You are eager to start a career and you would like to be hired by a good company. What you’re doing now, besides getting your resume ready, is doing some research on some of the bigger Indian enterprises. You’re going to the library and taking a look at the annual reports, and any other information you might find. There’s just one problem with what you are doing: you are wasting your time.
You have the best of intentions and that is really commendable. The criticism is that you are using the traditional way of finding information. Annual reports are dated, and they become history almost immediately after they are published. You may be looking at information that is months old. The world economy moves much faster. You also are probably doing other tasks that you think will help you in your career, but these may be old school. A sharp person like you should be up with the times. It is why you need a LinkedIn account.
Research with Company Pages
It is no exaggeration LinkedIn has hundreds of millions of account holders. They are all over the world and this is a business platform. You will not find people posting about their holiday with the last party they were at. You might hesitate because you think that only large American corporations have LinkedIn pages. That is not true, and there are quite a few LinkedIn users in India. The beauty of this is that instead of going to the library, spending time commuting and searching through the stacks, you can access company pages and have immediate information about what is going on. It is going to help you in the interview.
Summon The Recruiters!
You send out your resume to so many employment offices, hoping that someone will notice. It is much better to have recruiters look for you, and LinkedIn is a happy hunting ground for them. With the right keywords you can bring corporate recruiters to your LinkedIn doorstep. As a matter of fact, there are sites with fresher job alerts where you can connect with recruiters directly by LinkedIn. Those particular sites also have information you can use to sharpen your interview skills.
Network in a Group
Everybody talks about networking but not quite sure how to do it. With LinkedIn, you can join any one of a number of groups that are related to the career path you are choosing. You can connect with some important people within these groups, and you can also learn information about your occupation. This helps in the search and also helps in your career.
Go Ahead, be a Show Off
The profile is a great place to demonstrate to people the great employee you can be. You can post term papers that show you are very knowledgeable, do a YouTube clip to develop a personal contact, and even use Slideshare to highlight some of the projects you worked on. As a graduate you may not have an awful lot of work experience; no problem. If your education looks better than your work experience, you can drag the education section ahead of the work experience. That way, a recruiter sees your best qualities first. With a few endorsements added to your skills, you are painting a picture of you as someone worth interviewing. That is the beauty and magic of LinkedIn.
Time is money you should waste neither. If you are getting ready for a job search, or you are starting out already, every minute is precious. Having a LinkedIn account is a highly efficient and effective way of getting the word out about you and finding out about others. Job market is not just in Mumbai or Delhi, either. It is all over Down Under and the world as well. You can use LinkedIn to help you find that great position where you want to start your working life.