Why is LinkedIn Profile important for Job Seekers

What was started back in the year 2002 by Reid Hoffman and a few friends of his in PayPal, LinkedIn is now a data mine of sorts for hiring managers to find the largest talent pool. This social professional network has now become an essential strategic tool for every job seeker to be seen and noticed by recruiters around the world.

When LinkedIn started operations in 2003, they had to struggle to create a user base of a million. With technological assistance, word of mouth, and user to user marketing, LinkedIn was able to create a generous user base full of professionals and companies.

By 2005, this social professional network managed to create a user base of 2 million consisting of professional networks from all professions including software, banking, finance and even college alumni.

As investments flew into LinkedIn, it was more enabled with technology and features. Features like “People you may know” had gained immense popularity and it helped build relations with people in the same profession, their colleagues/ex-colleagues, and others around the world.

Along with features like Talent Connect, and Company Profile pages, LinkedIn became an essential professional network and a base for companies to conduct business, and to find talent. It is now used by a lot of recruiting firms to fish talent from the enormous user base which is a gigantic talent pool.

Let us now see reasons why LinkedIn is essential and important for a job seeker.

In many ways, it aids and bypasses job boards at the same time! It helps job boards to connect with the right talent and for the job seekers; it helps bypass the spam of irrelevant jobs that some job boards provide. For the recruiters, it’s a free to use tool that makes it easy for them to spot talent.

With good first degree connections, a job seeker can connect with more and more people in the professional circles, and connect with jobs they would hitherto be unaware of despite using job boards.

Right now, LinkedIn has over 350 million users and the numbers are growing rapidly. Unlike other social networks, LinkedIn has been able to steer clear of unnecessary frills and “side effects,” which include getting hooked. Maintaining a professional landscape all through the network has made LinkedIn a trustworthy network and any endorsement on it is considered valid.

No just that, LinkedIn with its vast user base is the single largest portal to find job openings for professionals, freelancers, and many more!

While Facebook and Twitter profiles are lost in the din of personal idiosyncrasies, LinkedIn profiles highlight the qualifications of job seekers, and an endorsement system of their skills from industry circles. This enables recruiters to select from the vast talent pool.

LinkedIn is also a great platform for self promotion. A job seeker has features to showcase his/her qualification, skills, achievements, and promotions. When this information is shared with connections, it sure has more chances to reach more CEOs and decision makers of companies bettering chances being recruited.

For job seekers, LinkedIn has become an essential tool for grabbing that dream job. So, don’t be satisfied by just a mere presence on LinkedIn. Reactive those inactive profiles and start increasing your connections!