Comments on: Job Seekers Don’t Know About LinkedIn …. Whuh???

By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:58:41 +0000

Nope, didn’t know about it. Only came across your blog recently so haven’t seen your book yet.

By: Jason Alba

Jason Alba — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:59:13 +0000

@John – excellent example of how to use LI effectively, and a good case for having a strong network (which could mean size, or types of people in your network)!

@Ari – great point, that is one reason why I wrote my book. And… you didn’t know about JibberJobber?

By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:50:52 +0000

It’s just as important for job holders to have a LinkedIn account as a job seeker. But informally polling my ~200 LinkedIn contacts tells me many are on the site for this reason or that but few use it to its potential. Many seem to have a LinkedIn profile as just that: a static profile they update once and never return to.

Thanks for the link to JibberJobber.

By: john harperjohn

john harperjohn — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:22:38 +0000

I gave a presentation to CPC Job Connection in Danville CA last Saturday http://tinyurl.com/59k6fb

It continues to amaze me how many job seekers do not know how to leverage the Internet for their careers.

I met with one of the attendees a few days later and showed her my LinkedIn profile. We were sitting across the street from Kaiser in Walnut Creek, CA. I asked her what kindo of position they might have that she would be interested in. I posted a question on LinkedIn and within 5 minutes had a contact for her in the Kaiser HR department.

By: Jason Alba

Jason Alba — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:08:04 +0000

@Tom – you are right, it’s good to put this into perspective. Sometimes we forget how different we are from others. And yes, we can share with others.

@BN – hm… I wonder what I would have guessed. I think it has a lot to do with the demographic of JobDig visitors. They advertise their site in their own newspaper, which you can get in the stands at grocery stores and places like that. I would have guessed maybe 25% of professionals didn’t know about LI.

Reminds me of a comment I heard a few months ago that “LinkedIn has gone mainstream.” Perhaps not.

By: Business Networking

Business Networking — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:58:53 +0000

I'm surprised that it was even that high. I would think it would more like 75% "never heard of it". Online business networking is only being used by early adopters at this point. Think about it, Linkedin has 22 million profiles. That's less than 10% of the population in the US. If you consider that Linkedin is also global, subtract the Chinese, Indians, British, and other major countries, you are probably down to 10-15 million profiles from Americans. Also consider that they have 5 million monthly users, mostly recruiters and salesmen. If you are not looking for a candidate or client, you probably don't go there every month. I run a business networking site so I know we are in the very early days of online networking. It will be mainstream in 3-5 years.

By: Thomas E. Kenny

Thomas E. Kenny — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:33:19 +0000

This information helps to put online professional networking into some perspective. Meaning, LinkedIn isn’t the one and only end all professional networking solution that everybody is using.

You’ve inspired me to blog on the same topic although from a different view point of not assuming others know what we know and the value of sharing what has worked for yourself with your network.

Maybe that is networking (or blogging) 101, but it can be easy to some times overlook sharing the basics, thanks!