I’ve been hearing so many cases of users benefiting from LinkedIn that I thought it’d be cool to highlight  LinkedIn users who have been effectively leveraging the power of professional networking either to advance their career or support their businesses. We start our series with Andrew Cohen, founder and CEO of Caring.com – a site he co-founded to help people care for their aging parents. The site covers everything from “handling in-home care, choosing products to help with daily living, to making the right financial and legal decisions”.

My colleague, Rob Getzchman, had a chance to interview Andy at Caring.com’s Bay Area offices and glean some information on both Andy’s LinkedIn usage as well as how Andy has benefited from using LinkedIn the right way. In addition, we’d also like to point you to some tips and tricks that each of these users share with us based on their LinkedIn habits. Given below is the video that Rob shot (1:39 minutes). Tips and tricks after the jump.

3 Tips from Andy

1. Reference Checks

All 20 hires Andy made in the past few years have had to pass through a LinkedIn reference check. A lot of savvy users have used the reference search tool during the hiring process either as a hiring manager or even if you’re a job seeker. Think about it. You can find the Advanced reference search page on the LinkedIn homepage, under the People tab.

Use
Reference Search to find people in your network who could be references
for prospective clients, business partners, and employees.

• Company Name:
  List your candidate’s current and former employers.
• Years:
  Enter a starting and ending year for each company. If candidate is still employed at the company, enter the current year for the end date.
• Tips:
• If your search returns too few or no results:
  • Double-check the spelling of each company name you entered.
  • Search with a less specific company name, for example “Apple” instead of “Apple Computer, Inc.

2. Business Development Partnerships

Of course, reference checks can also be extended to the realm of business development partnerships for example. If you’re in a hurry for a meeting and want to check out the individuals you plan on meeting, try a quick Name search. If you’re in the middle of researching further, try the advanced search (see below).

3. Stay in touch with former colleagues, classmates, hires, etc…

One of my first LinkedIn aha moments came about when I realized that not only could I reconnect with past colleagues but also past classmates, all of whom regularly update their LinkedIn profiles with the most relevant information about their professional lives.

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If you’ve a success story on LinkedIn that you’d love to share – whether it is about winning your biggest client or saving your wedding day (more on that later), we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave feedback on this blog post as well.