonely place. For the first few months I hadonly six connections. Searching for valuablecontacts (there were about eight million users inLinkedIn when I signed up) produced no results,which led me to believe the search function wasbroken. I didn't find anyone whom I was interest-ed in contacting and never received any commu-nication from a recruiter or hiring manager.

LinkedIn just wasn't working for me. I knew thatif I could figure out what all the buzz was about,and learn how professionals were using LinkedInto improve their business and careers, I couldbenefit. But at first I just didn't understand what Ineeded to do.

8 Chapter 1: Introduction

And so I began to learn what LinkedIn is all about - how to use it, howto benefit from it and what its limits were. Once I began to understandhow it was intended to be used, it became much more valuable to mein my personal career management.

As I was learning the how's and why's of LinkedIn I found that a lot ofpeople were still confused. It's obvious why you would use LinkedIn ifyou are a recruiter (The first book4 dedicated entirely to LinkedIn iswritten specifically for recruiters), but I find people regularly scratchingtheir heads wondering how to use it!

I hope this book can serve as a reference on how you can get the bestout of LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn - Now What??? is not a comprehensivebook on networking, nor is it a general book on social networking -there are already some great books on these subjects. I'll talk aboutnetworking and social networking, borrowing from the experts andusing examples from my contacts, many of whom I've met throughLinkedIn. By the time you finish this book you should have a solid un-derstanding of what LinkedIn is, how to use it and why things onLinkedIn work the way they do.

Before we jump in, a quick word on why this book is dedicated to justLinkedIn. I'll admit that I'm not a social networking expert, and I don'tspend all of my time learning about, using and optimizing socialnetworks. There are just too many, with too many differences, andthings change too rapidly. For example, as of July 2007, Ning, thesocial networking site that allows you to create your own socialnetworks for free, had over 70,000 different social networks5! Thisbook is meant to go deeper into just one of the options available to you,and help you get more out of LinkedIn than I did in my first few months.

Perhaps this book will teach you how to use LinkedIn more effectively.Perhaps you will implement some of this learning to find new business,new customers, new employers or new friends. While there are noguarantees, I know that many people have had their professional andpersonal lives enriched because of the LinkedIn environment, andhope that you can, too!

4. Bill Vick with Des Walsh, Happy About LinkedIn For Recruiting, Happy About, 20065. http://tinyurl.com/39uwnp


Now, let's get started!

Chapter Summary

• This book came about because of my own confusion with usingLinkedIn.

• LinkedIn is not the only online networking tool you should use, butit is definitely one of the most powerful.

10 Chapter 1: Introduction


C h a p t e r

2 What is LinkedIn?

It's critical to understand what LinkedIn is (andlater, what it isn't). Depending on who you areand what you need, it may be extremelyvaluable, moderately valuable, or only slightlyvaluable. The value you get out of LinkedIn alsodepends on your time commitment to proactivelymanage and use its features and capabilities.

Some call LinkedIn a social network, others callit a business network (explicitly stating that it isnot a social network), and still others call it acontact management system. I agree that it haselements of each, and also agree with theskeptics that it isn't necessarily any of thesethings.

TIP: LinkedIn is a tool. Understanding what itwas defined to do will help you get the most outof your investment in it.

12 Chapter 2: What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a web service where you can find others who you shouldconnect with, so that they can add value to you, or you can add valueto them, or just because adding each other to your networks seems tomake a lot of sense. So it is a tool to expand your network, allowingyour network to grow wider or deeper.

In addition, you can set up your own profile so others can find you. Yourprofile will have similarities to a resume - you can list where you wentto school, where you worked (and when), what your tasks/roles were,what your interests are, etc. You can state what your current interestsare (open to job opportunities, interested in hooking up with class-mates, etc.), and you can choose what information to make availableto other LinkedIn members and what to make available to anyone(even the general public who aren't members of LinkedIn). We'll talkabout this later, in the Your Profile chapter.

The value of LinkedIn grows as more people join. Imagine there wereonly 1,000 people in LinkedIn, and they all lived in one city, andfollowed one profession. Then, LinkedIn would not be a valuablesource of contacts for you unless you happened to live in that city orhad an interest in that profession. Fortunately, there are over thirteenmillion people who have created accounts and profiles on LinkedIn,which means you have a huge database of prospective contacts. Butthe value doesn't stop at the contacts and their profiles.

Because of the number of users in LinkedIn, and their diverse back-grounds and interests, it is a place where an immense amount of infor-mation gets shared. One of the stronger commonalities between itsmembers is a desire to have some element of business or professionalnetworking. It is not a site for music bands to advertise (like MySpaceis), although musicians do have profiles. It is not a site to look for datingopportunities, although I'm sure people have hooked up and perhapseven married as a result of relationships forged through LinkedIn. It isa site where people come to develop relationships that can be benefi-cial in a professional sense.

This means members are a terrific source of knowledge aboutbusiness and political issues, how-to's, career management, job leads,consulting opportunities and more. LinkedIn does not take advantageof all of the social networking features that you'll see on other sites;however, it provides value beyond just having network contacts.


What LinkedIn Is Not

Currently, LinkedIn is not a social network site where you go to createfun little communities or followings. You can see examples of suchsub-communities on sites like MySpace, MyBlogLog, and Facebook.LinkedIn allows you to create your network connections, often see yourconnections' contacts, and even interact with them through an internal,proprietary mailing system. But it's not as glamorous as the other sites,as it doesn't allow users to share blog posts, statuses (like Twitter's“what are you doing now?”), or leave messages and comments on yourcontacts' profiles pages.

LinkedIn is not a contact manager in the traditional sense of contactmanagement. A real contact manager allows me to put my contact in-formation in a system and manage data surrounding that contact (suchas phone numbers, birthdays, etc.). In LinkedIn I can only add connec-tions that (a) are already in LinkedIn (or accept an invitation to joinLinkedIn), and (b) agree to connect with me.

This doesn't work for me as a “contact manager” because I meetpeople all the time who aren't on LinkedIn, won't get on LinkedIn, or forsome reason don't care to connect (although I still want to manage in-formation about our relationship). Additionally, if a contact decides toterminate our connection, they are out of my network. Can you imagineif a salesperson allowed prospects to opt-out of a private prospect list,for no reason?

I think it's a haphazard practice to allow LinkedIn to be your contactmanagement system when you have so little control over who isactually in your network, what data is collected and managed, and whocan see your contacts. At a minimum, stating LinkedIn is a contactmanagement tool is a misnomer.

While LinkedIn is a networking tool, it is not a networking silver bullet.Timeless networking principles such as “givers gain,” etiquette,long-term relationship nurturing, and investing time and effort in othersare critical. LinkedIn is not a replacement for your networking efforts(online or offline); rather, it is an excellent tool to facilitate some facetsof your networking strategy.


Finally, LinkedIn is not a time hog. Once you get some initial parame-ters set up (mostly your profile and preferences) you don't have toworry about spending much time in LinkedIn. Of course, if you have thetime to spend, you can derive additional benefits by using some of themore advanced features such as Answers.

Why do people use LinkedIn?

With over thirteen million people in LinkedIn (at the time I'm writing this)you are sure to find different strategies, motives and techniques forusing LinkedIn. While it boils down to “people meeting people,” hereare some examples of why people sign up for, or use, LinkedIn:

• Professionals - to develop their personal brand; to search forpotential clients; to determine job titles and positions of prospects.

• Job seekers - to network to find new leads and opportunities; tonetwork into a company (do a search on a company and see whoin their network might have an in where they want to interview); toestablish a presence and hopefully be found by recruiters.

• Recruiters and hiring managers - to find prospects for open po-sitions; to develop a rich network of prospective candidates.

• Entrepreneurs - to develop an online presence; to establish abrand; to meet other entrepreneurs or potential business partners,customers, investors, etc.; to build a team of cofounders and em-ployees; to do market research; to get publicity.

There's a nice list at Web Worker Daily6 that lists “20 Ways to UseLinkedIn Productively.” You should list what your own objectives arewith LinkedIn. Some of the tactics presented in this book may be foryou while others may trigger ideas to get more out of LinkedIn.Remember, while LinkedIn may often be useful to help you do your job,there may be times when others are “looking for you,” so be sure tohave your profile as updated as possible.

6. http://tinyurl.com/yukjpj


Benefits of LinkedIn

“I'm on LinkedIn - Now What???” That's the question I hear from a lotof people. The most common complaint I hear is based on the idea thatthey thought they were signing up for the “premier professional net-working site” and found their experience did not match up to all thehype.

I have strong feelings about social networking - I personally feel “so-cial-networked-out!” I receive email invitations to social networksweekly and wonder why I'm being invited. Sometimes they are geogra-phy-based, sometimes they are interest-based - and usually they don'tappeal to me (because I don't live in that particular geographic area, ordon't have much passion for that particular interest!).

Putting aside the various nuisances of social networking (and some aremore annoying than others), it's definitely worth my time to actively par-ticipate in LinkedIn. I think about how my job search in 2006 wouldhave been different had I been able to develop a LinkedIn network thesize I have now (over 300 connections), and how my career manage-ment, and even job performance, could have been better if I had anetwork in LinkedIn. Here are some of the benefits that I see resultingfrom active participation in LinkedIn:

1. Ability to be known. Using LinkedIn, participating in an e-mailforum with other LinkedIn users, commenting on LinkedIn's blogand participating in Answers gives you the ability to be known byothers who are interested in networking. The ways you partici-pate, including your understanding of netiquette, will help defineyour personal brand. Contribute, give and share in a positive wayand you can develop a good reputation in these communities.


2. Ability to be found. It's been said that recruiters will show upwhere passive candidates are. And there are a lot of recruiterswho use LinkedIn. Recruiters have books on how to optimizeLinkedIn as a tool to find candidates, and you'll find other profes-sionals (like “sourcers”) who spend a lot of time on LinkedIn look-ing for talent. You won't be found if you aren't there (and youwon't be appealing if you don't spend some time fixing up yourprofile). Whether you are actively looking for a job or not, in to-day's world there are a bunch of companies called “Me, Inc.”(Thank you, Tom Peters!). It never hurts to continually advertiseyour own strengths and skills.

3. Ability to find others. If you have a network that is “big enough,”which LinkedIn indicates is around 60 contacts, you should havesufficient reach, when you do searches, to find what you are look-ing for. I'm amazed when I do searches and come up with certainresults - for example, finding someone with the last name of “Ja-son” who has “Oracle” in their profile. I was only able to find thisperson through LinkedIn because I have a network that is “bigenough.”

4. Opportunity to learn and share. LinkedIn Answers is an excel-lent tool and one of the enhancements that continually getspraise. Some people have said it is the only reason they log intoLinkedIn, others have found new business, and still others havereceived expert advice and information faster than any other op-tion available to them.

5. Ability to connect with group members. There are manyclosed or exclusive communities that you will have a hard timejoining (such as alumni groups from colleges and universities).LinkedIn has hundreds of groups that you might be able to join,and when you join them you'll have access to the other groupmembers. These group memberships can help you get in touchwith people who share certain commonalities such as geographiclocations, associations, university affiliations, interests, etc.

6. Opportunity to show you are plugged in to current technolo-gy. Having a LinkedIn account doesn't necessarily brand you assomeone smart or technologically hip - but it can help! Under-standing LinkedIn (and other tools) to some degree will help you


communicate with others about modern tools and resources andconvey that you have a certain understanding of technology thatis popular or useful. Of course, LinkedIn won't make you smarterthan you already are but being able to talk about it intelligently,and showing that you have more than six connections, will tellothers that you are serious and competent about networking andyour career.

LinkedIn Limitations

From my experience, the biggest problem with LinkedIn is not the tech-nology, but the expectations people have that it will do great things fortheir networking efforts. While there is a misunderstanding of whatLinkedIn is, and how to get the best out of it, LinkedIn itself is quiteclear about its offerings.

LinkedIn does not claim to compete in the “social networking space”like MySpace does. It has a different demographic than Facebook.Most people come into LinkedIn with certain expectations and probablythe hope that it is going to be their networking mecca. In fact, it's not anetworking mecca, rather it's a tool. For some people it is an extremelypowerful tool; for others it is useless. It really comes down to under-standing what the tool is. Here are some of LinkedIn's boundaries:

1. LinkedIn is not a full-fledged social environment. LinkedIndoes not have the kinds of social interaction features that you'llfind in places like Facebook where contacts have rich communi-cation with one another. In fact, aside from InMail and Answers,there isn't much interaction at all. However, I think this is appro-priate. Professionals don't limit their relationship building to whatthey can do on a screen. In fact, most professionals who networkwill spend more time face-to-face or on the phone, rather than onsocial networks, to develop relationships. In other words, devel-


oping relationships can, and should, go offline. But people stillwant LinkedIn to act like Facebook (which, in my opinion will onlyclutter the interface and confuse the user experience).

2. LinkedIn does not represent your entire network. Some peo-ple think that their entire network is found in LinkedIn. In reality,it can't represent your entire network, unless you never go outand never talk on the phone. Are your plumber and your mechan-ic connected to you on LinkedIn? Mine aren't.

3. LinkedIn does not give you complete control of your relation-ships. You can only connect to me if (a) I'm in LinkedIn and (b) Iagree to be your connection. This means that you can't put everysingle person you meet into your LinkedIn network. Also, if I wantto disconnect from you, I can do it in just a few clicks. This meansthat you don't have any control over whether I stay in your net-work or not.

4. LinkedIn does not allow you to control or change any infor-mation on your contacts. People commonly confuse LinkedInas a CRM tool. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Manage-ment. These are software tools that salespeople commonly useto keep track of clients and prospects. The most common CRMtools are Salesforce.com, GoldMine® and ACT!

5. LinkedIn does not allow you to store relationship informationabout your contacts. Building on the CRM idea, there's anotherlevel of information that you would want to keep track of. Imagineyou and I had lunch this week - this is something that you mightwant to log (especially noting what we talked about). In addition,you might want to create an action item, such as “Call Jason nextThursday to see if he talked to the VP of finance for me.” WhetherI'm going to talk to the VP of finance to plug you as a prospectiveemployee or vendor, it is an important action item to follow up on!LinkedIn doesn't allow you to log meetings or thoughts, create ac-tion items, or even rank the relationship that you have with me.

6. LinkedIn doesn't really provide much privacy. If you are look-ing for privacy, this isn't the place to come (in fact, stay away fromthe Internet!). Your profile will be available for people to see, nomatter what you declare as “public” information. Your network will


be available for others to see, at least implicitly, whether you al-low your connections to browse your network or not. People canstill find profiles that are in your network (see the Account andSettings chapter). I don't see this as a big deal, although I knowsome people still believe that there is some kind of privacy in thisworld we live in. If this concerns you, LinkedIn might not be foryou (but privacy issues on LinkedIn should really be the least ofyour privacy concerns).

7. LinkedIn has a closed communication system. I don't like itwhen a service requires me to log in to its website in order to getinformation. When you get certain messages from your contacts,delivered by the LinkedIn system, you need to log in to the web-site and see what the message is. InMail messages need to bereplied to from within the InMail system. This protocol is prettycommon for Web services such as Facebook and Twitter (Twittergives you the actual message via email but you can't reply back- the sending message is from a “do not reply” Twitter email ad-dress. I really don't like this method because I feel like it disre-spects my time.) At least InMails show me the actual message inmy email box so I don't need to login just to see what the messageis.

I should note, after listing these limitations, that I am not alone inthinking that LinkedIn should not resolve all (or any) of these things!While it would be cool to have a super-system, a silver-bullet to solveall of my networking needs, I do not advocate LinkedIn as the totalsolution. Here's why:

First, LinkedIn still needs to polish and fine-tune its core offering. As asoftware developer I understand the danger of creating more featureswhile the core is either not complete or not architected to work with somany peripheral features. You may have used software that introducescool bells and whistles that aren't relevant to you, while you still havecomplaints about the core functionality. It's always appealing todevelop a broader offering but it's usually not good for the end-usersunless you are ready to manage the growth.

Second, aside from spreading itself too thin technically, it can be anenormous distraction to design, support and maintain various additionsto the core function. Designers need to make sure they do not break


anything that exists (or should exist) in the core. The support team willneed to learn new tools, philosophies and rules. Introducing any newfeature outside of the core can add exponential complexity with regardto maintaining the software and hardware. It's not to say that LinkedIncan't tackle any new non-core features, but there is a reason whycompanies in every industry stay within their core competency andoutsource the rest.

Third, there is a new trend in software development, especiallyweb-based applications, where you develop the very best program toaccomplish ABC and then find a complementary web-based applica-tion to accomplish XYZ. This way, multiple companies share theburdens of designing, staying relevant, maintaining, etc. LinkedInshould be the very best application to find and be found, and to portrayyour professional image (to a degree). It should find other systems thatmake up for its shortcomings, and partner with them. Right now this iscalled “mashups” and there are hundreds of examples. Here are a few:

• TypePad® blogs mashing up with CAPTCHA technology (if youleave a comment on a TypePad® blog you'll likely have to type inthe letters/numbers from an image - the technology is supplied byCAPTCHA).

• Google Maps integrations with sites to find sex offenders, bars,transit lines or hundreds of other useful things. GoogleMapsMania7

is a website with information on the Google Maps mashups.

• LinkedIn provides a common example - that of integrating jobboard functionality into an existing site. LinkedIn is not a job boardbut it looks like they have job board functionality. In fact, they do,part of which is done in-house and part of which is provided by amashup partner, Simply Hired.

• JibberJobber has mashups with Google Maps to see yournetworks on a map, Skype to call them with one click, anagram™8

to quickly capture email signatures and add them to your network,BounceBase™ to search on multiple job boards and vertical job in-tegrators at once, and much more.

7. http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com8. http://getanagram.com


I can see the day when LinkedIn tries to attack each of these issuesand begins to become the silver bullet application for networking. It willalways have stiff competition from various angles, and won't be able toprovide a better CRM tool than Salesforce.com, or a better social en-vironment than Facebook, but it can be the very best at what it does.We'll see where they decide to go strategically, which will have a sig-nificant impact on the list of strengths and weaknesses. For now theyare good at what they do, and the limitations should not be a hindranceto actively using the tool.

LinkedIn made an interesting announcement in June 2007 regardingAPIs, which will allow programmers to develop programs and interfac-es to LinkedIn. This is very similar to the mashups idea (which dependson APIs) but can be more powerful. It will be interesting to see how thedevelopment of APIs rolls out, and what kinds of complementary toolsare developed.

Chapter Summary

• LinkedIn is a powerful tool, not a silver bullet.• LinkedIn should be a part of your networking strategy, comple-

mented with other tools and techniques.• Different people use LinkedIn for different reasons - why do you

use it?


“I’m a huge fan, user and promoter of LinkedIn. I've usedit to network into the technology field from printadvertising and get my current job in a new high-growthdepartment. Currently friend and I are founding an onlineapparel business. I've used LinkedIn to findmanufacturers, screen-printers, and as a resource forinvestors to research our management team.”

-- Jimmy Hendricks, http://www.CollarFree.com

“So far I primarily see my involvement on LinkedIn similarto having money in a savings account. It's not somethingI often tap, but something that's reassuring to haveavailable when the need arises. I've also used LinkedInas a journalist to make contact with people who mighthave expert knowledge on a topic.”

-- Bernie Wagenblast, Editor of the TransportationCommunications Newsletter

“My favorite thing about LinkedIn is finding old contacts.I discovered an old college friend and several coworkerswho moved on to other companies. It was nice to readabout what they'd been up to in their profiles andreconnect.”

-- Pete Johnson, HP.com Chief Architect

“It's not about 'collecting and trading your friends' as Ioriginally saw LinkedIn. It's really about visibility intorelationships that you wouldn't know existed otherwise.Help others use the tool better. The more people whoknow how to use the tool effectively, the more effective itis for everyone. What a terrific way to take yourrelationship to the next level!”

-- Scott Ingram, http://www.NetworkingInAustin.com


C h a p t e r

3 Your Profile

This chapter talks about optimizing your profile.Two major reasons to have a well-done profileare:

1. to increase your chances of being foundand

2. to appropriately communicate informationabout you.

While you aren't going to write a novel about yourprofessional life, you can construct your profile ina way that conveys your professional brand,including your strengths and interests. When youare filling out your profile, here are some thingsto think about:

1. How will old friends find me? Make sure youput names of schools, companies, clubsetc. in your profile.

2. How will recruiters, hiring managers or po-tential business partners find me? Again,make sure you put names of schools, com-panies and clubs, as recruiters might lookfor someone with specific experience. In-clude any keywords and jargon that youwould put on a resume so a recruiter looking

24 Chapter 3: Your Profile

for a “PHP programmer with CSS and Adobe skills” or a “Projectmanager with a PMP” can be found. Most recruiters have hadtraining on how to search on LinkedIn and will make use of vari-ous search terms to find exactly what they are looking for.

3. What will the first (and second) impressions be? You shouldspend at least as much time on a LinkedIn profile as you wouldon a resume. Whether you are looking for a job or not you neverknow who is looking for you. Ensure you leave a sharp first im-pression by having proper grammar, spelling and overall presen-tation of your profile.

Here are some considerations:

People can (and do) look for potential connections based on things youhave in common - like where you went to school. For example, let's sayyou went to college at UCLA. You might have a classmate who hasbeen looking for you but can't remember your name…when he looksfor other UCLA alumni he might recognize your name.

Recently I was looking at my LinkedIn home page and clicked on the“Reconnect with past Colleagues” link, and then clicked on a companythat I worked at over seven years ago. One of my key contacts at thatcompany had gone on to a different company but, because he had putthe company name in his profile, I was able to find him and we've sincereconnected! This is one of the more powerful features of LinkedIn butit depends on people filling out their profile with good information.

When creating your profile make sure that you fill out as much as youcan, with as much detail as you can. Again, this is not a time to write anovel. If you think about the conciseness of a resume and the tacticsof search engine logic you should be able to come up with a greatprofile. What exactly does this mean?


When you create a resume you have various sections, such as asummary, job history, education, etc. LinkedIn has similar sections -with a few differences. These differences aren't significant and it's safeto consider a well-done LinkedIn profile to be similar to a well-doneresume. Here are a few differences:

1. Most LinkedIn profiles do not have the common bulleted format-ting with quantifying proof of how valuable you were to a particu-lar company. For example, on your resume you might put bulletafter bullet of statements like “increased department revenues by150% and profits by 250% in 18 months.” You can include that ina LinkedIn profile but you usually find the description of profilesto be more narrative, rather than highlighted bullet-points. Ofcourse, you can put in hyphens, asterisks or other characters tobreak up a section, but it's not quite the same as bullets.

2. LinkedIn has a section at the end to declare what you are inter-ested in, including predefined things such as career opportuni-ties, job inquiries, getting back in touch and many other interests.This helps people who view your profile know whether you are ap-proachable for certain things or not. Note that some people willrespect your list of interests while others may still attempt to con-tact you for something even though you might not list it.

3. If you are a member of any LinkedIn Groups, these groups will beincluded in your profile. You can learn more about this in theLinkedIn Groups chapter.

Aside from a great-looking profile, which is something that isdetermined by the person looking at the profile, you'll want to considerhow the LinkedIn search engine will find (or miss!) your profile. Keep inmind the public profile is also indexed by search engines such asYahoo! and Google™, and the advice in this section applies to thosesearch engines also.


There are basic principles behind “search engine optimization” (SEO).Basically you are trying to optimize a page (or profile) so that searchengines bring it up first (or in the first batch of results). Optimizing yourprofile is similar to traditional SEO. Here are some of the “tricks” thatyou'll want to make sure you incorporate as you develop your profile:

1. School names - include the full name (University of Virginia) aswell as the common abbreviation (UVA).

2. Company names - just as you did with the school names, makesure you put the official and common names of the companieswhere you worked. If your company was a subsidiary of a largercompany, put the name of the larger company also. That way if arecruiter is looking for someone from either the main company orthe subsidiary, they are more likely to come across your profile.

3. Technical skills - just as a recruiter looks for “project managers”or someone who is a “project manager professional” they mightsearch for “PMP” (project management professional), or some-one who is a member of the “PMI” (Project Management Insti-tute). You increase your odds of being found if you list eachversion (abbreviated and spelled out) of each company or schoolsomewhere within your LinkedIn profile.

Perhaps one of the best resources for optimizing your profile so itappeals to people and LinkedIn's search algorithm is Guy Kawasaki'sfamous LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover (you can find it by typing“Kawasaki & LinkedIn” into a search engine, or going tohttp://tinyurl.com/2llban). Apparently Guy has one of the most viewedprofiles on LinkedIn and he got special help from LinkedIn to make hisprofile better!

You'll notice that the advice from LinkedIn is to flesh out each sectionof the profile and put in more details. Some of the recommendationsinclude:

• “Write recommendations” - this is a way to get YOUR NAME, witha link back to your LinkedIn profile, on someone else's profile

• “Ask a question, answer questions” - again, a way to get a link toyour profile on a totally different section of LinkedIn


• “Get a vanity URL” - this is free, but you have to go into the editprofile screen to do it - basically your URL could go from somethinglike “xyzxyz” to “yourname”

• In the Summary section, “Add substance … this is your 'elevatorpitch'”

And on and on. This is solid advice. After you flesh out your profileonce, you rarely have to revisit it later to keep it up to date. Of course,you should keep it updated as things change. Scott Allen tells the storyon his blog9 of how a timely profile update ended up being a $5,000decision.

Your public profile is what people see if they are not logged intoLinkedIn. It's important that you think about what to show and what tohide. Click on Account & Settings and then My Public Profile, whereyou can choose what you show and hide, all managed through thisscreen:

9. http://tinyurl.com/365p3c


Figure 1: Public Profile Preview


Notice that all of the options to show or hide in your public profile arethings that you should have filled out on your private profile. Don'tworry about having to create two profiles; you are essentially justsaying what information people can see if they are not logged in. I havetwo thoughts regarding this feature.

My first thought is that you need to provide as much information as youcan so visitors that come across your profile can get the gist of who youare without having to login (or worse, create a new account and thenlogin).

My second thought concerns privacy of your data. If you arecomfortable putting up certain information on your regular, non-publicprofile, which is available to over thirteen million people, why not letnon-LinkedIn people see it?

I've heard people express concerns about privacy with their LinkedInprofile. The purpose of a profile is not to record private data - it is toshowcase who you are in a professional setting. I think it's great to beconcerned about privacy but with the technology available today thereare dozens of places someone can go to find out a lot of informationabout who you are, including your contact information, professionalhistory, even your social security number!

Having a complete profile is your opportunity to express what you wantexpressed and not just leave it up to the search engines to portray whoyou are. The profile is central to your experience on LinkedIn, so makesure you spend some time on it.


Chapter Summary

• Set your profile up as complete as possible so that others can findyou.

• Make sure you check for spelling and grammar mistakes.• Take advantage of things such as the vanity URL and recommen-

dations to make your profile look more professional.• Allow others to see a lot of information on your public profile.

“I'm starting to think LinkedIn may be Resume 2.0, but I'mnot 100% convinced yet. When I beefed up my profile, Iactually copied and pasted bullet points from my latestconventional resume and now that thing is searchable forall the world to see. That's a lot different than posting it insome random place on a few job sites. It's in a neutralplace where you expect pressure-reduced interactionswith others.”

-- Pete Johnson, HP.com Chief Architect

“You only get 3 links, so use them wisely - I wouldencourage you to use the links for your blog, a full pageof other endorsements about you, and your portfolio orbook or something else that shows your expertise.”

-- Phil Gerbyshak, http://www.MakeItGreatGuy.com

“When you set up your profile, make sure it's a snapshot-- no one wants to read a detailed autobiography. Anddon't forget to proofread!”

-- Christine Dennison, http://www.TheJobSearchCoach.com

“Your Linked In profile is a critical part of your onlineidentity. Make sure to complete it with information thatconveys what you do, the value you deliver, and theaudience you serve; in other words, have it reflect yourpersonal brand.”

-- Walter Akana, http://www.Threshold-Consulting.com


C h a p t e r

4 Account and Settings

There is an Account and Settings link at the topright of every page that takes you to one of themost important menus in LinkedIn. It's critical tounderstand what's here so you can reallycustomize your user experience. The accountsection shows you what you get at your currentaccount level and allows you to see what youcould get if you upgrade. These features include:

• “More communication features and access”

• “More powerful search tools”

• Status on how many introductions you haveleft (free accounts get 5 introductions)

• Number of InMails available

My account shows that I have 4 of 5 introductionsleft and no InMails, and notifies me that if Iwanted more access or privileges I can upgrade.I personally don't need to upgrade although Iknow many people have upgraded as they are ina more active mode of networking, whether theyare looking for talent, jobs or business partners.

32 Chapter 4: Account and Settings

Upgrading is simple. Right now there are four different types ofaccounts in a comparison chart. The chart shows comparisonsbetween Business, Business Plus and Pro and shows features such asthe number of InMails you can send and receive, enhanced ability tocommunicate with others in LinkedIn, access to the “OpenLinkNetwork,” the ability to get sneak peeks on new features and evenpriority customer service.

Figure 2: Account Types

Aside from the levels in the comparison table there are other levels. Atthe bottom of the chart is a link to [email protected] whereyou can get more information about other account levels. DanielSweet10, a recruiter and job search expert in Houston, Texas, emailedme about a special upgrade for only $6.95 a month11. Unless you havea very specific reason to build a huge network through LinkedIn (if youare a recruiter, or have some other business need), a free Personalaccount should be just fine. If you find you are too limited, then checkout the differences between various upgrade plans and choose the onethat's best for you.

Settings is one of the most important places to visit if you feel like youget too much or too little correspondence (emails) from LinkedIn. Thereare various parts of LinkedIn that want to communicate with you - forexample, if someone wants to get in touch with you, LinkedIn wants tolet you know. If someone asks a question in Answers, and you are intheir network, LinkedIn might want to let you know (depending on howthey asked the question).

10. http://www.fracat.com11. http://tinyurl.com/kkref


The default settings for current and future features may not meet yourneeds. I found I was getting a lot of emails from LinkedIn while someof my contacts weren't getting questions that I submitted to Answersemailed to them. After getting frustrated by too many emails that I didn'treally care about, I finally went to the Settings section and set up myaccount so I got only what I wanted and filtered the rest out. I wasn'tlimiting my ability to see information; I was just choosing whether Iwanted to get certain notices via email or in my mail box in LinkedIn.

Figure 3: Message Settings

Here’s how I have my settings:

• Introductions and InMails - I chose to accept these via email soif someone tries to get in touch with me I won't miss it (the landingpage is too cluttered for me to read every single thing, and since Idon't login every day I knew I would miss something). I set it tosend me emails only twice a week (if there are any introductions orInMails).

• Invitations - if someone wants me to be a part of their network Iwill get an email immediately.

• Profile Updates - I like to know what's changed in my network andappreciate the email I get (no more than once a week) that tells mewho has changed their job title or otherwise updated their profile. Ialso set my own profile so that if I change something my contactswill get an email (if, of course, they accept the emails for thesetypes of notices).


• Job Notifications - These are notices that come from people in mynetwork. I am not in an active job search and have found the jobnotifications I get are irrelevant to me (or others in my network).Therefore, I've chosen to turn off the emails and choose to look atthem on my home page when I login.

• Recommendation Notifications - If one of my contacts recom-mends a service provider I don't want to get an email notification;I'm okay to just read it on the website. However, part of this isbecause my network is kind of big (it's not huge by any measure).If you have a small network of people whom you know really well,maybe you'll want to know what service providers they recommendvia email.

• Answers Notifications - I have my setting to view new questionsfrom my network on the website, as opposed to by email. However,if someone answers a question that I asked, I get an email for eachanswer.

• Email Tips - You can choose to receive emails from the LinkedInteam with “useful tips.” I have this set to receive them (they saythey “will never send you more than one email a month”), althoughI don't remember getting any of these emails yet. I find it harmless,since it would only be sent once a month and I really am interestedin what they would highlight.

Another setting you'll want to know about is the “Connections Browse”under Privacy Settings. I find this to be one of the most interesting(and controversial) options in the settings area. On the one hand itseems to be totally contradictory to what I think LinkedIn is all about(the ability to see who is in my contact's network). On the other hand,this option totally respects the privacy of my network contacts andpeople in their network. You need to understand that no matter whatthis setting is, your contacts can still see who you are connected to!

The default setting allows all of your first degree contacts to see all ofyour other first degree connections. Even if you choose to not allowyour contacts to see your network, I can still find your contacts througha search. For example, let's say you have someone in your networkwho is a project manager in Seattle. When I search for “projectmanager” or “Seattle” I will find everyone in my first three degrees,


even if you have said I can't browse your network. Notice the differentbetween “browse” and “see” - browsing is showing me a nicely-format-ted page with everyone in your network. Seeing is the ability to actuallyfind the contact and read their profile. You cannot block me from seeingpeople in your network, I just have to know how to find them.

One of the critical things you need to do on your account is make sureyou have the right email addresses associated with your account. Ihave two email addresses that I check regularly (one for the businessI own and another through Gmail). Since I easily send out fifty emailsa day, some from one account and others from the other, I needed tomake sure that people who want to invite me can use either address.Why? Some of my contacts know me from my personal Gmail accountand others know me from my business account. Fortunately, LinkedInallows my contacts to send me an email invitation to either address.

Figure 4: Email Account and Business Account

Make sure that the primary email address you use is one that you own!Recently I saw an email thread where the discussion was basedaround a person developing a LinkedIn network while working at theirjob and the employer claiming the network belonged to the company.This is a very risky claim, but I can see the employer actually keepingthe network. I think it's ridiculous but all you need to do is make surethe email addresses on your account are solely controlled by you. Youcan get free email accounts from Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail and a host ofother services. My second email address is a company address, but Iconsider this a small exception since I own the company!


Here's a summary of how I've set my settings, as described in thischapter:

Setting Name How I’ve Set My Account

Introductions and InMails Twice a week, via email

Invitations Email me immediately

Profile Updates Once a week (if there are any), via email

Job Notifications No email; I’ll look on the website

Recommendation Notifica-tions

No email; I’ll look on the website

Answers Notifications – new questions

No email; I’ll look on the website

Answers Notifications – someone answers my question

Email me immediately

Email Tips Email me monthly

Connections Browse Allow others to browse my con-nections

Email Addresses I have two on record. One is a Gmail account, the other is my company/work account (only because I own the company)


Chapter Summary

• Dive into the Account and Settings pages to set up your preferenc-es - this will determine when you receive emails and when youdon't!

• If you have multiple email addresses make sure you put them inyour account - that way others can connect with you by sending aninvitation to either email account.

“Learn the site. There is a lot of useful help listed under Help & FAQ. If you take the time to review your account and settings and set your account up properly, your time on LinkedIn will be much easier.”

-- Sheilah Etheridge, owner of SME Management



C h a p t e r

5 Connecting with Others

At the center of your LinkedIn experience is howand when to connect with other people. Considera spectrum where one end represents peoplewho are open networkers and accept any invita-tion they get (and freely extend invitations toanyone they can) while the other end representspeople who are very reserved in who theyconnect with.

Figure 5: Connect to People

There are a lot of issues surrounding theopen/closed spectrum and there is a fair amountof netiquette to guide us into some kind of appro-priate action. I'll try and explain characteristics ofboth ends of the spectrum, noting that there arelegitimate reasons for any position, and you needto decide what your own policy should be.

40 Chapter 5: Connecting with Others

Open Networking

There is an acronym that you will likely encounter in your LinkedIn ex-perience: LION - LinkedIn Open Networker. This refers to a person in-terested in having as many connections as they can get and indicatesa general willingness to accept an invitation from anyone. Open net-workers subscribe to the theory that having more connections meansthat you have more channels to reach a key person. You can see a listof LIONS at http://MyLink500.com.

The idea is based around having a huge number of contacts and beingable to search on or otherwise interact with, those contacts. Forexample, if you are a recruiter you want to have access to “passivecandidates,” which refers to potential hires who are not active jobseekers. If you have 100 connections in LinkedIn it's possible to searchfor a specific candidate and find someone. But if you have 4,000 firstdegree connections you have a much higher probability of finding thepassive candidates who match your needs! This is why so many re-cruiters on LinkedIn are “open networkers.”

While I use a recruiter as an example, and I've found that many recruit-ers are indeed open networkers, there are also others who find opennetworking beneficial. These people are typically in a position wherethey actively look for people for one reason or another. This mightinclude salespeople, business people, entrepreneurs, or other powerconnectors (a phrase coined by Keith Ferrazzi to describe people whoare in a profession that facilitates making lots of connections).


Figure 6: Import Contacts

Open networkers can quickly and easily grow their personal LinkedInnetworks by downloading the Outlook toolbar and inviting all of theirOutlook connections to join LinkedIn. In addition you can import yourcontact lists from online email accounts such as those you get fromYahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.

Beware that everyone has a limit on the number of connection invita-tions! The current limit is 3,000. It may seem like a lot, but considermany LIONs have more than 3,000 connections and are alwayslooking for more! If you reach 3,000 connections you can request morefrom LinkedIn customer service. Additional invitations are usuallygranted in blocks of 100.

Also, beware that sending out a lot of connection invitations, especiallyto people who don't know you very well, may get your account sus-pended. There is a mechanism within LinkedIn that allows others toflag you, as they can click a button on the invitation that says “I don'tknow (your name).” If you get five people who click this button thenyour account will likely be disabled. I expect this policy to change thisyear but for now it's wise to prepare your contacts before you invitethem through LinkedIn. Again, if you end up suspended, you will needto contact LinkedIn customer service to get this resolved.


TIP: To avoid getting your account suspended, send an e-mail to apotential contact first, asking if they are willing to connect. If they saythey are then send the invitation through LinkedIn.

It's interesting to note that there is confusion within LinkedIn users asto whether LinkedIn encourages you to be an open networker (basedon the tools they provide and the ease of inviting a lot of people) or tobe a closed networker (based on the discipline they enforce if you invitetoo many people who don't know you or are inclined to flag you).

Closed Networking

Closed networkers, or perhaps “conservative networkers,” are indeedon the other end of the connections spectrum. These are people whowill connect only with those they “know and trust.” Instead of acceptingevery single connection request they ever get, they'll evaluate the re-lationship with the person requesting the connection and only connectwhen they feel comfortable connecting.

It's worth noting that many people who are conservative networkers onLinkedIn are “open networkers” in a more general sense. Many willhave much more relaxed standards on other social networking sites, orface-to-face networking, regarding who they connect with. For them it'snot so much an indication of their overall networking philosophy as it isa decision about how to use LinkedIn for best results based on itsdesign and purpose.

There are three things that a conservative networker can do, inresponse to a connection request from someone that they don't know:

1. Ignore the request and most likely delete it so it doesn't sit in theirmail box, or

2. Click the “I don't know this person” button which will add one morevote similar to “mark this person as a spanner” and potentially getthe sender's account locked, or


3. Let it sit in their box while they try and figure out who you are, andwhy they should connect with you. This is the nicest approach al-though it takes extra time and effort, while the first two are easyto do.

If you want to connect with a conservative or closed networker it ismuch better to establish a relationship with them outside of theLinkedIn system and then work up to a point where you ask them“Would you like to connect on LinkedIn?” This way, when you sendthem the invitation, they are expecting it and are likely to accept it(unless they have a lapse in memory).

Conservative networkers are probably more likely than LIONS to notallow their connections to browse their network. There is a preferencein LinkedIn under “Connections Browse” that says: “Allow your connec-tions to view the rest of your connections list?” The default is set to“yes.” If you change this to “no” then no one can browse your connec-tions. Note that your contacts can still find out who your connectionsare if they search with specific matching criteria, so you can't complete-ly hide your connections. For more information on this see the Accountand Settings chapter.

The Canned Invitation

Here's another topic that gets a lot of attention - is there a cheesier wayto invite someone to LinkedIn than using the default invitation thatLinkedIn provides? Unless they change how this works, when youinvite someone to LinkedIn there is a default invitation that you canchange but you have to know you can change it - and it's easy to miss!Right now the default invitation is:

“I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”Almost every blog post that I've read about using this default invitationis negative, and many folks recommend that you make it morepersonal. In general, I agree. When I invite someone to LinkedIn Ichange the default invitation to “yo!” because we've already talkedabout it and they are expecting an invitation. I figure no one needs toread a reminder of something that we talked about earlier that day, butthat's just my style. I definitely recommend that you incorporate your


style in the invitations you send through LinkedIn. Scott Allen has ablog post12 on various different types of invitations that are quite fun,with different creative approaches.

The Final Word on Connections

Issues surrounding invitations and connections are well-debated onemail forums and blogs. Some people are offended by those who don'tshare their views on how to use LinkedIn to network, and others passjudgment on those who have a different style (even though their objec-tives may be different). You need to figure out what is best for you anduse the tool the right way - for you. Being aware of how others useLinkedIn and where they lie on the open/closed spectrum will help youunderstand why they may accept or reject a connection invitation.

12. http://tinyurl.com/3c98wm


Chapter Summary

• There are pros and cons to open and closed networking strategies- you need to determine what’s best for you.

• Beware of abusing connection invitations, which might get youraccount suspended.

• When you invite someone to connect, be sensitive to the invitationmessage and customize it when appropriate.

“LinkedIn works best when you use it with focusedoutcomes in mind. I am always open to invitations, buttake a look at my profile first and tell me why you areinterested in connecting with me. A little ‘wooing’ goes along way!”

-- Garland Coulson, http://www.FreeTrafficBar.com

“I asked people to join my network due to their'status'...what a mistake. Invite only people you trust,regardless of their position or status.”

-- David Armstrong, http://www.BounceBase.com

“Most of my LinkedIn contacts come through an electronicnewsletter I edit that's focused on the transportationindustry. I sent an invitation to the subscribers who werealready part of LinkedIn to connect with me. I see it asone more way readers of the newsletter might gain valuefrom being subscribers. Since the subscriber list isprivate, those who are part of my LinkedIn network cansee others who are part of my network and make aconnection, either directly or through me.”

-- Bernie Wagenblast, Editor of the TransportationCommunications Newsletter


“I wasted several InMails and Introductions when I couldhave simply hit the ‘Add [contact name] to your Network’button because I thought I had to know their currentemails to use that. I think this is very common.”

-- Ingo Dean, Senior Manager of Global IT at Virage Logic

“Be open to a diverse network. You never know who youcan help or who can help you. It's ok if you only wantknown people in your network or only people from oneindustry etc. But the more diverse your network is themore rewarding it can be. This is especially true if youwant to gain business from the site. People in yourindustry most likely won't need your services, but those inother industries may.”


“Links to people can be broken - if you connected to aperson that is suddenly sending you a boatload of spamjust because you're 'LinkedIn buddies,' you can (andshould) break the link.”

-- Phil Gerbyshak, http://www.MakeItGreatGuy.com

“I hate receiving a LinkedIn 'invitation to connect'template. They lack authenticity and make me feel thatthe person does not value the relationship enough tocompose a personalized message. Take the time tocreate a touch point with your contact…it is well worth theextra effort.”

-- Barbara Safani, http://www.CareerSolvers.com

Part IIMaking it Work for You

Now that you have your profile and account setupcorrectly, let's get into the meat of LinkedIn. In PartII we'll talk about what it means to connect withother LinkedIn users, how to search for people,what Degrees of Separation is, how to give andaccept recommendations, how to use the Jobsand Services section, how LinkedIn groups couldbenefit you and what you should be doing withLinkedIn Answers.


C h a p t e r

6 Searching

Searching on LinkedIn was my first great frustra-tion. I had fewer than five people in my networkand I did a search for management jobs in Utah.While I had been using the Internet for years andhad even been an Internet programmer for a fewyears, I was totally surprised to learn that mygeneral search on LinkedIn returned no results!I'm not sure why my search produced no resultsbut I do know there are ways that you can havea better search experience than I had.

Increase the size of your network. If you are in-terested in people and opportunities in your city,then look for more local connections. If you areinterested in people and opportunities in yourindustry or profession then expand your LinkedInnetwork with industry and professional contacts.Then, when you do a search, you are more likelyto get relevant or interesting results becausethey are coming from a well-groomed set ofcontacts.

Connect with a few super-connectors.Whatever your philosophy about open vs. closednetworking, the reality is that knowing super-con-nectors increases your visibility in the systemsignificantly - both your ability to see and to beseen. You don't have to connect with very many

50 Chapter 6: Searching

of them, as they are almost all connected to each other; even two orthree will give you visibility into about 20-25% of the network (and themost active members at that). Also, take some time to get to know themand try to be more than just another of their several thousand links.

Use the basic search form, found on almost every page when you arelogged in. This form allows you to search for People, Jobs, or Answers,and whatever keywords you want:

Figure 7: LinkedIn Basic Search

Usually the quick search allows you to find what you're looking for.However, there are times when you'll want to filter the results based oncertain criteria. For example, as described in a blog post13 by ScottAllen, you might want to plan your next business trip and use LinkedInto fill up your spare time. Scott suggests that you do a special searchusing the advanced form to search for people in the city where you willbe:

Figure 8: LinkedIn Special Search

Note that you only choose the country and ZIP code if you are in certaincountries (including the United States, Canada and United Kingdom).I think this is kind of limiting if you are traveling internationally. Forexample, with fewer than 300 first degree contacts I did a search on“manager” in India and found at least 500 connections in my immediatenetwork (that is, anyone who is one, two or three degrees away from

13. http://tinyurl.com/yuog5a


me). However, the advanced search form does have some other usefulcriteria. Here are some of the more interesting ways to narrow down asearch:

Keywords - This could be any keyword, perhaps a company name, atechnology, the name of a certification, a club or school, etc.

Name - The LAST NAME of the person - it is clear in the “Name search”right above the “Advanced search” by noting “Last name required.” Thesame is true in this box also - I did a search on Jason and foundsomeone with the last name of Jason but no hits of anyone with Jasonas a first name.

Title - You can choose to limit the search to current titles only.Otherwise it will show profiles of people who have ever held the title (asper their profile) - very cool.

Company - Same as the Title, you can limit to current companies only,or search for current and past companies. Make sure to try variousversions of a company name, subsidiaries, etc.

Location - As noted, you can choose what country (and zip code, if inthe U.S., Canada or United Kingdom), but you can also say whetherthey are in the location, near the location or willing to travel to thatlocation. This feels kind of clunky - I did a search on “Mexico” and cameup with over 500 hits just in my network. How am I supposed to knowwho to connect with if I'm going to Mexico City as opposed to Monter-rey? It doesn't seem possible to get that specific if you are looking forcontacts in most countries.

Industry - These are predefined industries that people will put on theirown profile and include things such as Research, Wine and Spirits,Machinery and Alternative Dispute Resolution! Because this list is notall-inclusive I recommend you put industry information in yoursummary, which can increase your chances of being found.

Interested In - This will narrow the search results to people who areinterested in “consulting opportunities,” “hiring managers,” “potentialemployees,” “deal-making contacts” and other such interests.


Joined Your Network - Allows you to filter your results based on whenthey joined your network and includes options such as “since your lastlogin,” “in the last 3 months” or even “any time.”

Sort By - Allows you to show the order in which the results are sorted,with options such as “Degrees and recommendations” and “number ofconnections.” Hopefully this allows you to find something that is morerelevant to what you are looking for as opposed to sifting throughhundreds of hits.

The results you see are broken up into two groups - your first, secondand third degree contacts and the entire LinkedIn membership. Thebigger your network, and the better connected they are, the betterresults you'll get on your first subset of results.

As I mentioned, searching was one of my frustrations with LinkedIn. Ifyou can figure it out you will have a powerful tool to help you find somegreat contacts, whether you are traveling to a new city or just lookingfor more industry contacts to network with. You can search the Internetfor tips on optimizing LinkedIn for you, but if you are going to use thisfunction I strongly recommend Shally Steckerl's Advanced LinkedinCheatsheet and Advanced Linkedin Networking - two quick-referencedocuments with a lot of tips, tricks and hacks for LinkedIn power users.You can find more information at the Job Machine website, or on ourwebsite, http://www.ImOnLinkedInNowWhat.com.


Chapter Summary

• The number of profiles you can search on is tied to the size of yournetwork.

• The advanced search form allows you to really narrow down yoursearch, based on industry, job title, zip code and more.

“Browse the networks of others. Take the time to lookthrough the networks of your direct connects. This iswhere you can easily find people you'd like to connectwith and you'll know you can ask your contact to help withthe connection.”


“Be sure to search on the actual leadership competenciesthat matter instead of keywords like job title and companyname. Some of the best and most interesting thoughtleaders of the future that I've met on Linkedin are theones who haven't worked at cookie cutter company Xdoing cookie cutter job Y. The team you assemble won'tbe filled with the limiting beliefs of your competitors fromseveral years ago which is a major plus.”

David Dalka, Senior Marketing and Business DevelopmentProfessional http://www.daviddalka.com



C h a p t e r

7 Understanding Degrees of Separation

The basic idea behind degrees of separation isthat you are only so many degrees away fromanyone (usually six). A few years ago there wasa “six degrees from Kevin Bacon” experiment,and recently network television has done similarexperiments (without the celebrity). The degreesof separation measurement that LinkedIn usesgives you an interesting perspective on thehealth of your network.

By looking at the number of contacts in yournetwork, you can get a sense of the breadth anddepth of your network. Consider your first degreeconnections as the width of your network, andanything below that as the depth of your network.Currently, LinkedIn doesn't provide much data toshow how this breaks down. On your landingpage you can see how many people are in thefirst three degrees of your network:

56 Chapter 7: Understanding Degrees of Separation

Figure 9: First Three Degrees of Connections

This picture shows my network when I had 243 first degree connec-tions, which means I should personally know (or have a relationshipwith) 243 people. Because of their networking efforts I should be ableto contact, through them, more than 2.4 million people. This is prettyimpressive considering LinkedIn has just over thirteen million subscrib-ers, which means that my reach to LinkedIn's entire user base is almost25%!

So let's break down what a degree of separation really is. Everyonewho is in your immediate network is a first degree connection. Anyonewho is not in your immediate network, but is a first degree connectionto one of your first degree contacts will be your second degree contact.Just make sure you remember your immediate contacts are firstdegree, not a “zero” degree, connections.

You have certain privileges with your first degree contacts that youdon't have with contacts beyond the first degree. If you want similarprivileges for contacts beyond the first degree you'll need to upgradeyour account. For example, I can see a third degree contact's profilebut I cannot see their email address. I have to use the LinkedIn modelto actually contact this person. Here's how it works:


Figure 10: Third-Degree Contact

You can see that I'm connected to “John Smith” through someone else(I took their name out for privacy). Instead of showing me John Smith'scontact information it shows me who I know that knows him. I wouldcontact the person I'm connected with through LinkedIn with a note thatexplains why I want to contact John, and an introduction note for John.My contact could then pass this on to his contact, and eventually toJohn.

If each person in this chain is comfortable with our relationships thenthey will pass the requests on, and that request to connect should carrya little weight since it is coming through trusted friends. I think this is agreat idea but it has two issues:

First, there is no guarantee that I have strong relationships with myconnections. In fact, I haven't even met many of the 243 people whohave first degree connections with me.

Second, the request travels electronically and someone in the chainmight not receive it in a timely manner. In fact, if it takes two days foreach person to get their email and forward it on, it might be six daysbefore a request to connect is even received by the end recipient! If youare in a hurry, it might be best to just pick up the phone.

58 Chapter 7: Understanding Degrees of Separation

There is nothing wrong with looking at your first degree contacts' con-nections to see if there are people whom you want to create a relation-ship with, and then invite them to become a first degree connection toyou. But make sure that you are actually developing relationships,otherwise this can be seen as spam and get your account suspended.

The degrees of separation measurement is helpful but it's just onemetric. Don't confuse the size, width or depth of your network with thestrength of your network. Amongst the factors to think about, perhapsthe most notable is the strength of the relationship you have with eachperson.

Chapter Summary

• Degrees of Separation allows you to determine how wide and deepyour network is.

• When searching for new contacts, you can determine how you canget to know them through your connections, and how close theyare to you.


C h a p t e r

8 Recommendations

LinkedIn Recommendations are simply endorse-ments of people. Getting a recommendation onLinkedIn is interesting because your contactenters the recommendation and you can chooseto show or not show the recommendation - butyou can't change it! This should add a certainlevel of credibility to the recommendation.

Here's how recommendations work (I suggestyou actually go recommend someone in yournetwork). I find a contact whom I want torecommend and go to their profile page. Then Iclick on the link that says “Recommend thisperson.” I'm then prompted to say whether I ama colleague, a service provider or a businesspartner (which means “neither of the other two”).I usually choose business partner since thisusually describes the relationships with mycontacts.

60 Chapter 8: Recommendations

Figure 11: Recommend Contact

The next page asks me to clarify the relationship, where I choose mytitle and her title when we knew each other (or worked with oneanother). This is one of the clumsiest parts of the process for mebecause I've met lots of my contacts through networking events andvolunteering to work together, not because of some official capacity.But I choose the closest “right answer” so I can get to the actual rec-ommendation.

Figure 12: Clarify Relationship


The next box is where you write your recommendation. I have rarelyseen a recommendation more than one paragraph and think that oneparagraph is probably just the right length. If you can imagine findingsomeone's profile that is already lengthy, and then finding a lot ofwordy recommendations, you would likely move on to the next one andnot even read the entire page! Here's a recommendation that I justcreated for a friend of mine:

Figure 13: Written Recommendation

After you write this and hit “send,” your contact will get an email thatallows them to accept it. In the email they will see a link like this (this isan actual recommendation that I received from Janet Meiner - if youwant to read it you can check out my LinkedIn profile):

Figure 14: Display Recommendation


Once you click on this link you are taken to a page within LinkedInwhere you can choose to show or hide the recommendation. It is notunheard of to ask for a “replacement”… it's like to getting a letter of rec-ommendation that isn't quite “right” and asking for the person to redo it(I've done that before).

Figure 15: Show/Hide Recommendation

I've found that most people will reciprocate a recommendation, so oneof the best ways to get a recommendation is to actually recommendyour contacts. But be careful and don't give recommendations that aretoo general or casual - these are valuable endorsements used forbusiness purposes. If you want specific details in recommendationsyou receive, make sure you include specific details in the recommen-dations you give. The value of recommendations will diminish if theyare treated as simple, useless comments. This is one reason why youare allowed to hide recommendations from others.

TIP: If you want a recommendation, give a recommendation! You aremore likely to get a good recommendation if you give one first.

Just as you might when requesting a letter of recommendation, I thinkit is okay to ask for specific wording in a LinkedIn recommendation. Infact, when Janet gave me my LinkedIn recommendation she asked meif there was anything specific that she should mention. This is anexcellent time to communicate your brand to your contact, so makesure you reply with things that they might touch on. This will make yourrecommendation more relevant and have the added benefit ofconveying your brand to that contact again.


If you are working on beefing up the recommendations on your ownprofile there are two things to consider:

First, it is uncommon for someone to have 100% of their contacts givethem recommendations. I have seen discussions where people saythat others are fishing too much for recommendations because the per-centage of contacts who recommend them is too high. I don't think youshould discourage recommendations, and am not sure how I feel about“too many recommendations,” but I have seen the issue come up.

Second, I have seen a few profiles of people who are in a job searchwith a lot of recommendations from coworkers at their last job. I knewthat there had been recent layoffs and the fact that these people had adozen or more recommendations from coworkers (and executives) atone company, and no recommendations from anyone in their othercompanies, seemed out-of-place.

Recommendations can be powerful and a great way to reach out to acontact and strengthen your relationship. I don't think you can really dothis wrong, especially if you remember this is more of a professionalnetwork than a social network. Keeping the tone of recommendationssimilar to what you would see in a letter of recommendation will ensurethat your recommendations are valuable. For an excellent primer onhow to write effective recommendations, visit Naina Redhu's blogpost14 - as a bonus she describes how to write a mediocre and a leasteffective recommendation.

14. http://tinyurl.com/2rx7uk


Chapter Summary

• Getting Recommendations added to your profile is a great way tosubstantiate your strengths.

• Giving recommendations is an excellent way to reach out to yourcontacts and strengthen the relationships.

“It's what you do and how you leverage your LinkedInprofile that makes you who you are to your network, andbe memorable for time to come.”

-- Dan Schawbel, http://www.PersonalBrandingBlog.com

“Meaningful endorsements from people you have workedwith in a team or done projects for are the primaryvalidation currency of positive attitude and achievements.It is the most important cutting edge tool for identificationof these positive leadership traits. When hiring managerslook at resumes, reading Linkedin endorsements shouldalways be the next tool used to narrow the pile.”

David Dalka, Senior Marketing and Business DevelopmentProfessional http://www.daviddalka.com


C h a p t e r

9 Jobs & Hiring

The Jobs & Hiring section is LinkedIn's answer toa job board. As with Answers and Services, amajor benefit of Jobs & Hiring is that you can seeyour relationship with the people who post thejobs - how many degrees away they are fromyou, how many recommendations they have, etc.I really like the idea that a person's name is as-sociated with each job posting, which means Ican figure out how I might get to know thatperson better.

For example, I just did a search for all jobs inNew York City and saw that there are 415 jobpostings (across all industries and titles). I cansee who posted each job and how I'm connectedto them (the order I selected was by “Degreesaway from you”). I can do a search on their namein LinkedIn to learn more about them, and whatthe path is to get in touch with them, or I can justclick on the job title and then I'll have a link totheir profile.

The job page also shows me how many connec-tions I have inside the hiring company - which isvery powerful. Imagine if every job posting youlooked at on Monster told you exactly who you

66 Chapter 9: Jobs & Hiring

need to talk to and let you know who you might know (or could know,with a few introductions) to network your way closer to that job!

Of course, the Jobs section allows you to apply for the job withinLinkedIn, with the ability to add a cover letter and upload a resume. Inaddition, when you apply, your LinkedIn profile is sent to the person atthat company (recruiter, hiring manager, HR, or whoever put the jobposting up). Yet another reason to ensure your profile is filled in withgood details.

I like how simple the interface is and how much information you get oneach job. With over 40,000 job boards out there it is confusing to knowwhat tools you should be using. Because the networking information istied directly into each job search result I would strongly suggest theLinkedIn job section be one of the job boards you check regularly.

There are some improvements that LinkedIn can make to the user ex-perience here:

1. Include more search criteria - it would be nice to be able to filterthe results based on salary range, a feature that isn't even cur-rently included in Monster's advanced search.

2. Allow me to save my searches - whether there is a “savesearch” button that saves the criteria within my profile in LinkedIn,or the option to take an RSS feed (which I can then use in othersystems like Google Reader, Bloglines, BounceBase™ or evenJibberJobber), the save search function makes it convenient andquick for me to recheck postings I might be interested in.

3. Send me email alerts of jobs based on my criteria - most jobboards today allow you to save a job search and have resultsemailed to you daily or weekly. This is a standard job board fea-ture and would make my user experience much richer.

4. Get more job postings - In the Greater Salt Lake area therewere only 8 job listings, and in New York City there were fewerthan 500. I know there are a lot more jobs out there. If LinkedIncan figure out how to get more postings (and keep the real post-ings), this would be the first place I come to look for a job!


Here's a bonus idea for using job boards like this, whether you arelooking for a job or not. If you are involved in a business that has com-petitors, or want to do research on a company's competitors, use jobboards to see what activity is happening at the competition! If you findthey are hiring two new key roles in their customer service departmentyou might determine they really are having a hard time with customerissues. Or if they are hiring ten new sales executives in New Englandyou know they are growing in a new area! Job boards may not have thebest record for finding a job but they are rich with competitive intelli-gence information!

Chapter Summary

• LinkedIn Jobs shows you the people in your network that havesome tie to any particular job, which can help you network your wayinto a company.

• Use LinkedIn Jobs to do competitive intelligence research, whetheryou are looking for a job, looking for a customer, or just checkingout your competition.

68 Chapter 9: Jobs & Hiring


C h a p t e r

10 Services

Services is another valuable section of LinkedInthat refers to “service providers.” The ideabehind LinkedIn Services is that you can findservice providers who come recommended (!) byother LinkedIn users. You can view serviceproviders by categories (graphic/web designer,attorney or handyman) and sort the results bywho recommends them (connections that areyour first degree, second degree or recommend-ed by anyone in LinkedIn).

There are a lot of places on the Internet to lookfor service providers; the common search enginewould be the most popular. However, I thinkfinding a good service provider online is far fromperfect. Many of the trusted service providers Iuse don't even have a web presence, and I trustfriends who give me referrals to who they use.

LinkedIn allows me to see how I'm connected tothe service provider and see what others have tosay about their company. When I search for ahouse cleaner it shows me house cleaners whohave been recommended by anyone. I canchoose to see house cleaners recommended bymy first degree contacts (there aren't any housecleaners that my first degree contacts recom-mend), and then second degree contacts. There

70 Chapter 10: Services

are four house cleaners that my second degree contacts recommendand I can see who they are and what they say about them.

Assuming all of my connections are based on trust (or I have some kindof relationship with each connection), recommendations to serviceproviders should carry some weight. When I first learned about this Ithought “Who do I know that I could recommend?” While my businessisn't necessarily a service business that would benefit from having rec-ommendations and endorsements, I do have associates who wouldbenefit from an honest recommendation. It is a courteous and helpfulgesture to give a recommendation whenever possible as that mighthelp their business grow. It is also an excellent way to make you morememorable to your service provider contacts, who are more likely toremember this, consider it a favor, and be willing to take action on yourbehalf in the future.

As you get connections with lawyers, accountants, mechanics, con-sultants and other service providers think about how you couldrecommend or endorse them. If you are a service provider the best wayto get a recommendation is to give one. The second best way is torequest one (see the chapter on Recommendations for more informa-tion on this).

Chapter Summary

• Periodically check the services section to see if there are serviceproviders that you can use.

• If your service provider is on LinkedIn, endorse their services,which can help them in their marketing strategy.

“Use the endorsements feature to request and offerendorsements. People are more likely to contact you ifyou can prove that others have been satisfied with yourwork, product, or services. Adding endorsements canexpedite the decision making process.”



C h a p t e r

11 LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups is one of those elusive featuresthat I've been trying to figure out for months.While I am a member of two LinkedIn Groups(DallasBlue Executives and MyLinkedInPower-Forum), the usefulness of being in these groupshasn't been readily apparent. Here's what I havelearned:

The concept behind Groups is that there are es-tablished organizations (alumni groups,company groups, social groups, etc.) that coulduse the networking infrastructure that LinkedInprovides. From the Groups explanation page15:

15. http://tinyurl.com/2k572u

72 Chapter 11: LinkedIn Groups

Benefits for group members

• Accelerate your career through referrals from group members

• See a list of all your fellow group members

• Search within your group for vital new contacts

• Use special contact settings to communicate directly with fellowmembers

So basically they are saying that it's beneficial because I can searchwithin the group - which is valuable especially if my own network issmall or not very diverse. I think the benefits to the Group manager (theperson who started the group) are more important than what an indi-vidual group member gets:


Benefits for group organizers

• Better manage your group roster and keep it up to date

• Stay top-of-mind with your group members through a rich, newcommunication channel

• Increase the value of your group to your members' business livesby providing them valuable online professional networking tools

So the group manager has a “rich, new communication channel,” andways to keep the membership roster up-to-date. This is an interestingassessment of the value of Groups, as I can see various downsides tothis. For example, let's say that I want to have a Group for all of myusers, partners and customers. In order to get the maximum value outof LinkedIn Groups I need to have a premium (upgraded) account, sothat I can communicate with each member of my group. I can achievethe same with a free Yahoo! Group, however. LinkedIn Groups justadds one more level of complexity for my group administration and, inthis example, shows my valuable operational relationships to othergroup members! This seems like a great resource for competition or re-cruiters to harvest talent.

On the other hand, groups for universities or company alumni organi-zations make a lot of sense. These organizations are not concernedabout hiding membership information; rather they are interested inproviding opportunities for their members.

I can think of one major reason for me to be involved in a LinkedIngroup. As a member of a group I can have access to other groupmembers, whether I have a direct connection with them or not. In otherwords, normally when I do a search for something (Oracle and NewYork) it will only let me communicate directly with people whom I havea connection with. When I see search results that include people in thegroup, it allows me to communicate with them as if we were a firstdegree connection.


Of course this means that if someone is looking for me, and I'm in agroup that they are in, they are more likely to find me (yet anotherreason to ensure your profile is updated). It is not immediately clearhow to search just on the group members - here's what I do:

1. Find the group on your home page and click on “See all mem-bers.”

2. There is a summary that says “Showing the first 500 users in yournetwork matching …” and to the right is a button that says “RefineSearch” - click this button.

3. The next screen looks like an advanced search screen but it hasa new option that says “Limit search to your groups” and has thegroup selected.

Note that in the advanced search page you can choose “search withinmy groups.” This is a button towards the bottom of the search form.When you click on it you will see the groups you belong to, with check-books next to them. Any group that you choose will be included in thesearch. Here's what it looks like:


Figure 16: Limit Search

Now you can search for members within groups. The easiest way to ex-periment with this is to search for someone who lives close to you. I justdid this on two groups that I'm in and found four people who are in mycity from one group (four people whom I don't know!) and twelve peoplefrom another group in this city! I think I have some networking to do!

If I contact any of these sixteen people that I just learned about I'mexpecting they will have a certain level of networking grace. I would bereally surprised if any of them are not receptive to a lunch, or at least aphone call, as they are (a) in LinkedIn, and (b) members of the group.

The easiest way I've found to find Groups to join is through the SiteMap. There is a link to the Site Map at the bottom of every page onLinkedIn. On the Site Map page there is a Groups section, and I clickedon the “Groups Currently on LinkedIn” link. On that page it shows a fewhigh-profile groups, and on the top right there is a menu of differenttypes of groups that you can browse through. I chose NetworkingGroups and then scrolled down until I found the “My Linkedin PowerForum” Group. When you click on any group it takes you outsideLinkedIn to that group’s website (usually a Yahoo! Group).

MyLinkedinPowerForum takes you to the Yahoo! Group where you'llfind a link that says “Click HERE to add the MLPF logo to your profile.”When you click that link it takes you back to LinkedIn where you canthen request to join the group. Your request may be subject to approval


by the moderator but once you are accepted into the group you'll beable to search that entire group AND have the group logo/icon in yourprofile.

Note that some group logos only display to other group members. Inother words, if you aren't a member of a certain group that one of yourconnections belongs to, you won't see the group logo when you visittheir profile.

The MyLinkedInPowerForum group has over 4,000 members, so whenyou join it you will expand your network reach significantly! To find othergroups you can browse the following group categories:

• Academic Alumni Organizations

• Corporate Groups

• Conferences

• Networking Groups

• Philanthropic Non-Profits

• Professional Organizations

It might be worth your time just surfing through the available groups tosee which groups you should belong to, or by what kind of people youhope to be found. As I tried to join any of the other groups I found itmore difficult than what MyLinkedinPowerForum has done. In fact, Icouldn't find any other group that had an obvious “Click here to join thegroup” button. The groups that go directly to a Yahoo! Group are evenmore confusing because they have a “Join” button but you aren'tjoining the LinkedIn Group, you are joining a Yahoo! Group!

TIP: Even though there are LinkedIn-related groups in Yahoo! Groups,they are two different tool things. Understand the difference and useeach tool the way they were designed.


It's important to understand the difference between LinkedIn Groupsand Yahoo! Groups. They are TOTALLY different and not related at all.The reason it looks like they are related is because some group owners(like MyLinkedinPowerForum and LinkedInnovators) have the Yahoo!Group page as their home, or landing, page. So, when you click on thelink or logo from the LinkedIn Groups directory you go to the external(Yahoo!) page. LinkedIn will NOT know anything about your member-ship with the Yahoo! Group and this will not have an impact on yourLinkedIn network.

Another critical difference between the LinkedIn Group and the Yahoo!Group is that the LinkedIn group is currently not interactive. It is justanother network circle that you can participate in on LinkedIn, but thereisn't a forum, chat room, email list or any other group communicationmedium. Yahoo! Groups, on the other hand, provide an email list whereyou have members who communicate with one another with relativefreedom (depending on the moderator's rules).

Yahoo! Groups offers totally different tools, and is a great complementto LinkedIn Groups. In fact, I posted a question on the MyLinkedinPow-erForum Yahoo! Group asking members to describe the value ofLinkedIn. Surprisingly, the majority of responses centered around therelationships found and developed through the complementaryMyLinkedInPowerForum Yahoo! Group. The fact that it's interactiveand you can have almost real-time communication means that aYahoo! Group might be an excellent tool for you, but there can be a lotof action in the group and it can be very overwhelming (sometimes I getover 100 emails a day) to manage. LinkedIn Groups, on the other hand,provide a pool to tap into but don't necessarily impose the level of extraeffort or work that comes with an email forum.

Here's a comparison table that shows some main differences betweenLinkedIn and an email forum like Yahoo! Groups (in general this is howother such groups, like Google Groups, will differ). You can see thatthere are benefits to each toolset, which is why lots of LinkedIn groupsare complemented with Yahoo! Groups:


Chapter Summary

• Join various groups, as appropriate, to expand your search abilityand visibility.

• Consider complementing a LinkedIn Group with a Yahoo! (orGoogle™) Group for enhanced communication.

How to: LinkedIn Groups Yahoo! Groups

Search for others

Optimized to search forothers within groups

Not very easy to searchfor others, and emailaddress is usually hidden

Communicate with the group

Easy to browse groupmembers and communi-cate one-by-one, but notto the entire group

Just send one email (orpost a message on thewebsite) and it goes toeveryone in the group(this is what it wasdesigned for)

Collaborate Only through Answers(which is not a group func-tion), where it is an openforum, but clunky due tolimitations

Optimized to collaborate,brainstorm, etc.

Show profiles Excellent-this is whatLinkedIn is optimized todo

Very poor profiles,sometimes enhanced by“databases” that areusually clunky


C h a p t e r

12 LinkedIn Answers

Answers is a feature that debuted in January2007. The Answers feature may be one of themost intriguing features that LinkedIn has tooffer, drawing users back to use LinkedIn morefrequently. The idea is that you can post aquestion and invite your network to respond.Questions can also be shown to people who arenot in your immediate network. The questionsposted are extremely diverse and range fromknowledge-based issues to help in finding a jobor various types of resources.

When LinkedIn first launched Answers there wasa lot of concern about users spamming theirnetworks with sales, MLM, job postings, andmore. LinkedIn did a decent job of putting invarious measures to reduce the spam potential -after all, it's in their best interest to make this asvaluable and effective as possible.

One of the controls introduced by LinkedIn is thelimit to how many questions you can ask eachmonth. Currently the limit is 10 questions percalendar month (if you upgrade you can ask 25questions each month), which should encourageyou to think about the questions you have andask only the best, or most important. Of course,you can answer as many questions as you want.

80 Chapter 12: LinkedIn Answers

There are a handful of LinkedIn users who regularly answer over 150questions each month.

TIP: Try to ask a question at least once a month. This will give you theopportunity to intelligently probe your contacts in a creative way.

When you submit a question you can choose up to 200 people fromyour first degree network to email. I strongly recommend using thisemail notifier to invite your contacts to answer the question. It's morelikely that your network finds out about the question via email than byseeing it on their LinkedIn homepage. In my experience I'll get more ofmy own contacts answering a question than if I don't have the systememail them. However, I've found that if I don't have the system emailthem I still get a pretty good response from people whom I don't reallyknow, which is also beneficial.

Each question is open for a certain period of time, currently sevendays. During the seven days your contacts and other LinkedIn userscan answer it. At the end of the seventh day it closes and no one cananswer it. The question and answers are then made available asarchived records.

During the seven days that your question is open you can do thingssuch as clarify your question, close it, choose a best answer, etc. If youneed to clarify the question I recommend just appending text at the endinstead of changing the entire question - that way if someone hasanswered the original question their answer will still make sense.

What a terrific source of knowledge! Answers has the added benefit ofallowing you to learn about each participant and determine howqualified they are to answer your question. With one click you are ledto their profile.

As the person who asks the question you have the option of choosinga “best answer.” When you choose a best answer you actually build thecredibility of the person who answered, as their profile will display howmany “best answers” they have contributed. This system is similar toeBay's system which allows users to build credibility for one another asthey rank them. And it's a way to develop your brand through LinkedIn.


Note that if you ask a question that others consider inappropriate (likeasking a question that is actually just a job posting, and not saying thatit's a job posting) then they may flag it. This peer monitoring is anothercontrol that LinkedIn introduced to help eliminate spam. It seems thatyour question will remain up unless it is flagged too many times, or ifthe LinkedIn staff reviews it and determines that it should be takendown. So be careful in what questions you ask and how they areworded! The LinkedIn policy can change quickly, but no matter what,you don't want to brand yourself as a spammer with your networkcontacts.

TIP: Try to answer a question at least once a month, which will give youvisibility to the LinkedIn community.

82 Chapter 12: LinkedIn Answers

Chapter Summary

• Participating in Answers is an excellent way to make new contactsas well as quantify your personal brand.

• Make sure you participate intelligently and really add value to thequestions and answers.

“When you ask a question on the ‘Answers’ forum takethe time to thank each person who tried to help. Thenremember to close and rate the question. People havetaken the time to help you; it is simple common courtesyto thank them.”


“Use the questions and answers feature to startconversations, create community, and position yourselfas a subject matter expert. By answering questions, youare simultaneously endorsing your candidacy andexpertise.”


Part IIIWrapping it Up

There's more to a rich LinkedIn experience thanwhat you can find on their website. Part 3 introduc-es you to using LinkedIn for your personalbranding strategy, warns you about shadypractices that you might encounter, shares somethoughts on netiquette, talks about resources com-plementary to LinkedIn and this book, and leavesyou with some final parting thoughts.


C h a p t e r

13 LinkedIn for Personal Branding

LinkedIn is a personal tool - your account isyours and yours alone (well, unless you sign upwith a company email!). It is not a bulletin boardfor a company, although you can put languageon your profile that explains what your companydoes. And clearly people use LinkedIn to helptheir current situation (for example, asking aquestion in Answers that addresses a particularjob-related need). Did you know it's also a greattool to quantify and build your personal brand?

Developing and sharing your personal brand isnot as easy as throwing a profile up, just the wayyou might throw your resume together. Youshould think about what your personal brandcurrently is (everyone has a brand, whether theylike it or not), what it should be, and how you canstrengthen it, online and offline.

This book is not a personal branding book, so Iwon't cover the topics of who you are, who youshould be and all the ways to quantify your brandonline. I will share some ideas on personalbranding considerations while using LinkedIn. Ifyou are interested in personal branding I highlysuggest Career Distinction, which has beencalled the bible of personal branding. You canlearn more at http://www.CareerDistinction.com.

86 Chapter 13: LinkedIn for Personal Branding

First, make sure you are showing the right information on your privateprofile and your public profile. LinkedIn allows you to view your profileas others would see it, and you can always logout to see what yourprofile looks like to those that are not logged in. Are the profilesshowing enough information? Are they showing too much information?My experience with public profiles is that too many only show a nameand title (or something similar - too little information). I rarely take thetime to login to view your full profile. If you want to advertise who youare and why you are valuable, make it easy for people to learn aboutyou without logging in!

Second, change your public profile URL from the default assignedvalue (which looks like gibberish) to something more descriptive of whoyou are. For example, you can see that my public profile ends in “jas-onalba” instead of something like “aui23ns” - so when people see a linkto my profile they know exactly where they are going:

Figure 17: Edit Profile

This image is from the Profile edit screen, where they show you yourPublic Profile URL - to change it all you need to do is click on the Editlink. Please don't do something regretful, like put “hairylegs” orsomething like that. If you want to do that, go get an account onMySpace where that's acceptable - doing that on LinkedIn will not beconsidered cute - and I'm pretty sure you'll regret it.

Third, share your LinkedIn profile. The easiest, most effective and mostviral way of sharing your personal brand via your LinkedIn profile is toput the URL in your email signature. Every time someone reads youremail signature they'll know they can learn more about where you'vebeen and what you've done (if your public profile is done right). Eachtime your emails get forwarded more people will see your profile.Another way to share your profile is to put the “View My LinkedInProfile” image on your personal website or blog.


In 2006 I went to a presentation for job seekers about “regaining youridentity” where the speaker talked about using resumes in networkingevents. He said that employed professionals don't give resumes out,they give business cards out. If you get a resume from someone youwill have some preconceived idea about what they want (A job, right?Isn't that what a resume says?). However, if you get a business cardfrom someone you have a different idea of what they want, or can offer.

This concept transfers quite nicely to the LinkedIn profile. If you sendyour resume out with every single email you send you will probably getinto trouble with your employer. Sending a resume says “I'm looking, ifyou can help then let me know.” However, sending a link to yourLinkedIn profile says “Here's who I am, check it out.”If you think aboutit, your LinkedIn profile can be identical to the resume, with the samequantifying statements and other information commonly found on aresume. But the fact that you are just pointing someone to your onlineprofile sends a different message.

Finally, if you leave a comment on a blog, online newspaper, forum orsome other website, you have two opportunities to leave your LinkedInprofile. This is especially applicable if you don't have your own websiteor blog (in which case you would leave your website or blog address).The first place to put your LinkedIn profile URL is in the “website” box,if there is one. Usually, when you leave a comment they ask for yourname, email address and website. The second place to put yourLinkedIn profile URL is in a signature, at the end of your comment(much like you would have in your email).

88 Chapter 13: LinkedIn for Personal Branding

Chapter Summary

• There are various things you can do within LinkedIn to strengthenyour personal brand, and take advantage of LinkedIn's searchengine optimization.

• Your LinkedIn profile is kind of like a resume, without any of thenegative connotations that a resume might have.


C h a p t e r

14 Shady Practices

With over thirteen million users you are almostguaranteed to run into people who don't abide bycommon netiquette or even the LinkedIn UserAgreement. There is a link at the bottom of eachpage to the User Agreement that I'm sure manypeople have not read it. Even for those who haveread it, how they may have interpreted thepolicies might be different from how they wereintended.

Here are some of the actual practices that Iconsider to be “shady” that have negativelyaffected people's experience while on LinkedIn:

Email in name field: This is a very simple,non-offensive deed but I wanted to bring it out forone reason. It is against the terms set forth in theUser Conduct section of the User Agreement16:“You understand and agree not to use LinkedInto: … Post content in fields that aren't intendedfor that content. Example: Putting an address ina name or title field.” This is a very commonoffense, to the point where it looks like “everyoneis doing it,” but just realize it is against the rulesand may subject your account to be suspended.

16. http://tinyurl.com/zl5tl

90 Chapter 14: Shady Practices

Tollboothing: This refers to charging people to have access to yourLinkedIn connections. Of course they can still do a search on yournetwork, but if they want an introduction or some other kind ofendorsed communication to one of your contacts, you would chargethem. The logic behind this is “I put a lot of time and effort into buildingmy network, and this is my livelihood, so you should expect to have topay me for my services.” I don't agree with this behavior. While thereare people who agree with it, they are in a small minority. If you arereally interested in developing relationships this might be somethingthat will greatly hinder your ultimate networking and LinkedIn strategy.

Lying: One of the best ways to be found by companies that hire Yalegraduates is to graduate from Yale, right? What if you could just putYale as one of your schools that you went to? Well, you can. You canlie about places that you worked and where you went to school. Youcan actually lie about anything on your profile. This is one reason whythe “recommendations” carries so much weight, because you can't editwhat someone else writes about you Of course, people have beenknown to put false information on their LinkedIn profile to increase theirchances of being found by recruiters or hiring managers.

Vincent Wright, founder of the MyLinkedInPowerForum Yahoo! Groupfound a profile where the person had worked for 15 years in 100different companies. Vincent called him the 1,500 year old man (100companies x 15 years at each one = 1,500 years of work experience!).It's important to note that Vincent is a professional recruiter - and pro-fessional recruiters can smell this type of deception from a mile away.Make sure your profile is clean and verifiable - just as your resumewould be.

What should you do if someone contacts you because of the school orcompany listed on your account? In an email to MyLinkedInPowerFo-rum Scott Allen recommended the following:

“If someone does send you an invitation saying that they're a former colleague or classmate, at a minimum, at least take a look at the dates and other entries on their profile and make sure they jibe. And if they don't have a full position and description listed, that's a yellow flag too.”


It's really up to you to make sure the person you connect with, orrespond to, is who he says he is. LinkedIn isn't in the business ofproviding verified information, so there has to be a certain amount oftrust involved. Remember that this is an online environment and thereis a lot more to a person and their history than what you'll see on theirLinkedIn profile.

Using LinkedIn Answers to cloak an inappropriate question. TheLinkedIn community has been very clear that they don't want Answersto turn into a spam-laden area, generating useless requests for infor-mation and sending out numerous emails that become a burden. ScottAllen notes that this is not as big an issue as it was when they originallylaunched because of mechanisms introduced to prevent spam, butthere are still people who use it for “thinly veiled advertising, jobpostings, job search help and the latest trend, people looking for inves-tors.” Answers has a purpose and abusing it will not only clutter anddevalue the system, it will show that you don't respect others and willpossibly get your account locked.

Fishing for fake recommendations. Since you can't make up recom-mendations for yourself, and most people won't create fake LinkedInprofiles and then endorse their main profile, you might have people askyou for recommendations. In my opinion, this really isn't a big deal, andis common practice with reference letters. I have asked past coworkersand bosses for letters of recommendation and even coached them onspecifics that I wanted them to bring out. But there's one big difference- the shady part is when someone that you don't really know asks for arecommendation. It usually comes in the form of “If you recommend meI'll recommend you.“ My typical response to this type of request is “Idon't really feel like I know you well enough to give you a recommen-dation - sorry. I'd like to get to know you better before I do that.” In thecases where I've responded like that I actually haven't even received aresponse!

Light-linking. This refers to linking with anyone who asks for a con-nection. Many people take a casual position on this (like, open net-workers) but it does cut into LinkedIn's value promise. In other words,the idea of LinkedIn providing me a view of strong networks, based onknowing each contact and having some kind of relationship, isdevalued when contacts are made with people whom you don't knowenough to endorse, recommend, or pass along to another network

92 Chapter 14: Shady Practices

contact. Of course, you can argue that light-linking is okay as it (a)expands your network and reach, and (b) increases the chances thatyou'll be found because your network gets bigger and more diverse.

Fishing for email addresses. Because so many people violate therule about putting email addresses in the name field, it's quite easy tofind email addresses to put into a list. I'm not suggesting that you doanything shady, but here's how easy it is. Just search on “.com” in thesimple search box and you'll find as many email addresses as youcould ever want. It's that easy!

Chapter Summary

• People will do things wrong, sometimes unknowingly. Beware ofwho you interact with, and how you interact with them.

• If you violate LinkedIn policy you risk having your account sus-pended, or being seen as someone that does not respect “therules.”


C h a p t e r

15 On Netiquette

Even though LinkedIn doesn't have a lot of socialinteraction with other members built into its userexperience, there will still be plenty of opportuni-ties to practice social guffaws with contacts youdevelop in LinkedIn. You will be invited toconnect with someone else. Some of your con-nections will ask for (and maybe even merit) arecommendation. Perhaps you'll be on an emailforum where LinkedIn is discussed and yousomehow come across as an expert!

It's important to know some basic rules ofInternet etiquette. Aside from having an onlinepresence, and developing your personal brand,you should continually portray yourself within theboundaries of your brand. This isn't to say thatyou should get walked all over, but it's good to atleast have the basics. Here are some basics toconsider:

94 Chapter 15: On Netiquette

1. Be nice and concise. Always. I think we are in the habit of skim-ming more than reading, mostly because of the massive amountof information to read. Having a concise message with a nice tonewill do wonders for your online brand.

2. Avoid sarcasm when writing. Since people are likely to skimyour email and probably not catch every meaning that you intend,think twice about funny jokes that you want to slip into your mes-sage. I frequently hit the backspace button when writing most ofmy emails. While I hate watering down my messages I realize thatthe jokes or sarcasm would just be a distraction from my realmessage and could be misinterpreted.

3. Assume the best when you are reading someone else's com-munication. Scott Allen, author of The Virtual Handshake, al-ways advises people to assume the best of intentions whenreading an email that might come across as negative, harsh or in-appropriate. Scott is right - while you know to be careful whensending messages perhaps your contact didn't get the memo onnetiquette. Give them the benefit of the doubt!

4. Don't chastise or teach. I've seen too many discussion threads(a string of emails around the same subject) that go from bad toworse. What starts off as a general admonition or knowl-edge-sharing email easily turns into personal jabs and accusa-tions. You can pursue this path if you want but I've found it's muchmore effective to just bow out of the discussion and move on tosomething else. Everyone involved will appreciate the thread dy-ing down and you'll look more mature, or wiser, or just smarter fornot pursuing an online fist-fight.

5. Consider cultural differences when reading or writing any-thing. Every list I'm on has a good representation of people fromall walks of life. There are people whose first language is not thesame as most others on the list. There are people who are rightout of school (or still students) and others are at the end of theircareer. There are entrepreneurs, executives, artists, rich andpoor. All of these things affect the messages and the culture ofthe list - and will likely lead to misunderstandings. Now you know!


6. Know when to take it off-list. Lots of topics are of interest, andinteresting. However, there are times when it makes a lot ofsense to take a topic (or thread) offline. If the discussion starts offslightly off-topic and it gets deeper and more technical, take itoff-list. If the discussion is between you and one other person,take it off-list. If the discussion is completely off-topic, or person-al, take it off-list.

There are always exceptions to these rules, and you'll notice that lotsof people don't seem to know them! But remember this: everything thatyou write, whether it's a comment, an email, an instant message oranything, may come back to haunt you. In fact, you should write every-thing with the idea that it will be on the front page of a major newspa-per, with full credit back to you!

Liz Ryan's book Happy About Online Networking is a great resource formore information on netiquette. Liz writes about a whole myriad ofonline environments to network in and how to get the best out of them.Throughout the entire book there are pearls of wisdom on what to doand what not to do, which comes down to “netiquette.”

Chapter Summary

• Learning the rules of netiquette will help you maintain the properrelationships as you communicate with people online.

• Understand netiquette mistakes may help you be more under-standing or patient with people that don't understand them.

96 Chapter 15: On Netiquette


C h a p t e r

16 Complementary Tools and Resources

As someone who loves and appreciates net-working I must recommend that LinkedIn is onlyone networking tool you should use. It might beyour main online networking tool, but it shouldn’tbe your only online networking tool. Saying thatLinkedIn is the only online network site youshould use is like saying you should onlyfrequent one face-to-face network event, club orassociation. There is immense value in attendingdifferent networking events, in different circles,and getting a great cross-section or cross polli-nation in your own network. In that spirit, here aresome tools that I recommend as complements toLinkedIn.

Many people use LinkedIn to develop an onlinepersonal presence as part of their personalbranding strategy. This means they develop theirprofile much like they would develop a resume,putting their best foot forward and optimizing it sothat people will (a) find it when searching forkeywords (such as “project manager”), and/or (b)be compelled to have interest in working with,hiring or finding out more about the person.

If you are interested in developing an onlinepresence there are additional, and better, waysto do it. A public profile on LinkedIn should be

98 Chapter 16: Complementary Tools and Resources

one part of a multifaceted strategy, not your entire strategy. Here's aquick list of excellent (and free) ways to claim your profile on theInternet, and perhaps even get your name on the front page of searchengine results instead of that famous person, author, or blogger whomyou share a name with:

• Find other sites to develop profiles, including Jobster.com,Emurse.com, ZoomInfo.com, etc.

• Set up a free blog where you can continually brand yourself andquantify your breadth and depth in regular, valuable blog posts.

• Comment on other blogs to establish a presence and footprint,pointing back to a central place (either your blog or one of youronline profiles).

• Develop a Squidoo lens where you can list various things such asyour profiles, favorite books, blog feeds, etc.

• Write articles and have them distributed via distribution servicessuch as ThePhantomWriter.com, or land a gig writing a column fora magazine or newspaper.

Note that any and all of these tools can be used together - for example,on your LinkedIn profile you can list your other websites and profiles.On your blog you should list each of your other profiles. This allowsvisitors of any site to visit the other pages where they'll likely finddifferent information, and learn more about you. It also builds credibilitywith the search engines to the point where your pages will get higherrankings in the search engines (that is, you'll show up higher in searchresults). This is a very simple, incomplete generalization about SearchEngine Optimization. You can enter “SEO” in your favorite searchengine to learn more.

There are various contact management systems that you can use toactually manage the relationships that you develop on LinkedIn. Justas recruiters will always need their own Applicant Tracking System tomake notes on candidates, and salespeople will always need aCustomer Relationship Management tool to manage prospects andclients, you should use a relationship management tool to keep bettertabs on your relationships.


Your relationship management tool could be as rudimentary as anExcel spreadsheet (good luck!), as complex as a full salesperson'scontact relationship management suite, or as simple and common asMicrosoft Outlook's Contacts section - but it needs to be something thatyou have control over, with the features that you need.

Traditional CRM tools include ACT!, GoldMine® and Salesforce.com.Two contact management systems designed specifically aroundLinkedIn include LICM17 and Contact Manager18. Another tool, Jibber-Jobber.com, was designed by my company specifically for managingpersonal relationships in a career management context - so anyone in-terested in “climbing the ladder,” creating “job security,” developingand nurturing a professional network would find JibberJobber.com tobe useful. No matter what you use, you should use something.

Another set of complementary resources includes the many onlineforums that discuss LinkedIn. MyLinkedInPowerForum and LinkedIn-novators are Yahoo! Groups with thousands of networking enthusiaststhat share ideas, resources, tips, frustrations, questions and evencontacts and job leads with one another. I've participated in bothforums and have learned and connected in ways that could only bedone through an active email forum. My participation has been an in-credible value-add to my LinkedIn networking strategy.

While some other social network sites have different features, no socialnetwork is going to completely replace all of the software and tools youuse. Make sure that you have the proper mix of tools that is right foryou. Determining what is right for you might depend on your objectives.Are you:

• Trying to expand your network within your country?

• Trying to expand your network internationally?

• Looking for a forum to voice your opinion and develop yourpersonal brand?

• Looking for a place to learn from other like-minded professionals?

17. http://tinyurl.com/2uydbt18. http://cm4net.com


LinkedIn might be a great place to start but it shouldn't be the last toolto use. You just need to know what your needs are and then it shouldbe pretty easy to find a tool that meets those needs.

LinkedIn can be updated and changed easily - in fact, new stuff comesout regularly. Whether it is a change to the front page, the Answerspolicy or sneaking in a new feature, documenting LinkedIn is like tryingto hit a moving target. That is one reason why this is not a “how to”guide for using LinkedIn. Hopefully LinkedIn doesn't change so muchof the user experience that the technical parts of this book areoutdated!

There are a number of great resources to keep up with LinkedIn. I'mnot the kind of person who likes to read technical documentation so Iwouldn't lead you to that. Instead, these are particular websites, blogs,or posts that I think are valuable to follow so you can ensure that youkeep current with LinkedIn and new ideas on how to get value out of it.

• The LinkedIntelligence blog19 - Scott Allen follows changes intechnology and blogs about getting the most out of LinkedIn. Hisregular blog posts are valuable to the casual and advanced useralike, and he frequently talks about proper etiquette.

• Guy Kawasaki's 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn blog post20 - Guy lists10, make that 11, ways to use LinkedIn. Reading these helpsensure that you have a proper high-level view of the breadth anddepth of LinkedIn. Make sure to read the comments, which havesome great ideas.

• Guy Kawasaki's LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover blog post21

- Guy received preferred treatment from LinkedIn as they guidedhim through improving his own profile (that he had been neglect-ing). This post points out the specific changes that LinkedIn recom-mends to his old profile. Again, make sure to read the commentsas there are some valuable insights there.

19. http://www.LinkedIntelligence.com20. http://tinyurl.com/2fbver21. http://tinyurl.com/2llban


• The My Linkedin Power Forum Yahoo! Group22 - This is a veryactive discussion forum that talks about networking, with a coreinterest being LinkedIn. There are some very advanced LinkedInusers here as well as newbies, and frequently you'll find great dis-cussions in a variety of topics and breaking news regardingLinkedIn.

• The LinkedInnovators Yahoo! Group23 - This group is morefocused on just LinkedIn discussions and still very active. Whileyou won't see as many emails coming through this forum the dis-cussions rarely go outside of LinkedIn topics.

• The Virtual Handshake book and blog - Scott Allen and DavidTeten explore networking and relationships through various onlinemediums. This might be the deepest, most comprehensiveresource on the subject and is a must-read for anyone who realizesthey need to use the Internet to develop relationships. Downloadthe book at http://www.TheVirtualHandshake.com and check outtheir blog at http://www.TheVirtualHandshake.com/blog.

• The LinkedIn User Agreement page24 - If you are serious aboutusing LinkedIn it's important to read this at least once (don't worry,it is short and fairly easy to read). There are a number of violationsthat would cause LinkedIn to freeze your account so gettingfamiliar with the rules and philosophies behind the rules will helpkeep your LinkedIn strategy in line.

• The official LinkedIn blog25 - This blog is not a help manual orsource of “how to” information. It is a relatively new blog and so fartalks about LinkedIn culture, events (like LinkedIn) and things likethat. It provides an interesting perspective of what's going on atLinkedIn.

• The LinkedIn Notes blog26 and tips website27 - Rick Uptonprovides a number of thoughts on using LinkedIn that providebite-sized, consistent value to your LinkedIn experience.

22. http://tinyurl.com/2tqn6e23. http://tinyurl.com/8w2wo 24. http://tinyurl.com/zl5tl 25. http://blog.linkedin.com 26. http://linkedin-notes.blogspot.com


• The LinkedIn Users Manual blog28 - Peter Nguyen has excellentideas on making money with LinkedIn, selling knowledge, etc.

• The Boost Your Career With LinkedIn blog29 - Bill Vick, author of“Happy About LinkedIn for Recruiting,” shares “Insider tips, hintsand secrets on finding your next job using LinkedIn.” Bill has a vastnetwork and excellent examples, and lists and lists of ideas for youto optimize LinkedIn.

• The unofficial LinkedIn brainshare wiki30 - this is a project startedby Marc Freedman with the idea of gathering valuable LinkedIn re-sources, tips, tricks, user experiences, etc. It's definitely worth yourtime visiting this website to learn more about LinkedIn fromsomeone who has built his business around LinkedIn.

• The LinkedIn Personal Trainer is a book by Steve Tylock. If “I'mon LinkedIn, Now What?” isn't hands-on enough for you then youare probably looking for Steve's book. You can find more informa-tion at http://www.LinkedInPersonalTrainer.com.

In addition to these resources, do not underestimate a solid networkingbook to learn some networking basics. Online networking and offlinenetworking have one key think in common - it's still all about relation-ships. Here are some leading books on networking that I strongly rec-ommend:

• Happy About Online Networking31 by Liz Ryan - This is a greatread with plenty of examples to maximize online networking,whether it is in a social network or an email list (listserv). Liz has astraightforward style that will prepare you to successfully developyour brand and offering through online networking.

27. http://tinyurl.com/77dgy 28. http://tinyurl.com/2u3d6x 29. http://www.xtremelinkedin.com30. http://linkedin.pbwiki.com31. http://tinyurl.com/36xf6o


• Never Eat Alone32 by Keith Ferrazzi - I read this book when Ithought networking was all about desperate people schmoozingand passing business cards for self-gain. It really changed my per-spective on what networking is and how to do it, and I strongly,strongly recommend it to anyone who asks about networking.

• Some Assembly Required and The ABC's of Networking byThom Singer33 - Thom's books are great resources with hundredsof practical, right-now relationship building tips. While he talksabout relationship and networking stuff, I've found his writings to beespecially applicable in the corporate environment with a lot ofexamples on how he enriches customer and prospect relation-ships.

• Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty 34 by Harvey Mackay - Thishas been a staple of networking books for a long time. HarveyMackay has written a number of best-seller books on networkingand career management and is definitely an authority in this space.

Don't forget your favorite search engine to look up stuff. There are anumber of new websites and posts that talk about LinkedIn from a veryhigh, general perspective down to specific techniques and tactics.While I've listed some of my favorites, and the more common resourc-es, I'm sure there are other gems out there that I haven't come acrossyet.

32. http://www.keithferrazzi.com/theBook.html33. http://thomsinger.com/ 34. http://tinyurl.com/2j247k


Chapter Summary

• Tools to complement LinkedIn include CRM software, discussionforums and other online profile websites.

• Tools to complement this book include blogs, websites, online re-sources, and other books.


C h a p t e r

17 Conclusion

This book covers a lot of stuff - to learn more youcan visit the books site35, or pick your favoritesearch engine and search for LinkedIn. Hopefullythis gives you a good perspective on how to getthe most out of your experience with LinkedIn,from a “how-to” angle as well as a “why shouldthis matter to me” angle.

Here are some parting thoughts:

• Know what you want to get out of technologylike LinkedIn.

• Use LinkedIn as the tool that it is.

• Explore the goodies such as premiumupgrade options, toolbar plug-ins, and otherthings from LinkedIn to enhance yourLinkedIn experience.

• Figure out what the other tools are that youshould use.

35. http://www.ImOnLinkedInNowWhat.com

106 Chapter 17: Conclusion

• Create a strategy to enhance your personal brand (you know, thebrand you already have?) and make sure that the tools andapproach you use will help you execute that strategy.

• Think about career management, whether you are employed ornot, happy or unhappy, a business owner or an executive. Andthink about how these tools can help you execute your career man-agement strategy.

• Realize that you can have a network on LinkedIn, but your entirenetwork is not in LinkedIn. Think about how many people you meetat your family reunion who are in your network but are not LinkedInconnections. It probably isn't appropriate for all (or many) of thosepeople to be in your LinkedIn network - just try and not get mixedup and forget there are people outside LinkedIn who have valuablerelationships with you.

LinkedIn is a great tool - but just like the power tool in your garage, it'suseless until you learn how it works, and then actually put it to use!

Good luck!


“Take your connections offline. LinkedIn is a great tool,but don't forget that others tools still exist. Your phonestill works, and there's nothing better than a face to faceconnection.”


“LinkedIn doesn't replace traditional networking, itfacilitates it. Always supplement your on-line efforts withface-to-face networking.”


“LinkedIn is a great tool, but you need to learn to use itand you have to maintain it to keep it sharp! Take the timeto investigate all the features, encourage colleagues andfriends to not only join your network but build their own soyou can leverage each other's contacts, and scheduleLinkedIn activities with yourself - like updating yourprofile once a month, answering questions daily orweekly, etc.”

-- Deb Dib, http://www.ExecutivePowerCoach.com

108 Chapter 17: Conclusion


A u t h o r

About the Author

Jason Alba is the job seeker and networkingadvocate. He got laid off in January 2006, just afew weeks after Christmas. Even though he hadgreat credentials and it was a job-seeker’smarket, Jason could hardly get a job interview.Finally he decided to step back and figure out thejob search process, including trying to under-stand all of the available resources. Within a fewmonths he had designed a personal job searchtool, JibberJobber.com, which helps profession-als manage career and job search activities thesame way a salesman manages prospects andcustomer data.

110 Author

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I'm on LinkedIn--Now What??? (First Edition): A Guide to Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn

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