What Is LinkedIn and Why Should You Be on It?

LinkedIn is one of the most trusted social media networks for professionals who want to learn, share, and connect. Sadly, despite immense popularity today, many individuals still don’t know what LinkedIn is and why they should be on the platform.

This article aims at helping you understand everything that you need to know about LinkedIn and the reasons why you should be using it.

What exactly is LinkedIn?

Whether you are a marketing employee at a renowned company, an entrepreneur running a small business, or even a college student seeking a job after graduating, LinkedIn can be used by anyone who wants to take their career to new heights.

You can consider LinkedIn as a platform equivalent to attending a conventional networking event that lets you meet other experts in person, chat with them about your career goals, and exchange a few business cards. It is like one huge virtual networking business event.

When you use LinkedIn, you get to network with professionals by sending them ‘connection’ requests, just like Facebook’s ‘friend request’ option. You interact with them through private message and have all your professional achievements and experience entered systematically in your profile visible to the other users.

In terms of layout and feature offering, LinkedIn is quite similar to Facebook. However, these features on LinkedIn are well specialised as they cater mainly to professionals; but, if you are well-versed with using Facebook or other similar kinds of social media, it won’t be difficult to use LinkedIn.

Main features on LinkedIn

Here are a few basic features LinkedIn offers its users and how they have been outlined for professional use.

Home: After you log in on LinkedIn, the home feed shows recent posts your connections put up with other company pages and professionals you are following.
My Network: Under this section, you’ll find all the professionals you are presently connected with and other options that’ll let you add contacts and look for people you might know. Moreover, if the other professionals send you a connection request, you will see an invitation for it under this tab.
Jobs: All job listings posted on the platform will appear here. LinkedIn will also recommend particular jobs depending on your present data, including your location and job preferences which you can fill to get better-customised job listings.
Messages: If you wish to interact with a professional in your network, you can certainly do that by sending a message through the Messages option. You can even include images, add attachments and record a voice note.
Notifications: Just like any other social media network, LinkedIn also sports a notification tab that allows you to know when someone views your profile, endorses you for a particular skill, invites you to attend an event, or if any of your posts receives a reaction from other users.
Profile: Your profile displays your image, name, occupation, location, and more. Beneath that, you get the choice to customise several different sections such as work experience, education, a summary, and other things similar to how you may create a conventional CV or resume.

These are some of the main features you will notice when you log in to a Basic LinkedIn account. However, if you want to access better and more specialised LinkedIn features, you will have to subscribe to a Premium LinkedIn account.

Why should you join LinkedIn?

Though there are several reasons to join LinkedIn, we have covered the top five reasons for individuals who are still confused about whether they should be on the platform or not.

Hiring managers and job recruiters use LinkedIn

This networking platform is helpful to search for a job faster as most of the hiring recruiters and managers are using LinkedIn already. With over 55 million enterprises listed on LinkedIn, it is not surprising that 87% of the recruiters use the platform to vet candidates.

Thus, having a well-organised and active LinkedIn profile will drastically boost your chances of discovery by several companies looking for candidates. In simple words, potential recruiters will get in touch with you if you are the right fit for the job role they are hiring for, instead of searching for jobs yourself and contacting every company actively.

In fact, more than 75% of the people, who changed their jobs recently, used the platform to inform their career shift decision.

A good LinkedIn profile builds credibility and trust

A good LinkedIn profile will help build credibility and make you stand out as a worthy potential employee. Each time a hiring manager contacts you, you could be sure of the fact that they have gone through your profile before reaching out to you. Your profile acts like a validator that you’re the right fit for the job role, and not anyone whose CV is implausible.

Amazing networking opportunity

LinkedIn also provides a fantastic opportunity for networking with the other professionals belonging to your field of interest. And the quicker you begin to network, the better results you will fetch. It doesn’t matter if you are presently working in a company; you can still use your network to look for better employment opportunities.

You can stay updated on new job openings

When you use LinkedIn, you can keep yourself up-to-date with various new employment opportunities that might interest you. Many companies tend to post new job openings on LinkedIn, and so, keeping track of these will indeed prove to be beneficial.

Acquire and share expertise

As you can see in the image above, you can be part of nearly 2,000,000 Groups on LinkedIn. Every group on the platform features its own Jobs postings and News Board. Subject matter in each group covers a broad range of topics that add value for every individual participating.

Moreover, you can read the news that’s curated based on your industry with the help of LinkedIn Pulse and keep track of the news that can benefit you professionally.

Conclusion

In simple words, having a well-organised LinkedIn profile can help you land your dream job and move ahead with your career. And the sooner you join the networking platform, the better it would be for your professional journey.

Bhavik Soni is a Creative Writer at Auto Monkey. We provide an original analysis of the latest happenings in the social media industry. Connect with Latest Social Media Trends and News plus tips on Twitter, Facebook and other social tools on the web.

What Is LinkedIn and Why Should You Be on It?