Making a connection on LinkedIn can open doors to getting and giving career help. Here are our top tips for getting the right connections to help you find a job, get career advice, and guide you on the next steps of your journey.
Build your LinkedIn community with people you already know and trust. Imagine you’ve moved to a new town for your job, and you’re exploring new friendships and community. Most likely you want to start off with people you already know and trust. The same is true on LinkedIn. Try to connect with 30 folks you already know. You’ll start to see relevant posts in your feed that you can engage with, helpful recommendations on people you might know and groups you might want to connect with and join, and potentially referral opportunities for job openings. A few quality connections can help you kickstart organic growth of your professional community.
Ask first-degree connections for introductions. If there is someone you want to connect with but you don't know them yet, there is a good chance one of your connections might know them. Use your current network to get a "warm" introduction.
Choose quality over quantity. Making quality connections of people you know is more important than the sheer volume of connections, because it just takes one person to potentially change the trajectory of your professional journey.
Click “ignore” when you get an invitation you don’t feel comfortable accepting. This will remove the invitation without accepting it, and the sender won't be notified that you've ignored their invitation, so they may try to connect with you again. If you don't know the person who sent you the invitation, you can also select the “I don't know this person” option that appears after you click Ignore. This will prevent that member from sending you further invitations to connect.
- Control who can send you invitations. You can select who can send you invitations from the Settings & Privacy page. You'll receive a notification each time a LinkedIn member invites you to connect.
Support, advice, and insight from people you trust will always be invaluable because you took the time and effort to cultivate the right community for you. Remember, your career may change directions and evolve but you and your network are on a professional journey together, and the stronger your network, the further everyone goes.