Here is an excerpt from an article written by Amy Levin-Epstein for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.
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Just like with romantic relationships, workouts and savings accounts, you get out of LinkedIn what you put into it. If you leave your profile relatively undeveloped, you’re not using the site to its full potential. Besides filling out your experience and trolling your contacts for connections, there are some easy ways to make your profile much more effective, today. Here are five:
[Actually the first two. To read the complete article, please click here.]
Accept invitations from strangers
On Facebook, connecting with strangers is dangerous. Criminals may monitor your page for personal info, like your vacations plans. Besides, your “friends” represent you, so why take a chance that a stranger might embarrass you? But on LinkedIn, connecting with people outside your immediate circle is imperative. “If you only accept invitations from people you know, why use LinkedIn? Outlook will suffice!” says Bruce Hurwitz, CEO of Hurwitz Strategic Staffing. And he would know — Hurwitz has 28,200 connections and adds about 300 each week.
Update your profile every few weeks
Making tiny tweaks makes a huge difference to your profile’s visibility. “Every time you make any change in your LinkedIn profile, the update is shared with everybody in your network,” notes Bettina Seidman, founder of SEIDBET Associates. You don’t have to completely revamp your page — simply adding a new skill will get you back on people’s radar. It’s the less obtrusive equivalent of emailing each person and saying “Remember me?”
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Amy Levin-Epstein is a freelance writer who has been published in dozens of magazines (including Glamour, Self and Redbook), websites (including AOLHealth.com, Babble.com and Details.com) and newspapers (including The New York Post and the Boston Globe). To read more of her writing, visit AmyLevinEpstein.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MWOnTheJob.