linkedin seems like a fraternity for professionals. Any time someone has to honor you with an invitation to join it make me suspicious.

This is a great post. I’ve seen so much about LinkedIn lately, but not much practical advice on how to really use it as a professional. I think so many people see LinkedIn as a glorified job-seeker site, but there really are a lot of other great ways to use it.

Here’s a question: to your point about not accepting from people you don’t really know, what’s the best way to define “know” in the virtual realm? How can you determine whether someone you’ve never met in person thinks they “know” you well enough to accept an invitation? In this case, is it best to just send them an invitation anyway and see how they respond?

* * * * * *

If you’re not sure, send an invitation. If I have to think twice about if I feel like I know someone or not, then I accept. So I figure other people must be like this as well.

–Penelope

I’ll be honest. I’ve never really understood LinkedIn. I keep a profile because I feel it’s the right thing to do, just like I keep a profile on MySpace. I think it’s because I’m a Facebook person and I think, why don’t all these people just join Facebook? What’s wrong with them?

But this helps explain things a bit more, I suppose. Some of the top business professionals I know don’t have profiles though. And some of the best networkers I know barely have an online presence. It takes time to learn these web tools and networks, and I wonder if it’s actually the best use of my time or if I should cultivate relationships the old-fashioned way (gasp!). And this coming from a web-junkie!

Overall having a linkedin profile is a nice thing to have. It seems to be the most established of the professional social networking sites. I expect to hear more about it once the job market gets tight again.

Your post is right on the money, especially point #1. If I see someone with hundreds of contacts, I wonder if any of them are worthwhile.

LinkedIn can become queasily addictive, like collecting baseball cards or comic books. But I’ve found it useful in finding people I haven’t heard from in a long while, especially by keeping track of whom my connections are contacting.

Do I have cash-on-the-barrelhead proof of its efficacy yet? No, but I’d rather be represented there than on MySpace or Facebook. I wrote about LinkedIn on my blog earlier this week, including links to stories by Penelope and other career and marketing experts.

LinkendIn should be really left over as a collection tool.
Actually it should be forgotten completely.
There may be a satisfaction in building your network, but there is absolutely nothing you can do with it. No interaction. The only time I log on LinkedIn is when someone wants to add me on their contacts list.
See the following post, http://milinkovich.blogspot.com/2007/06/leaving-linkedin.html

Facebook does sound way more useful in this regards.

The LinkedIn invitations now only give the recipient the choice of saying “yes” or “no, I don’t know this person”. If five of your sent out invitations recieve the “no, I don’t know this person” response your account will be suspended. This is to prevent people from being spammed. I feel apprehensive now about saying no, as I don’t want to assist in someone’s account being unnecessarily suspended. I guess I’ll have to leave their invites in limbo if I don’t wish to connect?

* * * * * * *

I leave them in limbo if I don’t want to connect. I think that’s fine. When I send an email explaining why I don’t link to people I don’t know, I send it to their email address. I don’t go through LinkedIn.

-Penelope

Hi, Penelope

I especially like the fifth rule ‘Remind me how I know you.’ If someone properly complies with it, he might never fall under majority of others :)

Oh please give me a break. It’s an online service. My advice is get as many people in your network as possible - you never know when someone you DON’T know will be able to help you out. Sorry - but your first point and your last do not mesh.

I use both LinkedIn and Facebook and to me, they are completely different.

I have been a member of LinkedIn for years but didn’t do much with it for a long while. Recently I’ve taken on board some of the advice offered on sites like this one to try to use it properly. I’ve fixed up my profile so my CV page comes up on a Google search of my name, I’ve tried to link to more of my genuine, professional contacts, and I’ve written and received recommendations.

However, I still don’t find it terribly useful and I haven’t noticed any great difference from doing all of this. To me, the most useful things about it are a) I get updates when people change jobs so I can send a ‘congratulations’ email and b) the LinkedIn Answers section is a good way to get advice on things like office software. I like having the LinkedIn profile come up on a Google search of my name but it’s a little pointless since my own site ranks higher!

I have always been very careful with LinkedIn only to link to people I know. I disagree with Becky that it helps to have as wide a network as possible because I think it will just turn people off if they are getting requests from people they don’t really know. And the Answers function is useful in that respect because you can either ask the question of your network alone, or you can ask it publicly.

However, I am curious to hear people’s / Penelope’s thoughts on what constitutes ‘knowing’ someone. Quite often I get invitations from friends who I know extremely well in a social context but I have never worked with them in a professional context so I can’t possibly recommend their work. Should I still be linking to these people? They are people I would happily do a favour for and (I hope) vice versa, but they are not technically a professional contact.

Facebook, on the other hand, is simply for fun. I have only linked to people I have actually met (or in one or two cases whom I know quite well from online interaction) but I have nearly 100 friends. Facebook is a lively, exciting place to be but it’s not a professional tool and is really the antithesis of a productivity tool!

Translation: You should have sent me a LinkedIn invite over the weekend!

My bad. I think I have finally met my match when it comes to time spent online. I think it’s safe to assume that you’re logging more hours right now than I am (and I’m putting in 60 hrs this week).

Here’s where I think we disagree: I’m all about accepting invitations from headhunters, people in my industry, and people who went to the same university. I don’t personally send out many invitations except to classmates from college. I might not even know them, but I feel that our small university gives me segue. My college invitation always includes a statement of what I do, that we attended the same university, and an offer to help them find a job or provide them with my services should they ever need them.

I got the idea from the first guy who invited me. I had just joined LinkedIn, and this headhunter sends me an invite. I accept, and within a couple months, he hooks me up with a potential job. I wasn’t interested at the time, but I was grateful for the tip.

I’m more than willing to help others finds jobs. My reasoning is this: once you’ve blessed someone by helping them find gainful employment, you have favor with them. You never know who will be able to return the favor one way or another.

Think of it as sowing seed. It’s an investment in people, that may or may not yield a reward. In the meantime, it’s really fun!

I think your points do all work together. I’ve got a LinkedIn profile that I haven’t fully developed yet, and I appreciate your thoughts on it.

Very useful and interesting post (http://sociallinkedin.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/about-penelope%e2%80%99s-7-rules-of-linkedin-etiquette/ ). I put some comments on my blog about this.

Hope you can read it.

Fernando Aramburu

The comments here amaze me.

1. Every working person should have a web presence and right now, LinkedIn is the best place to have it. Because that’s the first database a lot of recruiters go to when they get a search.

2. Searches on LinkedIn only turn up people who are three degrees away from you, so you have to bring as many people as possible within three degrees in order to be in their active database

Therefore, you should also put your email address after your name in the surname field so that people who want to extend their networks will send you an invitation.

While I have a LinkedIn account, I really have not worked it the way I should have. I have some alumni from alma mater that I have networked with, but not much more than that.

It’s good to know the guidelines for when I finaly get to this. Thanks.

William Mitchell