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Wondering How to network on LinkedIn, first look at what LinkedIn is and later move to How to network on LinkedIn.

What is LinkedIn?

• It is one of the only professional social media platforms where you can sell yourself, look for new job opportunities, and network with others in your industry.
• So if you’re trying to get noticed by hiring officials, grow your brand or even grow your own business, you need a strong LinkedIn profile. Not only that, LinkedIn now has 600 million users, with two new users joining the platform every second.

Trends in LinkedIn

LinkedIn is not slowing down anytime soon. Now, this tutorial that I’m going to walk you through assumes that you already have a LinkedIn account.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn account created, you need to set your account up and then once you’re done with that, come back to this article, and you will learn step-by-step on how to get started on the platform.

LinkedIn Networking

• So here we are, looking at my LinkedIn profile. So let’s jump over to the computer. I will walk you through the steps to help you get started using LinkedIn. Now, step number one is to start with the basics. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while. So what do I mean by starting with the basics?
• You always want to make sure that you start with your headshot and LinkedIn headline, and when it comes to a good headshot, you want to make sure that the picture you use has you smiling and has you dressed appropriately for your industry.
• You also want to ensure that you’re looking directly at the camera and that we can see you well, so you don’t want to take a full-body shot.

Head Start Your Profile

Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to a good headshot is to ensure that you’re not using selfies, and here’s the key: LinkedIn profiles with professional headshots get 14 times more views.

A Good Headline

• So if you can, ensure you get a professional headshot. Now let’s talk about the headline. So when it comes to a really good LinkedIn headline, you want to ensure that it grabs the attention of anyone viewing your profile. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.
• Now, think of your headline as your tagline. These are keywords and keyword phrases that others might be using on LinkedIn to find you. By default, LinkedIn uses the job title of your current or most recent position.
• Now, you’ll notice in my example here I am just using my title for my business. You are not a job seeker, so my headline might be slightly different than yours. So my recommendation is to change that.
• If you are a job seeker, you want to make sure that the headline you use is tailored to the position or the industry you want to go in, and of course, always make sure you use as many keywords and keyword phrases in there. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.

Headline

Now, you have up to 120 characters to use inside your headline. I’m not necessarily recommending that you use all 120. Just make your headline as long as it needs to be. Now, you also want to make sure you incorporate your specialty. So your specialty will help you get found in searches if others are looking for individuals that might do what you do. So here’s an example. Let’s say that I was a senior project manager. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.

LinkedIn Profile

1. So one way that I could spice up my headline is by saying senior project manager specializing in implementation and relationship management. Now, step two to getting started on LinkedIn is the About section. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.
2. So After scrolling down on the LinkedIn profile to show you what the About section looks like. Click on the Edit icon to pull up the About section, and You can even click on this toggle to make the section a little bit larger so that you can read it better.

LinkedIn Groups

Now, when it comes to a good summary, you want to ensure that you have it organized. You want to intrigue your audience or intrigue your viewer to keep reading more. Now, the About section is a great way to share your skills, talents, and expertise in a little more detail. It’s also the perfect place to let your personality and character shine. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.

LinkedIn Group

Let’s talk first about the summary. Now, you’ll notice inside the About section; that there are two main areas. You have your summary, and then you have your media. The summary section needs to address who you are, who you help, and how you help them.

About You

You want to start with a sentence that mentions what you are most passionate about and what drives you most about your career. So if you look at my example, notice I say a career in business strategy is my passion, then I go on to say I am a driven business owner dedicated to teaching, and then I mention a little more. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.

Brief Introduction

After you’ve mentioned what you are most passionate about and what drives you, you want to include a paragraph that mentions your greatest accomplishments or even some of your greatest strengths.

So you’ll notice that I say my greatest strength is helping others find solutions and strategies to launch their perfect career. So you can use this same format when you write your summary.

Summary

• Now, to make your summary section easier to read, you want to make sure you use paragraphs that are no longer than two to three sentences. You can use bullet points to break up the content and make it so that the viewer can easily read your information. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.
• So you’ll notice in this example that there is an arrow bullet point that we will use to break up the content. Now, if you want to learn other symbols that you might be able to use inside of LinkedIn, go to Google and type in symbols for your LinkedIn profile, and you’ll come up with quite a few options. Before learning how to network on LinkedIn, I recommend not going overboard with the symbols.
• You may have seen a lot of people trying to stuff their headlines and summary to get attention using symbols and bullet points, and I don’t recommend doing that. We will address “How to network on LinkedIn” in a short while.

Professional Community

• I like using them but not in an extreme way; use them enough to break up the content and keep your reader easily viewing your profile. After your bullet point section, you can then go ahead and include an expertise section. Now, my summary section is written as a business owner.
• Yours will be very similar, but at the very end, you always want to make sure you have some specialty or expertise section.
• Now, this section contains keywords and phrases that will show up in a job posting that you can put into your profile so that you can be found in search results. Now, after the summary section, you also have the option to add media. That’s a great help if you want to know how to network on LinkedIn.

Adding Documents

So you can add a link to external documents, photos, sites, videos, and presentations.

Experience Section

• Okay, moving on to the third step to get started on LinkedIn, and that is going to be your experience section.
• So I’m going to scroll down to the experience section, and you’ll notice as scrolling down, here is the dashboard.
• Regarding the work experience section, I like to use two to three sentences in a couple of paragraphs explaining some of the greatest accomplishments or things you are most proud of.
• The point of the experience section is to show your audience who you are and how you got to where you are. So think of your experience section as a better way to tell your career story.
• Now, my dashboard is unique to me, just as your dashboard will be unique to you, and then I also have my activity.
• While in that position, a bonus tip here is to include at least one quantifiable accomplishment.
• So you can measure these things based on a number, a data point, a percentage, maybe a dollar amount, or maybe even time. And to break up the content, you can add bullet points to your work experience section.
• Make sure you’re not copying and pasting directly from your resume. And remember, you don’t want to include too much information here. Let’s learn “How to network on LinkedIn.”

A Few Tips on the Go

• Remember that LinkedIn is a little more informal than your resume, so this is the perfect opportunity to let your personality and character shine.
• In fact, inside your LinkedIn profile, you can write in the first person, which I always recommend you do.
• However, you don’t want to write in the first person on your resume.

How to Network on LinkedIn

• If you’re applying for a job through LinkedIn, and that’s the only thing you do, the chances of being discovered are probably low.
• Suppose you are seeking opportunities through LinkedIn or any other platform. I feel like it’s Taboo often to talk about this.
• The idea that “Hey, I’m looking for a new opportunity, or hey, I’m a student, and I’m trying to find an internship”. You probably don’t know how to go about it or if you do, it was like some inside information that a couple of people share with you along the way.
• Today we will share some tips and insights that will hopefully increase the probability of you finding your dream job or a dream position and being in a position to present yourself.
• Assuming that you’ve prepared accordingly.

Number One

Apply online; a lot of times, students people think that they can like get away with not applying to a job if they can network their way; that may be true in some cases, but it’s still imperative, and you have talked to recruiters, and you think that they think it’s imperative to apply online still because that puts you in the system that gives you the visibility.

Starting With Information

• So even though the probability may be low, especially if you’re like a stack of virtual resumes inside some database, you’re still in the system. Then they can pull your information and then rely on it accordingly.
• If you don’t do that and you try to send your resume through LinkedIn, or you send your resume through an email that you may get, it may not get to the right people it may not be seen, so number zero apply online number one find the right recruiter and so I’m very intentional.
• When I say write recruiter because you can find the wrong recruiter very easily, what makes a wrong recruiter is if they don’t care, yeah, that’s pretty much it and if they don’t respond.

Approaching Recruiters

And suppose they are not interested in helping you progress or helping you find that role that interests you. In that case, the right recruiter may not be the one that’s going to be connected directly to the hiring manager.

But it may be a person who can look at your resume, pass your information along, or give you that additional step or guidance to get a position or get the visibility of getting the position.

Things to Avoid

• To find the right recruiter, I think it’s being very intentional about how you reach out to them. Frequently, people reach out, and they spam a bunch of recruiters or people with a very generic, very long message.
• You don’t think that’s effective, and if anything, reduces the probability of being seen or considered by that individual. For example, You have, and you are not a recruiter, but you have been reached out by students many times, and you have a lot of messages that you don’t typically respond to.
• Those include high just high by itself how are you again just by itself or tell me about how it is working at tesla or what do you enjoy about tesla or tell me about tesla or give me information about it and you don’t answer that one probably because it’s just such a long-winded answer.

Like-Minded People

• Like, it’s just like a positive sentiment is like yeah, It’s pretty cool right it’s like I don’t know where you’re going or where you want to go with that question and then lastly a common message or message type that I get is a very long autobiography.
• I’m probably not going to read it. I try to read as many messages as I can because I want to help students out, but a lot of times, if it’s too long, if I don’t have the time or the energy to read it, it just doesn’t get read so be mindful of when you’re reaching out like if it’s not a recruiter.
• You may want to scale back on approaching them when you get the right recruiter. The key is to try to keep the ball rolling, so you reach out to them to build a relationship or develop some report.
• And the goal of that interaction is not to get an internship or get a job off the bat. It’s to develop and build a bridge or connection to your network so build that connection to hopefully get insight on how you can improve your resume or something else actionable like that.

Social Media Sites

• So the best way I would go about it is being able to ask for something big and something small, so here is a template message that I will read, and I guess I’ll put it on the screen.
• While I read it so you can see and use that when you’re reaching out to either a recruiter or maybe an advocate, which we’ll get to in a second.
• Insert the person’s name here. I’m such and such, and I have an interest and experience with this. I saw this job linked here online and wanted to see if you would be able to connect me with someone in that department or share a tip to gain visibility to increase my odds.

Join LinkedIn Groups

It would be excellent because this thank you for your name here I think what’s good about this message is it gets to the point it asks for two things, something big and something small I think asking for something and being very specific will help you because they can say I can do this big thing.

Whether the big thing is connecting you with the person speaking with you on the phone or something small like providing a small tip or a piece of insight so you can start to enter your way towards that goal of being in a position to interview for an opportunity.

Number Two

So that brings me to number two; it’s finding an advocate. The difference between a recruiter and an advocate is that a recruiter is someone who relays your information to the hiring manager they do that initial screening.

So an advocate their position is completely independent or often independent of the actual recruiting process they may be someone at the company or near or within a network that can either impart knowledge or connect you to the right people.

Network on LinkedIn

• If you reach out to a potential advocate, they do not have to be a recruiter, and you say that message that I mentioned, look, I’ll throw it up again.
• So this message, hi such and such I’m this and that message will take you a long way because it’s very direct; it can start a relationship, a conversation, and that’s really what you’re trying to get to.
• If you share through a series of posts or a series of articles or a series of videos. Things that you’ve created projects that you’ve worked on, and you kind of showcase it like real-time or live or like on people’s feed that creates exposure and as someone who likes loves seeing people creating things.

Professional Network

I’ll like it, I’ll reply, or other people will engage with it, and what that will do is create your online presence and extend your presence beyond just a dormant, stagnant kind of stationary LinkedIn profile.

And again nothing wrong with a LinkedIn profile. You can shout out to it. You got a job because of it. Depending on your industry, you think that so much more can happen once you start creating something.

Meaningful Connections

• So if you’re an engineer, have your projects present and write an article about a tough problem that you solved that will show your technical competence.
• In the best way, it’s better than trying to highlight it in three bullet points within your resume, so think about that one; it’s a little out of people’s comfort zones.
• But if you do it, you’ll have positive results, and the probability will only increase from there. Lastly, you can do all of these things in parallel.

Connection Requests

• So the probabilities are not necessarily additive, but they accumulate because they only make your chances better.
• So if you apply online to reach out to recruiters, try to find an advocate, and create content, the probability of finding your position will be the highest because you’re doing as many things as possible.
• To position yourself for the opportunity, all right, so that’s all for this topic, and we hope that adds value and gives you something to think about. We hope it explains “How to network on LinkedIn.”

Conclusion

As basic as it may sound, networking on LinkedIn can be quite complex. Especially with everyone trying so hard to get a job. To stand out among them, it’s obvious to be able to give something unique to the employer. Following the steps above can be helpful.

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Last Updated on August 16, 2022 by Rojalin Mahapatro