I love your question, "What is the best way to use LinkedIn?"You can get a lot of out LinkedIn with a free account. Here are the areas to focus on to get a list of companies & people to target:
Profile:
- The first thing to list in the summary section is your email, that way folks who are not connected to you can still reach out to you. Complete your summary & specialities section -- recruiters & others can get a sense of your expertise in ten seconds.
- Connect with present and former colleagues (maybe some of them are at companies you might like to work at). Import contacts from Outlook, Gmail, etc.
Connections:
- Go through the connections of everyone you are connected to that "show connection list". Make a short list of people & companies you would like to meet and get an introduction via email.
Jobs:
- Under the jobs section, research companies that are hiring in your area even if they don't have a specific opportunity for you. Would some of those companies be a good fit for your skill set, in which case you know the hiring manager from the job listing -- send an email to these folks. Are certain companies using the same recruiting company/person, in which case you should connect with them?
Search:
- Use your existing job title/ or the job title you are applying for and get a list of people doing said job. Use this to come up with another list of companies you could potentially target. Also, you get an idea for the type of jobs & companies they were at before their current job.
- Is there a unique set of keywords associated with your job? Can you use that to come up with a list of companies?
Groups:
- While I have not got much out of any of the groups, the one thing they are good for is to message people you are not connected with. So you could join a group, exchange messages and then unsubscribe from these groups.
- Certain groups also have recruiters posting links to jobs, so you should keep an eye out for companies/recruiters who are hiring.
- Larger groups (thousands of members) have websites dedicated to a particular domain/industry and have job postings.
Company Pages:
- Most companies have a wiki that lists current employees & new hires. This is a good way to figure out if a company is hiring or not and for which positions. Check out the new hire profiles, in a lot of cases they would have left a previous company, you can add both these companies to your list.
Answers:
- By using keywords, and focusing on specific sections & subsections, you can a get a list of people to get in touch with.
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