Using Linkedin effectively

By adding con­nec­tions, you increase the like­li­hood that peo­ple will see your pro­file first when they’re search­ing for some­one to hire or do busi­ness with.

You should fill out your pro­file like it’s an exec­u­tive bio, so include past com­pa­nies, edu­ca­tion, affil­i­a­tions, and activities.

You can also include a link to your pro­file as part of an email signature.

To do this, cre­ate a pub­lic pro­file and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, cus­tomize your pub­lic profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the vis­i­bil­ity of this page in search engines, use this link in var­i­ous places on the web> For exam­ple, when you com­ment in a blog, include a link to your pro­file in your signature.

In addi­tion to your name, you can also pro­mote your blog or web­site to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn pro­file allows you to pub­li­cize web­sites. There are a few pre-selected cat­e­gories like “My Web­site,” “My Com­pany,” etc.

If you select “Other” you can mod­ify the name of the link. If you’re link­ing to your per­sonal blog, include your name or descrip­tive terms in the link, and voila! instant search-engine opti­miza­tion for your site. To make this work, be sure your pub­lic pro­file set­ting is set to “Full View.”

LinkedIn’s ref­er­ence check tool to input a com­pany name and the years the per­son worked at the com­pany to search for ref­er­ences. Your search will find the peo­ple who worked at the com­pany dur­ing the same time period.

Com­pa­nies will typ­i­cally check your ref­er­ences before hir­ing you, but you can also check out a poten­tial boss for references.

You can also check up on the com­pany itself by find­ing the per­son who used to have the job that you’re inter­view­ing for. Do this by search­ing for job title and com­pany, but be sure to uncheck “Cur­rent titles only.” By con­tact­ing peo­ple who used to hold the posi­tion, you can get the inside scoop on the job, man­ager and growth potential.

Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to find peo­ple with edu­ca­tional and work expe­ri­ence like yours to see where they work. For exam­ple, a pro­gram­mer would use search key­words such as “Ruby on Rails,” “C++,” “Python,” “Java,” and “evan­ge­list” to find out where other pro­gram­mers with these skills work.

You can use LinkedIn to find the peo­ple that you’re meet­ing. Know­ing that you went to the same school, plays hockey, or shares acquain­tances is a lot bet­ter than an awk­ward silence after, “I’m doing fine, thank you.”

Per­form an advanced search for com­pany name and uncheck the “Cur­rent Com­pa­nies Only” box. This will enable you to scru­ti­nize the rate of turnover and whether key peo­ple are aban­don­ing ship.

If you’re think­ing of invest­ing or work­ing in a sec­tor, use LinkedIn to find peo­ple who worked for competitors—or even bet­ter, com­pa­nies who failed. For exam­ple, sup­pose you wanted to build a next gen­er­a­tion online pet store, you’d prob­a­bly learn a lot from speak­ing with for­mer Pets.com or Web­Van employees.

You can see peo­ple in your net­work who are ini­ti­at­ing new star­tups by doing an advanced search for a range of key­words such as “stealth” or “new startup.” Apply the “Sort By” fil­ter to “Degrees away from you” in order to see the peo­ple clos­est to you first.

LinkedIn Answers, aims to enable this online. The prod­uct allows you to broad­cast your business-related ques­tions to both your net­work and the greater LinkedIn net­work. The premise is that you will get more high-value responses from the peo­ple in your net­work than more open forums.