Don’t treat LinkedIn as a job board

If you only treat LinkedIn as a job board, you miss the boat. Periodically, I get someone who is not on LinkedIn and they will say something like:

I actually don’t have a LinkedIn yet. I never set one up because I did not believe it was necessary. Up to now, it has been easy to get the jobs I wanted.

Wrong! Don’t consider LinkedIn as a job board

The world changed. Networking always existed. People still belong to country clubs and social organizations because they want to network. Today networking is largely done online. The wrong thinking is limiting LinkedIn to a job board.

The opportunities to use LinkedIn in other ways are endless. I will explain some of the potential in this article.

The concept of networking online is one that many people struggle with even when they may be gregarious in their normal social interactions.

When you consider LinkedIn as a job board, you underestimate LinkedIn’s power

As a professional network with millions of users, you literally have the world at your fingertips. Most people concentrate on job boards as the only way to find a job but networking is always the better solution.

You have to be active to network on LinkedIn. If you only have an account and plan to remain passive, you will easily be ignored.

How do you communicate your brand on LinkedIn?

What is your area of expertise? Are you in marketing, human resources, technology, finance, or healthcare? What’s your function? Are you in Business Development, Administration, Sales, Operations, or Legal?

Your brand defines how you should position yourself. Though you can share information on a myriad of topics, you should hone in on the areas that you are an expert. If you are not a writer, then find articles you agreed with and add your own comments when you share them.

LinkedIn is promoting the use of hashtags. A hashtag is simply a word or term preceded by the # sign. Like this: #resumewriting or #careers but you would hone in on your area of expertise such as #Internetofthings. Maybe your expertise is in healthcare, use #healthcare. You can find out of your choice of hashtag is popular by searching for it and checking how many followers there are. For Example: