Friday, March 26, 2010

LinkedIn: Where the Jobs Are!

Fortune has a new article titled, "How LinkedIn will fire up your career." Everyone should read this article, but particularly the college and MBA students out there. In the article, John Campagnino, Accenture's head of global recruiting, points out that he plans to do at least 40% of his hiring in the next few years through social media. By and large, that means LinkedIn. Who will you find out there on LinkedIn? It's an impressive group of folks. "The average member is a college-educated 43-year-old making $107,000." Not bad company at all!

In the end, though, you have to be able to communicate personally with a prospective employer to actually land the job. LinkedIn may get you a conversation, but then you have to be able to communicate well in person. You have to be articulate, thoughtful, and passionate. You need to be able to beyond the profile to truly differentiate yourself and make the case for why you can add value to a particular organization. As the article concludes, "You work the network. You connect with people like John Campagnino at Accenture if you want a job in consulting. Then you turn off the computer, and you call your connections on the phone. And you invite them to lunch." In sum, keep in mind that LinkedIn is just the ticket to the game. It's true, however, that it's becoming of the best sources of tickets in town.

1 comment:

McKibbinUSA said...

Robotic screening and scoring of LinkedIn profiles could produce actionable business intelligence for human resource managers, intriguing...