Lisa Takeuchi Cullen is a New York-based staff writer for TIME Magazine. She writes about workplace trends on her blog called "Work in Progress" – a daily look at life on the job. The following tips are an extract from Lisa’s post on tricks and tips for networkers, job hunters and hirers (Source: Lisa’s workplace blog via TIME).

1. Get to know the "advanced search" function.

   This is a great and probably underused tool. The page allows you to
   narrow a search with industry categories and titles, but the most handy
   search weapon is the keyword search. Say you’re looking for a new job
   in your industry and you want to find out about corporate culture at
   Apple. Type in "’IT consultant’ and Apple" (you can use quote marks to
   search for a phrase and the connectors "and" and "or"), and you’ll get
   two categories of people who define themselves as such: those in your
   network of connections, and those in the wider LinkedIn universe.

2. Scale the six degrees of separation.
   Whenever you view someone’s profile, LinkedIn shows you in a handy
   chart on the right the degrees of separation between you and the person
   profiled. I, for one, respond more friendly-like to friends of friends,
   so if I’m going to say whazzup to Steve Jobs, I know it would help if I
   had an intro from his nephew, who went to school with my next-door
   neighbor. (That didn’t happen, btw. But you get my drift.)

3. Check out a person’s history.

   You can learn a lot about someone on their profile page, if they let
   you (LinkedIn’s "accounts and settings" function lets you set privacy
   controls). For instance, a little dinky called the "one-click
   reference" at the top of the page tells you all the people on the
   network who worked with the person at the company. That’s hugely useful
   for journalists digging for sources, but also if you’re expanding your
   business contacts…. (continued on Lisa’s blog)

Check out the other three tips and tricks for networkers, job hunters & hirers on the TIME Magazine post. Topics ranging from seeking answers to raising your online brand capital. Lisa’s other posts on workplace, business and society trends include snooping bosses, teen interns and cubicles of the future.

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen is a New York-based staff writer for TIME Magazine. She writes about workplace trends on her blog called "Work in Progress" – a daily look at life on the job. The following tips are an extract from Lisa’s post on tricks and tips for networkers, job hunters and hirers (Source: Lisa’s workplace blog via TIME).

1. Get to know the "advanced search" function.

   This is a great and probably underused tool. The page allows you to
   narrow a search with industry categories and titles, but the most handy
   search weapon is the keyword search. Say you’re looking for a new job
   in your industry and you want to find out about corporate culture at
   Apple. Type in "’IT consultant’ and Apple" (you can use quote marks to
   search for a phrase and the connectors "and" and "or"), and you’ll get
   two categories of people who define themselves as such: those in your
   network of connections, and those in the wider LinkedIn universe.

2. Scale the six degrees of separation.
   Whenever you view someone’s profile, LinkedIn shows you in a handy
   chart on the right the degrees of separation between you and the person
   profiled. I, for one, respond more friendly-like to friends of friends,
   so if I’m going to say whazzup to Steve Jobs, I know it would help if I
   had an intro from his nephew, who went to school with my next-door
   neighbor. (That didn’t happen, btw. But you get my drift.)

3. Check out a person’s history.

   You can learn a lot about someone on their profile page, if they let
   you (LinkedIn’s "accounts and settings" function lets you set privacy
   controls). For instance, a little dinky called the "one-click
   reference" at the top of the page tells you all the people on the
   network who worked with the person at the company. That’s hugely useful
   for journalists digging for sources, but also if you’re expanding your
   business contacts…. (continued on Lisa’s blog)

Check out the other three tips and tricks for networkers, job hunters & hirers on the TIME Magazine post. Topics ranging from seeking answers to raising your online brand capital. Lisa’s other posts on workplace, business and society trends include snooping bosses, teen interns and cubicles of the future.

From bicycle marathons benefiting AIDS to fire breathing at the Sydney Olympics; from plunging into the cold polar waters to then writing about it! Starting today, you’ll hear interesting stories and anecdotes from the LinkedIn team, in a column called "LinkedInside". Here’s Ryan Gustafson’s account of swimming with the penguins in Antarctica (don’t miss the Antarctic Polar Plunge video!):

Antarctica: The end of the world. One of the most remote locations on the planet and virtually untouched by human hands. If you had told me in November of 2006 that I would be swimming in Antarctica less then a month and a half later, I would have laughed at you and called you crazy. Then I got THE EMAIL. It read simply "You know, I’ve always wanted to go to Antarctica…" and thus it began. A few weeks of frenzied packing, a couple of outrageously expensive REI purchases, a call to Capitol One begging for a credit limit increase and I was ready to depart..

(Ryan Gustafson swimming with the penguins | Source: Ryan’s photo tour)

This
past January I spent two weeks on an “eco-adventure” tour in Antarctica. The travel part involved flying from San Francisco to Ushuaia, Argentina, then traveling by
ship the rest of the way to Antarctica. After
30 hours and 5 layovers I arrived in Ushuaia, Tierra Del
Fuego Argentina;
the southern most tip of South America. From
there I boarded a ship bound for Antarctica and spent 2 days crossing the
Drake Passage where 30 to 40 foot waves are
common and 60 foot waves are not unheard of. Fortunately we only experienced the
30 to 40 foot swells but even still, the ship doctor told me about 90% of the
passengers got sea sick. For breakfast the first morning at sea they served us
Monte Cristo sandwiches (ham, turkey and Swiss cheese between two slices of
bread, soaked in egg-based batter and deep-fried). Man, did the crew have a
wicked sense of humor!

Once
we reached the coast of Antarctica the seas
were mostly calm to everyone’s relief. We spent the next few weeks traveling
along the western coast of the Antarctic peninsula, taking Zodiac (those rubber
navy seal boats) trips to various landing spots during the day visiting penguin
colonies, glaciers, a few research stations (the researchers were quite
surprised to see us) and an abandoned whaling site. In the evening the tour
staff (mostly Antarctic researchers / grad students) gave talks about Antarctic
ecology, geology, geography, history etc. so we were able to learn a great deal
about our surrounding environment. During these two weeks we saw an amazing
abundance of wildlife including Penguins (Adele, Gentoo, King, Chinstrap and
Magellanic), seals, whales (sperm, humpback, Minke) and different species of
birds, too numerous to count.

On the last day before heading back
into the Drake Passage we dropped anchor along a small island to allow a few
hearty fools, I mean, souls to take a swim and become members of the Antarctic
Polar Plunge Club. I had already become a member of the Polar Bear Club in
Prudhoe Bay Alaska a few years back and wasn’t about to let this opportunity
slip by. They simply dropped the gang plank, tied a rope around my waist and
pointed towards the water, so I jumped in… and very quickly scrambled back to
the ship to get yanked out. It was just a little cold (34, 35 degrees Fahrenheit
maybe). As I walked up the plank, the ship doctor handed me literally a glass
full of vodka. The ship doctor! Well, cheers!

The trip back to Argentina across the passage was
fairly calm and uneventful aside from an unanticipated stop at a Chilean
“weather station island” which we officially didn’t make (the Chilean Government
would not have been amused). The 30 hour flight/ layover trip back to San Francisco was
also uneventful although I must say, once I was back flying with regular
business travelers I felt just a little out of place having been in such a
different environment if only for a few weeks.
–
Related stories from LinkedInside

* Here’s an account of the AIDS Lifecyle Marathon that Aileen Brown and Brittany Schmitt participated in and further details of the event itself

When Guy Kawasaki blogged about the Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn, LinkedIn had 8.5 million users in 130 industries. Since then we’ve grown to over 12 million users covering 147 industries, but many of Guy’s suggestions on using LinkedIn (see below), still remain a great way for professionals to strengthen their online brand reputation and leverage their professional network. Happy Reading!

1. Increase your visibility.

   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. In addition to appearing at the top of search results
   (which is a major plus if you’re one of the 52,000 product managers on
   LinkedIn), people would much rather work with people who their friends
   know and trust.

2. Improve your connectability.

   Most new users put only their current company in their profile. By
   doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. 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. The added benefit is that the link enables people to see all
   your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as
   an attachment.

3. Improve your Google PageRank.

   LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for
   search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high
   PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see
   when they search for you.

   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.

4. Enhance your search engine results.

   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.”

5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.

   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. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be
   glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

   Companies will typically check your references before hiring you,
   but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s
   references? Most interviewees don’t have the audacity to ask a
   potential boss for references, but with LinkedIn you have a way to
   scope her out.

   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.

   By the way, if using LinkedIn in these ways becomes a common
   practice, we’re apt to see more truthful resumes. There’s nothing more
   amusing than to find out that the candidate who claims to have caused
   some huge success was a total bozo who was just along for the ride.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.

   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.

7. Make your interview go smoother.

   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.”

8. Gauge the health of a company.

   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. Former employees
   usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than
   someone who’s still on board.

9. Gauge the health of an industry.

   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.

10. Track startups.

    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. [Republished from: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn  via "How to Change the World" -- Guy Kawasaki's blog]

Guy is known for bringing the concept of technology evangelism to the masses through his pioneering work at Apple’s Macintosh group. In addition to blogging the above post earlier this year, he has also blogged on topics ranging from LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover to LinkedIn and the Art of avoiding an Asshole Boss. [Source: Guy Kawasaki's weblog -- How to Change the World]

When Guy Kawasaki blogged about the Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn, LinkedIn had 8.5 million users in 130 industries. Since then we’ve grown to over 12 million users covering 147 industries, but many of Guy’s suggestions on using LinkedIn (see below), still remain a great way for professionals to strengthen their online brand reputation and leverage their professional network. Happy Reading!

1. Increase your visibility.

   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. In addition to appearing at the top of search results  (which is a major plus if you’re one of the 52,000 product managers on LinkedIn), people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust.

2. Improve your connectability.

   Most new users put only their current company in their profile. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. 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. The added benefit is that the link enables people to see all your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as
   an attachment.

3. Improve your Google PageRank.

   LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you.

   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.

4. Enhance your search engine results.

   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.”

5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.

   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. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

   Companies will typically check your references before hiring you, but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s references? Most interviewees don’t have the audacity to ask a
   potential boss for references, but with LinkedIn you have a way to scope her out.

   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.

   By the way, if using LinkedIn in these ways becomes a common practice, we’re apt to see more truthful resumes. There’s nothing more amusing than to find out that the candidate who claims to have caused some huge success was a total bozo who was just along for the ride.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.

   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.

7. Make your interview go smoother.

   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.”

8. Gauge the health of a company.

   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. Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.

9. Gauge the health of an industry.

   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.

10. Track startups.

    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. [Republished from: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn via "How to Change the World" -- Guy Kawasaki's blog]

Guy is known for bringing the concept of technology evangelism to the masses through his pioneering work at Apple’s Macintosh group. In addition to blogging the above post earlier this year, he has also blogged on topics ranging from LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover to LinkedIn and the Art of avoiding an Asshole Boss. [Source: Guy Kawasaki's weblog -- How to Change the World]

About LinkedIn For Good:

LinkedIn for Good is an ambitious LinkedIn project where we encourage the 12 million professionals, currently on LinkedIn (as of July 2007), to promote positive social change through their LinkedIn network. Want to know more about LinkedIn For Good? Check out our recent blog coverage on the topic.

About Grameen Foundation:
We’ve had an diverse array of organizations from across the globe on LinkedIn for Good, and we’re glad to announce that the Grameen Foundation, a pioneer in microfinance or microcredit (what is microfinancing?), is one of our newest entrants to that long list of philanthropic organizations on LinkedIn.

The Grameen Foundation was founded in 1997 as a vehicle to replicate the model of Grameen Bank beyond the borders of Bangladesh and increase the access of poor people to microfinance by millions worldwide. Grameen Foundation operates under the mission, “to empower the world’s poorest people to lift themselves out of poverty with dignity through access to financial services and to information (Source: Wikipedia)

More than 1 billion people on earth live on less than $1 a day. To answer the global poverty crisis, Grameen Foundation was founded in 1997 by a group of individuals inspired by the work of Professor Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, winners of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Professor Yunus is a founding and current board member of Grameen Foundation.

Yunus is credited with disbursing the first micro-finance loan in Bangladesh 1974. Besides winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he was also recently selected as one of the 50 people who matter now (via Business 2.0). Here’s a glimpse into the genesis of Grameen:

By offering tiny loans to Third World entrepreneurs, Yunus isn’t just building a healthy stock of karma — he’s inventing a new model for global capital investment. A former economics professor, Yunus had a eureka moment during a trip to a Bangladeshi village, when he discovered that a loan of just 22 cents was enough to help a poor bamboo craftswoman start her own independent business. That prompted him to found Grameen Bank in the troubled country, and he later set about connecting an international network of investors to would-be
entrepreneurs who need small-time investments. (Source: Business 2.0)

Be a LinkedIn Do-Gooder
So, you want to be a LinkedIn do-gooder. Here are four easy steps to activate your goodness on LinkedIn

1. Check out LinkedIn for Good
2. Select a philanthropic organization that you support or would like to support (for e.g. Grameen Foundation’s page)
3. Add a badge to let your professional network know where your goodness lies
4. Make a donation to the specific organization (Donate to Grameen)

–
Still curious?
1. See who else is affiliated with Grameen foundation?
2. Check out LinkedIn Answers on government and non-profit
3. Ask a question on philanthropy

Because LinkedIn sponsors Brazen Careerist, I have had the
opportunity to pepper LinkedIn mavens with random etiquette questions.
So at this point, I have a few opinions of my own. Here’s my advice:

1. Don’t say yes to an invitation from a person you don’t really know.
LinkedIn works best as a way to leverage your professional circle of
people you know well or know their work well. I love looking through my
friends’ professional networks to get an idea of what introductions I
could possibly get from a friend. My friend can say to her friend,
“This is Penelope, you should get to know her because of x.” But this
only works if my friend actually knows me and the other person well.
Otherwise, I may as well make the introduction myself.

In that respect, your network on LinkedIn is really only as strong
as your ties to the people in it. You will get more benefits from
LinkedIn if you have a network of 30 people you know well than 300
people you don’t really know.

2. Don’t send invitations to people who don’t know you.
I feel like I kinda know Mike Arrington.
I know I’d like to have dinner with him (does he ever stop blogging to
have dinner?) I read his blog every day, and I know the type of
connections he could offer me. But he doesn’t know me. Even if I have
emailed him three times and posted ten comments on his blog, he doesn’t
know who I am. He probably reads 400 emails and comments a day.

3. Don’t put your email address under your name on your profile.
When you appear in other peoples’ lists, if someone wants to connect
with you, they have to go through your mutual connection, or they can
email you directly. There is a reason LinkedIn works this way – the
point is not to connect with everyone, it’s to connect with people you
know. Someone who puts their email address right under their name is
announcing that they will connect with anyone, and for the purposes of
LinkedIn, this will weaken their network.

4.  When you send an invitation, don’t apologize.
I get a lot of invitations that say, “Sorry for the form letter” but
you’ll have to trust me that the most well connected, high-level,
experienced people I know send the form letter. It’s fine. Also, people
send invitations to me that say something like, “Okay, I’m doing the
LinkedIn thing.” But it makes you look bad to invite someone to
something you feel uncomfortable with, so if you can’t think of
something good to write, just send one of the form letters.

5.  Remind me how I know you.
Sometimes, I do actually know someone, but I communicate with so many
different people every day, that I don’t remember. Yesterday I got an
invitation that said, “It was great to do the podcast interview with
you today” right before the standard LinkedIn invitation text. That was
great. I knew exactly who the woman was and I connected. This also
brings up another point, which is act immediately. The best invitations
come right after you’ve made one, solid connection with a given person.
For example, if you go back and forth in email six times, send an
invitation that day.

6.  Think about LinkedIn from the other person’s perspective.
Journalists, for example, will be harder to connect with. They are
notoriously adept at telling people they have no time to talk. Also,
journalists already have good access to a wide range of people. However
a journalist will be happy to connect to, say, the managing editor of
the New York Times. Know who you’re dealing with and where you fit in
and then you’ll understand how well you need to know the person in
order to connect. (Note: Here are good ways for Journalists to use LinkedIn.)

7. Keep things a little informal.
LinkedIn is a group of people coming together to help each other. More
cocktail party than job interview. So, for example, make your resume a
little chatty. The best LinkedIn profiles
are a little more casual than a formal resume. I think I could actually
fix mine up a bit in this regard. When I read a resume on LinkedIn, I
am not scanning to see if I want to hire the person (which is the
purpose of the formal resume format). Instead, I would like a sort of
cocktail-party introduction about the person and what they are doing
with their life. Don’t write paragraphs in your resume, but a short
paragraph on LinkedIn is sort of nice.

Penelope Trunk the author of the book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. She is a career columnist  at the Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance. The 7 Rules of LinkedIn etiquette is culled from Penelope’s blog, Brazen Careerist. Here are some popular posts.

Advice from Penelope Trunk.

Because LinkedIn sponsors Brazen Careerist, I have had the opportunity to pepper LinkedIn mavens with random etiquette questions. So at this point, I have a few opinions of my own. Here’s my advice:

1. Don’t say yes to an invitation from a person you don’t really know.
LinkedIn works best as a way to leverage your professional circle of people you know well or know their work well. I love looking through my friends’ professional networks to get an idea of what introductions I could possibly get from a friend. My friend can say to her friend, “This is Penelope, you should get to know her because of x.” But this only works if my friend actually knows me and the other person well. Otherwise, I may as well make the introduction myself.

In that respect, your network on LinkedIn is really only as strong as your ties to the people in it. You will get more benefits from LinkedIn if you have a network of 30 people you know well than 300
people you don’t really know.

2. Don’t send invitations to people who don’t know you.
I feel like I kinda know Mike Arrington. I know I’d like to have dinner with him (does he ever stop blogging to
have dinner?) I read his blog every day, and I know the type of connections he could offer me. But he doesn’t know me. Even if I have emailed him three times and posted ten comments on his blog, he doesn’t know who I am. He probably reads 400 emails and comments a day.

3. Don’t put your email address under your name on your profile.
When you appear in other peoples’ lists, if someone wants to connect with you, they have to go through your mutual connection, or they can email you directly. There is a reason LinkedIn works this way – the
point is not to connect with everyone, it’s to connect with people you know. Someone who puts their email address right under their name is announcing that they will connect with anyone, and for the purposes of
LinkedIn, this will weaken their network.

4.  When you send an invitation, don’t apologize.
I get a lot of invitations that say, “Sorry for the form letter” but you’ll have to trust me that the most well connected, high-level, experienced people I know send the form letter. It’s fine. Also, people send invitations to me that say something like, “Okay, I’m doing the LinkedIn thing.” But it makes you look bad to invite someone to something you feel uncomfortable with, so if you can’t think of something good to write, just send one of the form letters.

5.  Remind me how I know you.
Sometimes, I do actually know someone, but I communicate with so many different people every day, that I don’t remember. Yesterday I got an invitation that said, “It was great to do the podcast interview with
you today” right before the standard LinkedIn invitation text. That was great. I knew exactly who the woman was and I connected. This also brings up another point, which is act immediately. The best invitations
come right after you’ve made one, solid connection with a given person. For example, if you go back and forth in email six times, send an invitation that day.

6.  Think about LinkedIn from the other person’s perspective.
Journalists, for example, will be harder to connect with. They are notoriously adept at telling people they have no time to talk. Also, journalists already have good access to a wide range of people. However
a journalist will be happy to connect to, say, the managing editor of the New York Times. Know who you’re dealing with and where you fit in and then you’ll understand how well you need to know the person in
order to connect. (Note: Here are good ways for Journalists to use LinkedIn.)

7. Keep things a little informal.
LinkedIn is a group of people coming together to help each other. More cocktail party than job interview. So, for example, make your resume a little chatty. The best LinkedIn profiles are a little more casual than a formal resume. I think I could actually fix mine up a bit in this regard. When I read a resume on LinkedIn, I
am not scanning to see if I want to hire the person (which is the purpose of the formal resume format). Instead, I would like a sort of cocktail-party introduction about the person and what they are doing with their life. Don’t write paragraphs in your resume, but a short paragraph on LinkedIn is sort of nice.

Penelope Trunk the author of the book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. She is a career columnist  at the Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance. The 7 Rules of LinkedIn etiquette is culled from Penelope’s blog, Brazen Careerist. Here are some popular posts.

This past week, LinkedIn was chronicled in an Associated Press article, which discussed at length the various options available for business users of social networking sites. The coverage on USA Today outlines the genesis of LinkedIn through the history of our co-founder Reid Hoffman’s usage of LinkedIn and concludes with the user experience of Matana LePlae (SVP, Sr. Director at BBDO).

Here’s the rest of the article (By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer and photo by Douglas C. Pizac, AP):

An increasing number of professionals are tapping into a new breed of networking Web sites to do more than just boast about how many “friends” they have. Millions of users each day are using the Internet to compare investment techniques, correspond with job recruiters and
find help in launching a business. Now, sites are also being designed specifically with professionals in mind. LinkedIn, a  business-contact networking site, has seen its ranks
swell to 12 million in just four years.

“The whole MySpace culture just passed me by, and there’s a whole generation of people that feel the same,” said Matana LePlae, 36, an advertising executive and mother of two daughters.

Then the New York City resident was invited by a colleague to join LinkedIn. “For my kids, these networking Web sites will be part of their lives,” she said. “I didn’t think it would be part of mine.”

In the past, Web sites like Monster.com and message boards were simply a space where members could post a resume or a stock tip and hope someone stumbled upon it. LinkedIn, and other business networking Web sites, allow for more relevant contacts and more private communications. They allow business people to share their network of contacts with others
and share their contacts in return.

And that’s exactly what Reid Hoffman envisioned when he and four others launched LinkedIn in
2003. The ad-driven Web site is now growing by about 700,000 new users each month, and is considered to be the model for a growing trend of business-oriented networking sites. Management said the privately-owned company is profitable, and revenue has doubled year-to-date.

The 1,294 contacts on Hoffman’s LinkedIn profile read like a who’s who of Silicon Valley elite — everyone from Internet executives to venture capitalists. Users on the site who know Hoffman, or become one of his contacts, would have access to those names — and vice versa. On
LinkedIn, members have to accept contacts — and unlock their lists to others they have approved.

“At this point, if you come in and upload your address book and connect with people that are here, it doesn’t take much experimenting,” he said. “You can be off to the races immediately, and that’s one of the benefits of being at a scale of 12 million people.”

Trade associations have long used the Internet to connect members within a particular industry. However, sites using social networking software allow them to post details on a profile, and use it to directly communicate and access information.

“For many people, these sites will mirror the way we behave off-line,” said Steven Jones, a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago who specializes in new media. (Source: Associated Press)

The Associated Press article found mention in major news outlets ranging from USA Today to Washington Post and Business Week as well as online media outlets including Yahoo! News and ABC News.

Here’s related coverage of LinkedIn from USA Today

As LinkedIn has been growing at an incredible pace, we’ve been actively using the platform ourselves to find great people to fill our open roles.  For example, we’ve been actively hiring developers with strong backgrounds in Java-based web development.  (See here for the open job listings at LinkedIn).

One of the most powerful things about the LinkedIn platform is its search capability, although it takes many people a while to discover the power of people search.  This seemed like a perfect opportunity to share some of the less obvious features of LinkedIn search, which when mastered can take your efforts to a whole new level.

The following tips are pretty technical.  However, I’m sharing them because I have found them immensely useful in the past few weeks, and hopefully some of you are interested in becoming power users of LinkedIn search.

So, using the example of a search for Java engineers for LinkedIn, here are five tips on how to search LinkedIn like a pro:

1. Jump right into advanced search. One of the biggest advantages of the LinkedIn platform is that the data about people is in a structured format.  This means that you don’t have to combine everything into a generic keyword query – you can actually specify query terms for specific fields.  For example, if I’m looking for people who currently work at Oracle, I could just search for the keyword. Unfortunately, that will match everyone who has “Oracle” on their resume, either from a former job, or just to say that they know how to work with Oracle databases.Instead, using advanced search, you can specify “Oracle” in the field directly for positions, even specifying the “current position only” check box.  That will give you a tight search that only returns people who currently have Oracle in their current role.

   You can access advanced search by clicking the link next to the search bar on the header of the LinkedIn website.

   You can also find many of the advanced search tools just by clicking “Refine Search” on any LinkedIn search results page.

2. The Magic of Boolean Search: OR. People use different words to describe similar concepts on their
   profiles.  For example, a Java engineer might have “Java” on their profile.  However, they might also have “J2EE” or “JSP”.  LinkedIn search supports the concept of OR, which means that you can have LinkedIn return people who have any one of those terms in their profiles.  (Please note, the “OR” has to be in capital letters)

   So, in our search for a Java engineer, we might do a search for:
   Java OR J2EE OR JSP

   This search will return people in your network who have any one of those terms in their profile.

3. The Magic of Boolean Search: AND.  If you thought OR was fun, get ready for a real party when you add AND to the mix.  AND allows you to insist that a person have both terms in their profile.So, if you want someone who has both Java and Engineer in their profile, you would type:
   Java AND Engineer

   This becomes incredibly powerful when you combine it with OR.  For example, if I am looking for a good Java engineer, I might split each term into several possible words:

   (Java OR J2EE OR JSP) AND (Engineer OR Architect OR Lead)

   Note the use of parentheses to group the OR terms together, so the AND will apply correctly to any of the words in each group of terms.

4. The Magic of Boolean Search: NOT. The last function in the Boolean search trio is NOT, and it is a tricky but powerful operator.  It can’t be used alone, but in conjunction with other terms it will exclude people from your search who have that term in their profile.So, for example, when I run the search above in my network, a lot of the engineers closest to me who fit that description are actually already at LinkedIn!  That’s no good for a recruiting search.  NOT is here to the rescue.  With the following search:(Java OR J2EE OR JSP) AND (Engineer OR Architect OR Lead) AND NOT LinkedIn

   You will get back every person who matches the original query, but without people who have LinkedIn on their profile.

5. Leverage the sorting functions. By default, LinkedIn sorts your search results by keyword relevance.  In many cases, this is the best option, because it will prioritize results based on the keyword matches from your search.  However, LinkedIn does offer other options.For example, LinkedIn has the ability to sort search results by number of degrees from you, which is particularly useful if you are trying to find people closest to you in your network.

   To use the sorts, just click “Refine Search” on the header of any search results page.

It may take a bit of practice at first, but it is amazing how quickly the above tips can really take the effectiveness of your searches to a whole new level.  It is very easy to do a quick search on LinkedIn, and then, using Refine Search, constantly optimize the results with the techniques here to get to a very rich and accurate set of profiles.

I hope these tips prove useful to you.  I’ll be back again with more tips and tricks on how to make use of both existing and new features.