Joel Elad - LinkedIn For Dummies

LinkedIn For Dummies, 4th Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016935256

ISBN 978-1-119-25113-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-25115-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-25114-9 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

Relationships matter. Ever since the dawn of time, when Fred Flintstone asked Barney Rubble whether there was any work down at the quarry, human beings have always networked. We're social creatures who like to reach out and talk to someone. As the Internet developed and grew in popularity, people rapidly took advantage of this new technology for communication, with e-mail; instant messaging; personal web pages sharing voice, video, and data with each other; and lots of other applications to keep everybody connected. But how can the Internet help you do a better job with your professional networking? I'm glad you asked! Welcome to LinkedIn For Dummies, Fourth Edition.

LinkedIn was founded in 2003 by a guy named Reid Hoffman, who felt that he could create a better way to handle your professional networking needs. He saw lots of websites that let you build your own page and show it to the world, extolling your virtues and talents. But a lot of the popular websites that Hoffman came across at that time focused more on the social aspects of your life and not that much on the professional side. LinkedIn changed all that with its approach of augmenting all the professional networking you do (or should do) on a daily basis. You don't have to be looking for a job to use LinkedIn, but if you're looking, LinkedIn should be a part of your search. As Hoffman put it, LinkedIn was designed to find and contact the people you need through the people you already trust.

In short, LinkedIn allows you to coordinate your professional identity on the Internet and make you more effective in your career. The site is designed to make the aspects of networking less time consuming and more powerful, so you can open doors with your professional connections and tap the connections of people you know who make up your extended network. LinkedIn doesn't require a huge amount of time or usage to be effective, and is focused only on providing tools that help your professional career.

Perhaps you've heard of LinkedIn, but you don't understand fully what it is, how it works, and most importantly, why you should care about it. Maybe you got an invitation to join the LinkedIn website. Perhaps you've gotten multiple invitations, or you keep hearing about it and want to find out more. Well, you're taking the right first step by reading this book. In it, I talk about the whys as well as the hows. If you're looking to enhance your professional life, I truly believe you need to look at LinkedIn. If you want to go straight to the beach and retire, though, maybe this isn't the book for you!

This book covers LinkedIn from start to finish. In case you haven't already joined, I show you how you can sign up. If you're already a member, this book is also very useful because I show you how to build your identity and take advantage of LinkedIn's functionality. This book is useful regardless of your skill level, whether you want to join or you've been on LinkedIn for years but feel stuck.

This book covers all aspects of using the LinkedIn site: from signing up and building your profile, to growing your network of contacts, to taking advantage of some of the sophisticated options, and everything in between. I include a lot of advice and discussion of networking concepts, but you also find a lot of step-by-step instructions to get things done. In this fourth edition, I revisit some of the newer facets of LinkedIn, including its Groups, mobile apps, Pulse, and Companies sections, and have updated all the core processes, from creating your profile to looking for a job.

This book is organized as a guide; you can read each chapter one after the other, or you can go straight to the chapter on the topic you're interested in. After you start using LinkedIn, think of this book as a reference where you can find the knowledge nugget you need to know and then be on your merry way. Lots of details are cross-referenced, so if you need to look elsewhere in the book for more information, you can easily find it.