 What is it good for? - August 2011
I understand Facebook. I'm getting my head around Twitter, even though I don't see why I'd use it ... or why anyone would care if I did. And at 30,000 feet, LinkedIn seems to make sense. At ground level, however, I'm not quite seeing it. So, I'm doing an informal survey of my most connected Connections to learn about practical, tactical uses of LinkedIn. For anyone who replies with either answers or "I don't know, but I'd like to find out what you learn," I'll summarize my findings (anonymously) and let you know what I learn. Here’s my WAY overdue summary of the responses I received blended with my “2 years later” perspective. In my limited experience, LinkedIn is (a) a place to find contact information (and be found) for social purposes, (b) a place to recruit and be recruited for professional purposes, and (c) a place to share job-related questions and answers within a company, an industry, and/or a job function. Regarding (a), I use LinkedIn as a fallback if I can’t find someone on Facebook. With respect to (b), I got my Houghton Mifflin Harcourt job via LinkedIn—they recruited me (they let me go the old fashioned way, though—in person! [grin]). And for (c), I haven't used it in this manner, and in general, this function seems under-utilized but relatively easy to jump start. And here are the detailed responses. My favorite is number 7, without a doubt. 1. No idea...but I'd like to. Seems like it could be a good thing, but I don't get it either. 2. According to my friend _______, its good for recruiters, but not much use for anyone else. I've never used it for anything. Let me know what you find out. 3. As a BizDev Sales guy, I find LinkedIn incredibly valuable -- much more than Twitter or Facebook on a professional level. To put it simply -- networking and identifying/qualifying contacts at companies I am targeting are the key attributes. Specific answers to your questions below. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to look for work? If so, how? Customized email to each Connection? Bulk email to all Connections? Other? Use the email applications when I don't have their regular contact info. Do not use the bulk function at all. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to look for people to fill positions? If so, how? Yes, sometimes. If I am looking to poach people competitive companies or seek intelligence from specific business categories. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get recommendations for vendors to help you in your work? If so, how? No Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get answers to general or specific questions? For instance, "How do you expect education spending to be different in 2010 compared with 2009?" or "Is commercial real estate in the Greater Boston area going to recover significantly in 2010?" No Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get information about in-person or web events? No Q: What happens within Groups? Are they rich sources of discussion, or simply indicators of your areas of interest? Use a little. I mainly belong to groups for networking purposes. Q: Is it worth having a set of "standing" Recommendations regarding what people think of you in general, or does it make more sense to get them when you are pursuing a specific objective? Primarily to 'keep in good standing' with industry contacts. This should be a reciprocal thing. Who knows when I may be looking for a job and viceversa. Q: In short, what am I missing about LinkedIn? Again, as a prospecting tool Linkedin is priceless... 4. Overall, I believe that someday Linked In will provide a critical value to my career or doing my job. But, that has yet to happen. Q1 - finding positions I am actively looking for my next move now (my current position disappears at the end of the year). I have not yet used Linked In for this process, but believe it can serve two different purposes: to get introductions to people (for finding help applying for an existing position, or for finding help getting in front of an executive), and to find experts or partners (for help with a startup). In this economy I would only send customized emails, for one of the following reasons: - If I knew the contact's company is hiring (in which case I should know what position to mention). This applies when I feel I know the person well. - If I'm trying to strengthen the connection with the person by trying to meet. - If I'm trying to get connected to someone in their network. Q2 - filling positions No, recruiting in our department has been from MBA programs. I have tried to refer people for open positions in other departments, but not as often as I could. Q3 – vendors have not tried this. Don't often use vendors in our dept. Q4 - answers to questions No, due to company secrecy, we can't really put our strategy challenges out there. I could see using this function to help with a business plan for myself (not current employer). Q5 – events No. Events I care about tend to be already known to me - either through local or professional connections. Q6 – groups I have not seen any useful discussion in groups. I would try to ask questions within the groups if starting a company. Q7 – recommendations since these tend to come in pairs (mutual admiration), there's limited value to these, in my opinion. They're too free-form. They could be quantitative in several dimensions (e.g., inter-personal, analytical, and so on). Q8 - what're you missing I see the following value: - I am not a Facebook member, so I can stay in touch where I've got "personal-but-primarily-professional" connections (true for most of my Linked In contacts). Sort of a rolodex for the strongest professional connections. Linked In would have less "stay in touch" value if I were on Facebook. Come to think of it, there's no need for both. If either site offered the choice as to how to connect to people - business, personal, not at all - then you'd only need one of these sites. - Options on the future - value will dramatically increase if virtual companies take off(driving up the value of your network), you start a business, or you need an expert 5. I don't use LinkIn at all, even though I am nominally a member of it. 6. You're not missing anything about LinkedIn. Its goal is to convey the illusion of usefulness. 7. I'm a very passive LinkedIn user. I built my profile, I accept invitations to link and to exchange recommendations, and occasionally I look through my links when I need a contact to ask a question. On the other hand, I got my current job through LinkedIn. A headhunter found my profile and got in touch. I got the interview, I got the trip to London to present my plan and I got the job. Can't knock it. I also get great press contacts through LinkedIn. Editors contact me with story inquiries through it. Reporters find me through it. Passive again, though. To your questions: Q: Are you using LinkedIn to look for work? If so, how? Customized email to each Connection? Bulk email to all Connections? Other? - Built a very focused profile and waited. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to look for people to fill positions? If so, how? - Hasn't been relevant lately. I use my own ACT database for this much more. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get recommendations for vendors to help you in your work? If so, how? - Haven't used it this way. Same point about my own database. I think this comes of being an old fart who had to create a way to keep track of my network before people gave it away for free. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get answers to general or specific questions? For instance, "How do you expect education spending to be different in 2010 compared with 2009?" or "Is commercial real estate in the Greater Boston area going to recover significantly in 2010?" - No, although I do participate in other people's questions and learn from the answer strings. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get information about in-person or web events? - No Q: What happens within Groups? Are they rich sources of discussion, or simply indicators of your areas of interest? - They become ways to meet people with similar interests and then follow up in other ways. Q: Is it worth having a set of "standing" Recommendations regarding what people think of you in general, or does it make more sense to get them when you are pursuing a specific objective? - I created some standard ones spread among my job history. Don't know if that's best or not. Q: In short, what am I missing about LinkedIn? - Not much. I think it's useful, but not game changing. 8. I've been using LinkedIn to reconnect with people; some from previous jobs, schools, shared hobbies and so on. I also use it as a way of ongoing communication with people-kinda between email and instant messaging. Just another format. It's also been a good way to put out there what I'm up to and see what other people are up to- an electronic billboard of sorts. 9. See below. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to look for work? If so, how? Customized email to each Connection? Bulk email to all Connections? Other? none of these. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to look for people to fill positions? If so, how? No. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get recommendations for vendors to help you in your work? If so, how? No. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get answers to general or specific questions? For instance, "How do you expect education spending to be different in 2010 compared with 2009?" or "Is commercial real estate in the Greater Boston area going to recover significantly in 2010?" Nope. Q: Are you using LinkedIn to get information about in-person or web events? No. Q: What happens within Groups? Are they rich sources of discussion, or simply indicators of your areas of interest? I actually don't know. Q: Is it worth having a set of "standing" Recommendations regarding what people think of you in general, or does it make more sense to get them when you are pursuing a specific objective? Probably standing could be handy, but specific ones are ideal. I think we all hate to trouble people for recommendations. Q: In short, what am I missing about LinkedIn? Nothing as far as I know. It isn't that interesting and everyone seems to try to link if they know you regardless of knowledge about professional attributes. 10. Good questions and I don't know the answer. We have used LinkedIn successfully to find good engineering resources but not much else. 11. I don't use LinkedIn in any sort of systematic way. I enjoy the updates I periodically receive and will check in on old business friends upon occasion. I've been pretty unimpressed with the groups to date. I think if FaceBook gets more of a business face to it, LinkedIn could become un-needed. I see Facebook as the more social, and LinkedIn as more professional. |