Come a little closer. I have a confession to make. At my age, in this age, you can't admit that there is any aspect of technology you don't understand or embrace. Not if you want to avoid becoming a permanent exhibit in the Museum of the Chronically Unemployed.
So, here's my confession -- I don't understand LinkedIn.
I understand how to use it, of course. I'm actually a LinkedIn member and have, at last count, a very impressive number of connections. (Don't be jealous, but my current list of intimate business associates is six, and two of them are people I actually know.)
While I diligently built my "public profile," and assiduously checked off the many groups in which I am a member, including the Loyal Order of Muskrats, Lodge 666 and the Back Street Boys Fan Club, it was difficult for me to believe that all the bytes and pixels I was using up in this social-networking extravaganza would ever do me any good.
After all, if I wanted to see how ancient and decrepit my friends had become, I had Facebook. And if I wanted my closest associates to know that I was camped out on a bar stool at The Kit Kat Klub at 3:37 p.m., I had Twitter. But how would LinkedIn -- the premier social-networking application for business people -- serve to promote my career? I really had no idea.
It was at this point that I came across a column by The Wall Street Journal's Elizabeth Garone titled "Using LinkedIn for Job References." The impetus for the article was a question from an anonymous "manager of a major aerospace company," who wanted to use LinkedIn as a replacement for the personal references his firm refused to provide.
This is a common corporate policy. In order to destroy any chance that you could quit and get a better job, the HR department will only confirm the fact that you exist and that you once were employed. You can imagine the wink-wink-nudge-nudge attitude of your HR person as they describe your tenure -- "Yes, she worked here, if you call that working."
According to the experts, a recommendation on LinkedIn can indeed take the place of the references your current employer will not provide. As Garone reports, "In a June 2009 survey, CareerBuilder.com found that 45 percent of companies were using social-networking sites to screen potential employees, up from 22 percent in 2008. Another 11 percent said that they plan on starting to use the sites."
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