The Pros and Cons of Using LinkedIn

The Pros and Cons of Using LinkedIn via Pixabay The Pros of LinkedIn Easy Networking Before LinkedIn, you would have to go to a networking event and make conversation with strangers in the hopes that you can possibly help one another one day. It would take out hours of your day getting to and enjoying the event. It also limited you to networking only with people who decided to show up and happened to live or work in the area. With LinkedIn, you can network with people from all over the world with just a click of a button. Browse through hundreds of profiles and send a quick message to make a connection that can possibly help you later down the line. Publish Your Own Content When you publish content online, it puts you ahead of any other candidate for a job you’re applying to. It helps you to create your personal brand and show potential employers that you specialize in a certain field and want to help others learn about it. LinkedIn allows you to publish articles and content that can be read by thousands of people. Who knows, maybe your next employer will come across your article and love it so much that they search for you and invite you to apply for an open position? Find Your Next Opportunity One of the services that LinkedIn provides both businesses and employees is a job search tool. Businesses can post open positions and LinkedIn will match users to jobs that they may be a good fit for. This takes time out of searching for jobs that you may qualify for and allows you to do some research about the company and employees through their profiles. It’s always a good idea to send the recruiter or hiring manager a quick message on LinkedIn letting them know that you applied to the position too. Enhance and Gain New Skills With the LinkedIn Premium account, you’ll get access to LinkedIn Learning, which consists of thousands of videos to help you learn new skills and build on the ones you already have. For example, if you want to learn everything there is to know about Microsoft Excel, there is a video course for you to take and then add that skill to your resume. This is a great way to build up your resume, especially if you feel under-qualified for the job you want. Cons of LinkedIn Spam Messages When it comes to connecting with people on LinkedIn, you may find that you get a lot of random connect requests of people you’ve never heard of or know. While it isn’t unheard of to connect with strangers, it can get annoying at times. You can also expect to get some spam messages about applying to a job or meeting with financial advisors to get them to manage your investment portfolios. Just make sure to weed through potential spam messages from the authentic ones that can actually help you out professionally. Not Everyone Sees What You Post When we post something to social media, we expect that everyone will see it pop up on their timeline in a chronological fashion. Unfortunately, with LinkedIn that is not the case. LinkedIn uses an algorithm that chooses who sees your posts and who doesn’t. This can be discouraging for those users who do like to publish content to their profile. Complicated Set-Up Every time you create a new profile on a social media platform, the set up can take a little while. You have to find a profile picture and add some basic information about yourself. However, with LinkedIn’s setup, it’s a little more complicated because you basically have to rewrite your resume into LinkedIn’s format. This can be tedious and take a little while. It will definitely be worth it in the end, though. Using LinkedIn There will always be pros and cons to a service. When it comes to LinkedIn, it will definitely help you connect with people in your industry and narrow down job listings for you. It gives you the opportunity to build a personal brand and a platform for yourself to show to potential employers. You will have to take some time to set up your profile and weed through spam messages, but the overall benefits of LinkedIn have helped so many people.