Neal Schaffer - Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging & Maximizing Linkedin

Copyright 2009 by Neal Schaffer. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 1-4392-4705-6
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-61550-358-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009906281

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Table of Contents

LinkedIn? I dont get it.

Networking? Thats not for me.

Selling yourself on a social networking site? Isnt that unprofessional?

I just think its a waste of time. I dont see why I should be on LinkedIn to begin with.

Ive been on for a year and havent gotten any value out of it.

LinkedIn is just for recruiters and people looking for work, isnt it?

The confusion about LinkedIn, social networking, and utilizing social media sites like LinkedIn to find a job, a candidate for your company, to sell something, or to expand your professional network is unprecedented. Mass media features stories about LinkedIn on a daily basis; however, many people still see little value in using the site. Nevertheless, everyone seems to want to understand what they may be missing by not using LinkedIn. After all, I am writing this in the midst of a severe recession, and the media says that being on LinkedIn will somehow help you find a job. With this in mind, shouldnt someone write a book about understanding how LinkedIn can help them achieve career and professional objectives?

If you could reach your career and professional objectives through creating your own LinkedIn Brand, it follows that any book about LinkedIn should also help its readers brand themselves.

There are other books and online resources related to LinkedIn. I wanted to take the approach of providing a social networking framework to understand LinkedIn from within. Furthermore, I wanted to provide a thorough approach, combined with step-by-step advice, regarding how to use LinkedIn to reach your objectives. I also think, regardless if you are using LinkedIn for personal uses or on behalf of your employer, the idea of developing your own LinkedIn Brand goes hand-in-hand with reaching your LinkedIn Objective; it is an exercise that should be an essential part of any LinkedIn-related book. I want everyone to understand the role LinkedIn plays in the bigger picture.

Lets take a look at the initial problem at hand: in my experience, most people do not fully understand what LinkedIn and social media are all about. Part of the problem why social media is sometimes misunderstood: the user interface on some of these social media sites is either too simple (Twitter), too complex (Facebook), or doesnt offer enough hand-holding to help new users better leverage the site (LinkedIn). On the other hand, there are some generations that are still intimidated by any social networking site.

With that in mind, concentrating on LinkedIn, I wanted to write a book that not only gives strategic tips on navigating LinkedIn, but also helps you achieve specific objectives while utilizing the site. I decided to write this book because people lack an advanced understanding of the full value that LinkedIn, as well as other social networking sites, can provide. I also want to provide a framework for you, the reader, to better understand social networking. LinkedIn is one of many tools designed to help you achieve whatever objective you might have in terms of networking. The personal brand you develop for each site will undoubtedly be slightly different because of the different functionality, demographics and atmosphere each site creates.

I can share a fresh perspective on LinkedIn and social networking because I started from scratch. I spent most of my career overseas. When I was ready to look for a job for the first time in my native United States, I realized that the rules of the game had changed. My professional network revolved around Asia or at headquarters of companies that I worked for that arent located in my native Southern California. My friends were in the Bay Area or scattered across the country. I had no strategy to attack the so-called hidden job market which I had only learned about after reading What Color is Your Parachute? No recruiters were calling me because they didnt know I existed.

Neal, you just have to get your resume out there and let everyone know you exist, one of my brothers advised me.

So what did I do? I registered at every single job site I could find on the Internet. 99% of the jobs that came my way were either below my level, irrelevant, or were trying to take me down a career path that I didnt want to follow. My job search was going nowhere, and yet I was spending several hours a day on the computer surfing the Internet looking for something that just didnt exist. I knew that I had to network but beyond contacting some ex-colleagues, I had no clue how to go about it. I was intimidated by networking events where I did not know anyone. What could I do?