My Own Boss

LinkedIn, more than a place to post your resume

by Chris Herbert on 22/07/10 at 12:00 am

(Photo by nan palmero)

I was talking with the President of a Canadian Systems Integration Company the other day about LinkedIn. His impression was that LinkedIn was a web site where professionals posted their resumes while recruiters and hiring managers looked for job candidates.

Getting on LinkedIn is simple and there is no fee to join. You simply set up an account and create a professional profile outlining your work experience, education and areas of professional expertise.

Because it costs nothing to join LinkedIn over 60 million people have posted their profiles there. But being free is not the only reason why so many professionals are now on LinkedIn. It is a place where you can be discovered by recruiters and hiring managers. LinkedIn has fee based services for HR departments and recruiters so they can conduct sophisticated searches of the LinkedIn network.

So, this President was correct in his assumption…but only in part. LinkedIn is more than a site for job seekers, HR departments and recruiters. It has in fact become, I would argue, the largest professional social network in North America – if not the world. Here’s why:

• It provides you with the opportunity to connect with your customers, prospects, suppliers and peers online. A way, if you will, to build your professional rolodex or contacts database.
• It’s an opportunity for you to find out more about the professional backgrounds of people you have relationships with or want to.
• If you are trying to do business with a specific company you can use LinkedIn to find out who works at that company and their role. Ever tried finding out who the key people are at a company? It can be very difficult, but LinkedIn can make it a lot easier.

While LinkedIn may seem like a site to post resumes and find job candidates it is much more. I’ve scratched the surface on the potential of LinkedIn. A simple place to start is to see whether your customers are on LinkedIn. You may be surprised to see how many of them are.

Chris Herbert is the founder of Mi6. Mi6 is a B2B (Business to Business) marketing agency and network dedicated to helping companies build their brands and their pipelines. He is the founder of ProductCamp Toronto and the new Hitech “unassociation” Silicon Halton.