Liz O'Donnell Jun 26, 2008
I’ve been waiting for a while to use that headline in a blog post ;)
Recently, we reached a great milestone in our business – 1 million members in India. Between those of us at LinkedIn who are from India originally (including our very own Blogger-In-Chief Mario Sundar), and those of us who spend time there, there are a lot of us who are both personally and professionally excited about this achievement.
But we can’t take all the credit – it’s the enthusiasm and success of our members that has driven this growth.
When I was in Delhi recently, I sat down with one member, Ajay Jain, an author, journalist, blogger, and enthusiastic LinkedIn user to ask him how LinkedIn has made a difference in his career. Here’s what he said:
LinkedIn has actually enabled me to move from being just a journalist and blogger to being an author and publisher too. And the site has proven to be just the right marketing platform too for all my work. I wrote my book after extensively interviewing and interacting with LinkedIn users. I use LinkedIn Answers to get additional inputs for any newspaper columns and blogs posts I write. All this has enabled me to enhance my brand equity in many ways giving me visibility and introductions to valued people who I would otherwise have never known about. LinkedIn is working for me. All I am doing is following my own advice in my book.
But we know that there are thousands of more member stories out there. I posted a question on Answers yesterday to find more successes:
Our million member milestone is good news for our members outside of India, too – in an increasingly global economy, LinkedIn continues to expand in markets around the world, and in a very big way. With over 24 million members representing every country you can think of, we’re the world’s largest and most powerful online professional network.
What does this mean for you? Unparalleled opportunities to accelerate your own professional success, by building relationships and exchanging knowledge, opportunities and advice– across town, or across the ocean. Looking for a marketer in Mumbai? A supplier in Sao Paulo? An answer from Amsterdam? We’ve got you covered.
We here at LinkedIn will be celebrating our million Indian members with a small celebration – watch for photos on our Flickr stream next week. But more importantly, we want to offer up a big THANK YOU to our current and future Indian members – and to the members around the world who invited them.
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Admin May 13, 2008
Today, we'll focus on recruiting, the challenges in finding the right candidate all the time and how LinkedIn makes that process painfully simple. Also, moving forward, we will provide a succinct summary of the user (see user snapshot below) before presenting the video and the LinkedIn tips.
User Snapshot
Who: Lenny Bordeau
Where: Finance Director at Stephen James Associates (Boston)
How: LinkedIn helped Lenny earn a placement fee of $20K by placing a candidate in the Software High-tech and Professional services industry, with just an InMail (see video below). Tips on using LinkedIn after the jump.
Two LinkedIn Tips from Lenny
1. Build relationships within your recruiting space
LinkedIn offers you the tools necessary to build those relationships with individuals who are from the industry vertical that you're a part of. The best way to strike a chord with potential candidates as well as with your peers in the industry would be through LinkedIn Answers. For e.g. there are three broad categories under Hiring and Human Resources where you can share & learn best practices in the recruiting space.
And, just as in the real-world, you have to make the effort to build those relationships and LinkedIn is a great place to start having those online watercooler conversations.
2. Seek and you shall find - the right candidate on LinkedIn
As Lenny mentions at the start of the video, accurately finding individuals with the right combination of skillsets may be more difficult than you think. The best way to find those individuals on LinkedIn is using advanced search.
And, did you know there's advanced search for People, Jobs and Answers as well as the invaluable Name search and Reference search.
Five flavors of LinkedIn's Advanced Search
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Mario Sundar Apr 29, 2008
Cliches aside, I've always spoken about how a professional networking site like LinkedIn can help you find your dream job. I found mine, and so did Evan Gotlib from Travel Zoo. Evan is currently the Advertising Sales Director at Travel Zoo and stumbled upon his dream job through LinkedIn. In the below video he talks about the ease with which he found his current job while using LinkedIn.
After the jump, we've outlined three of Evan's favorite features sprinkled with some quotes from his interview on what he found most useful about LinkedIn.
3 Tips from Evan
1. With great connections come great utility!
I started to see the incredible power of LinkedIn, right after 50 connections! That was the tipping point!
As many of our users have highlighted, the power of LinkedIn isn't unleashed unless and until your LinkedIn network reflects your day to day professional network as closely as possible. We provide an easy way to import your connections from any mail client (Outlook or any of the popular webmail providers) you use. Click on image below to take you to the "Import Connections" page.
2. News I care about, from the people I care about
I can go to New York Times and see the Top 10 Most emailed articles, but on LinkedIn I can find what my people are reading. That's something I should be reading.
The best part of LinkedIn News is that you get to read, recommend, share news articles that you find most interesting with your colleagues within your company. Likewise, you'll find the articles that are most popular within your company. And, the best part is that they are private conversations.
3. Letting your dream job find you through LinkedIn
This was the first job I pro actively went after, and it would have obviously not happened without LinkedIn
And, finally the dream job that Evan found, couldn't have been made possible but through LinkedIn Jobs. Check it out by clicking the image below.
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If you have a story to share about LinkedIn, let us know by either leaving a comment here or email me at msundar@linkedin.com. Want to see similar stories that our users have shared with us thus far, check out the Users category within the blog.
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Kay Luo Apr 22, 2008
This week we’ve decided to triple the fun of our testimonial series with interviews from three LinkedIn users on how they use LinkedIn in the political consulting space. David All (Owner, David All Group Media Strategies), Jeffrey
Taylor (SVP at Fleishman Hillard - PR/Govt. Relations), Jon Praed (Founding Partner, Internet Law Group) and Richard Kosinski (VP, Political Advertising at Yahoo!) discuss how to use LinkedIn as a political consulting utility.
On a related note, we won our very first “Pollie” Award from the American Association of Political Consultants. The AAPC gave us a 2008 Campaign Excellence Award in the category of “Best Use of New Technology” given in recognition of the LinkedIn Answers campaign with Barack Obama. Senator Obama received almost 1500 answers and thousands of people have joined his group. Senator John McCain also recently asked the LinkedIn community for feedback, garnering over 3000 responses and is growing his group on LinkedIn, as well.
But I digress, here's the video interview with respected political consultants on how LinkedIn can help you in your business - today!
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Mario Sundar Apr 14, 2008
For the thousands who read last week's blog post on LinkedIn user Andy Cohen (Caring.com's CEO) and the others who watched the video, we've got more. Check out our most recent interview with Bruce Carlisle, CEO of "one of the fastest growing private companies in the San Francisco Bay Area" - Digital Axle. (San Francisco Business Times)
Bruce who's been on LinkedIn "since the beginning of time", talks about how the service has helped him reconnect with classmates he has lost connection with for the past 15 to 20 years. He also uses LinkedIn to stay in touch with his colleagues (past and present). Finally he talks about how he uses LinkedIn to collaborate with partners, associations he's a part of as well (such as SF Interactive) as well as with CEOs of other agencies within the interactive industry.
Check out the video interview we shot with Bruce (see below) followed by a few tips-and-tricks that we gleaned from that discussion (after the jump). Check out the Digital Axle blog here.
3 LinkedIn Tips from Bruce
1. Reconnecting with former colleagues or classmates
Reconnecting with former colleagues or classmates is as easy as importing your webmail contacts. Here are the steps to make that happen:
* Click on Connections
* Click through the "Add Connections" tab
* Click on either colleagues or the classmates tab to reconnect with lost connections
Please Note: This functionality is only as good as the depth of information you've added to your profile. Fill in the blanks about your past work experience here.
2. People You May Know
Jonathan Goldman recently blogged about the "People You May Know" feature, which has been around for a while. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out now.
3. Company Profiles & LinkedIn Answers
As Bruce mentioned, collaborating with other companies is a key need for him & other entrepreneurs that LinkedIn helps fulfill. Finding partners. CEOs in the marketing services business or in any other industries is a breeze. If I were to recommend two features that enable this interaction, one would have to be Company Profiles, which we launched recently.
The best way to access your companies' profiles would be to go to your profile and check out your work experience.
And of course, another possible way to collaborate with your peers in your industry would be through LinkedIn Answers. Let's say you have a question within the "Advertising and Promotion" vertical, you know where to turn to!
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Mario Sundar Apr 06, 2008
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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Got 2 minutes? Give us your $0.02.
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.
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Mario Sundar Sep 18, 2007
Starting this week, we'd like to shine the spotlight on our users, giving them a chance to recount their thoughts on how LinkedIn has impacted
their professional lives. This week we have Susan RoAne,
professional speaker and author of "How to work a Room: The secrets
of savvy networking". Susan's been quoted in many business journals ranging from Forbes & Business Week to the New York Times (subscription required). Also, check out Susan's "Top 10 tips on Schmoozing" that she contributed on Guy Kawasaki's blog (Here's part 1). Well, here is Susan RoAne's LinkedIn Experience:
When Konstantin Guericke,
a LinkedIn co-founder, first explained how LinkedIn enhances our personal and
contacts and adds another level to the connection, I was skeptical. After all,
wasn't I the savvy networking guru? But,
after a few months of reading a bit and byte here and there about LinkedIn, I
knew it was time and connected with Konstantin. In fact, I mentioned LinkedIn in
my last two books because of its impact.
Interestingly enough, some of the people I invited
to join me, ignored my invite in those days. I find it interesting
that some of them have now (several years later) sent me invites. They
finally saw the light of being LinkedIn.
One of the best aspects for me, is going to my
network to ask a question, knowing that these people will respond with
information if they have it. What is also fun for me is to visit
the Answers section and go through questions. If there is something I know
or know someone who does, I take the time to address the question and this has led to my strengthening loose ties. LinkedIn allows for old school manners and as
well as connecting in the new school style. That really is the essence of networking:
sharing ideas and information and having a resource network to approach when I
am stumped.
The last joy of LinkedIn for me is reconnecting with
old friends. Out of the blue, someone from my past business life appears
in my Inbox and it is a fun "you never know" moment as if I had
bumped into them at an airport. I never just accept an
invitation but also send an email to truly re-establish the contact, connection
and some communication.
As a speaker who addresses corporations and
conventions, I feel good, smart and savvy to know that I am LinkedIn on
more levels than I ever imagined.
Subscribe to the LinkedIn blog
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Adam Nash Jul 10, 2007
(Note from Adam -- I was very happy to see the warm response to my first post here on the LinkedIn blog. Based on some of the comments I received, it seems like many people specifically found the reference to my mother's profile on LinkedIn interesting. As a result, I thought it would be fun to share these comments from Dr. Sharon Nash, Ph.D., a.k.a my mother. She joined LinkedIn soon after I joined the company, and I thought her insights and experience would be worth sharing here.)
I always think of myself as a pro-connection type of person. After all, as a psychologist, I spend my day helping people connect with others in a healthy way. I have always valued my own connections and have gone to great lengths to stay in touch with friends from every phase of my life (in fact, I met my husband at the Bronx HS of Science 44 years ago). I have a group of 7 friends (my "birthday club") that I have invited for dinner every July for the last 17 years. I belong to three psychotherapy consultations groups, the longest-standing of which has been together for 15 years. You could say that I'm a relationship junkie.
I joined LinkedIn on June 1st, 2007 at the invitation of my son, Adam, who had signed up 4 years before he started working there in May. He is a great proselytizer and believer in the product; nevertheless, I was skeptical at first. It wasn't quite clear to me what value being LinkedIn would be to a non-techie type who was happily self-employed. During Adam's previous 4 years at eBay, he even launched eBay Express for people like me who were intimidated by the vigilance demanded by an active auction site. Still, I am ashamed to admit, I never had the courage to give eBay a try.
LinkedIn is different. Once invited, it became very easy (and very seductive) to make my links to friends and colleagues "official." It hasn't always been an easy sell for my cohort, whose technological skills are challenged by the demands of email. As my best friend in high school just replied to my invitation, "why would I want to get LinkedIn to you, when I can just email you?"
The psychologist in me has been fascinated with the responses I have gotten to my invitations to LinkedIn. It's like a projective Rorschach Test of friends' personalities. There are the loyalists who enthusiastically respond, "I'm not sure what it is, but if it means I'm linked to you, I'm joining!". Then there are the skeptics and the Luddites who are afraid that connecting will involve an intolerable level of self-disclosure and fear of unwanted solicitation. Most of my friends are unaware, but open-minded enough to welcome articles on LinkedIn so they can understand what it all about.
Adam has teased me that of the 83 connections I have to date, I may have the highest percentage of people with only one link--me! The reality is, once you're LinkedIn, the site begins to sell itself. As one friend said in an email titled "New Addiction":
"I am spending so much time on LinkedIn now, it's not funny. I figured out what it is: it's My Space for working people. The truth is, I guess I was looking for something to do to avoid dealing with [my son's] Bar Mitzvah. When I was working, I had that to fill my time, now I need something else, so I busy myself trying to build connections so I don't look like a Link Loser."
Another friend who is a journalist noted:
"Adults like me don't spend as much time as my kids do on Facebook-like online activities. But maybe that was before LinkedIn . . . Boy, did I feel like someone in the know when I read Michelle Slatella's column [New York Times Thursday Style] last night and saw the mention of LinkedIn. "I know what that is!" I said to [my daughter] Molly . . . I'm at LinkedIn. Thanks for keeping me current, Sharon."
I must admit, I am thoroughly enjoying perusing my links daily. It is particularly interesting to learn things about the background and experience of friends and family. It has been a kick to track classmates from college and graduate school, fellow therapists and clinical faculty. I check their links, although I am still timid about asking them to forward invitations to their friends and colleagues. As a means of staying connected and current with those I know and respect, it's been a fun ride. I do confess, there is that temptation to keep setting the LinkedIn bar a bit higher. After all, I am so close to 100 connections...
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