Good, bad, indifferent? A friend is beginning a job search. She shared some profiles of joint acquaintances - they clearly haven’t been updated for years. Is it worthwhile for her to work on a good LinkedIn profile for the search or not worth the effort? Do hiring professionals use it? Any comments, thoughts and experience is welcome!
Absolutely worth updating her LinkedIn. It is a must nowadays.
Agree, it’s a must these days. I get calls all the time from recruiters who have seen my profile. I know for fact that the last time I was job hunting almost every HR person checked my profile and a few connected with people I was connected to and asked about me. The job search is quite good also at least in my area of the country. It is entirely possible there are markets in this country where it is not as popular, I can only speak about my region. Works in reverse, also, if you are looking at a specific job at a specific company you can find someone you know who knows someone…and so it goes. It’s a good idea to update your profile when you change jobs or get a promotion, I have to remind one of my kids every now and then about that. He had the company info, but neglected to update his title and experience as he got promotions.
D1 got her first professional job via LinkedIn, and her second.
Yes, always surprises me when anyone on the hunt either doesn’t update or has a weak summary.
Your friend should have a hyperlink to her LinkedIn account on her resume. It is as essential as her contact information. Have her take the time to do her LinkedIn profile correctly. Get some help if needed - if she doesn’t want to pay someone to assist her there are plenty of online articles on what an effective profile should look like.
I just updated mine last summer and got a professional photograph taken.
In our area the jobs posted are “real” jobs, if you are hunting and pay for the upgrade you can many times apply right with your Linkedin Profile and you can see how many people have applied and how you stack up in terms of years, experience, etc. Some listings will still ask for an emailed resume, but that is rapidly diminishing as HR departments turn to electronic postings and filters. If they are interested, they will contract you generally pretty quickly. Many HR recruiters (in house and other) get measured and compensated by how quickly they can fill jobs along with the typical measures.
Why in the world wouldn’t you?
I use it a ton. It is the best way to keep track of people you meet as they move between companies and jobs. I am in the hunt for a new project management contract as of a couple of days ago, and have been using it to contact people I’ve met previously who might have leads for me. Even if your friend builds her network slowly over the next several years, it can be invaluable for future job searches.
I’m kind of an introvert, and the idea of networking is kind of distasteful to me. But this is a professional tool that makes it easy, convenient, and much less awkward than it used to be.
There are people who don’t keep their profiles up. Or have like 5 connections – I don’t usually send connections to people who clearly don’t use it.
I keep a very minimal profile, as I’m not job hunting, but I do like keeping connected to people. I also tweak the settings so I don’t get notifications every time someone sneezes (the emails from LinkedIn can be quite aggressive otherwise).
My college son has a more detailed profile, and the career center at his school offers sessions helping students set their pages up professionally–right alongside the resume workshops. They use it a lot for job search and co-op/internship placement.
Yes,LinkedIn is a must if you are looking for a job. I have mixed feelings about LinkedIn as I feel it allows companies to discriminate, on a bunch of factors such as weight, appearance , race and gender.
Age, too
I’m kind of unimpressed with linkedin in terms of the tool and the interface. I think it lacks intuitiveness and a decent interface - it’s clunky. I’ve never really used it as a job search tool so can’t comment on that aspect. Good for stalking folks, though. 
I’d say that everyone might as well set one up. It’s not that complicated nor does it take much time. despite my complaint about the clunkiness.
I agree that it has a frustrating UI. The thing that makes me nuts is that yo u can’t search jobs by whether they are permanent or contract/gig jobs. I don’t WANT a “real” job. But I have to click thru so much crap to find the ones I do want to look at. At one point they suckered me into paying for a more deluxe version with promises that sounded like you could search by this distinction. But they lied.
Oh…, it is not good for stalking. You can see who looked at your profile (free version you can only tell sometimes, but if you pay you can see almost all).
Just recentky observed that a senior VP from the job I just quit was looking at my profile 2 hours after I gave notice. Someone I’d never met, but up the food chain (the food chain that was frantically trying to figure out how to get me to stay). It was useful to know that it had gotten to her level.
I have contacted colleagues and friends on LinkedIn that I had lost contact with. If I were looking for a job I expect that it would be useful but I am way past that point in my life.
Re: stalking, if you are a free member you can select anonymous mode. B-) Obviously, that means I can’t see who is looking at me but since I’m not in the market for a job, I’m okay with that.
A linkedin profile is pretty easy to set up - you mimic your resume. The one exception I have found is that for my recently college graduated daughter - she has trimmed her resume but not her linkedin page (kept the jobs during HS etc.) Sometimes companies list jobs on linkedin which they don’t list anywhere else - so you can find jobs there that might not be in other places.
Establishing a LinkedIn account was the first thing my D’s career counselor recommended a few weeks ago when D started seriously looking at summer 2018 internships. I’ll admit I’m in the dark about the whole thing but thinking I better catch up quick as, although I’m always searching for a better job, my company was just sold and a new owner takes over December 1st. Everything is then up in the air…
In the advice of a recruiter I trimmed my LinkedIn profile and my resume but for a newly minted college grad I would advise all jobs not just their degree and an internship which are ubiquitous these days unless they required certifications or involved independent real work.
Thanks to all! It seems almost unanimous.