Feb 9, 2016

LinkingIn to A New Social World

One website that I have been curious to try out is the website called LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social networking site, mainly for people in business. LinkedIn can be used for non-business purposes as well. After making my account, I realized that people who any profession have LinkedIn, just to add to their list of occupations and places they have worked. LinkedIn is sort of like a resume. You add the jobs you have worked, places you went to school, accomplishments, and good traits about yourself. It can be useful for job owners and other institutions looking to hire you.

First off, here is your profile. When making an account, LinkedIn asks your work experience, education, and any qualities about yourself. You can edit your profile background and picture, which is very similar to other social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. It is very easy to fill out your profile, considering they ask you very easy questions. It is accessible to the younger and older generations.

As an example, here are my “Experience” and “Education” portions of my profile.

Another feature of LinkedIn is the homepage where they show you “Trending” stories or articles in the topics you’re interested in. For example, in the screenshot it shows a story of something related to “Leadership & Management.” When filling out my profile, I put that I am interested in
“Arts & Culture” so “Arts & Culture” related stories will be put on my homepage.

While searching through the depths of LinkedIn, I found only one person I knew, which was my Mom. Here is her profile, which has a lot more information than mine:

As you can see, my mom’s profile is a lot more detailed than mine is. LinkedIn is based on experience, and a grown adult is obviously going to have more experience than someone who just started working a couple years ago.

Another aspect I enjoy about LinkedIn is how you can show people your skills. My mom’s profile shows all of her skills, which is a pretty long list. This will impress other companys she may apply to a job for.

Overall, LinkedIn is convenient and filled with information. Though many people only used it for businesses before, younger people are now joining the site to display their skills and assets. LinkedIn began in 2002 and I still am hearing many users talk about it today, so I personally think this social networking site will continue to be relevant and useful. I found that the regular web version of the site was more accessible. The mobile version seemed to keep crashing on my phone. Though the site can look kinda of bland and boring, LinkedIn has more unique traits than unoriginal ones.