By Jared Garrett Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn: All three are networking sites, and they each have their own special use. LinkedIn, however, is the site you want to use to land your dream job. First off, LinkedIn is a networking site that puts contacts and associations to work. When a user signs up, they are encouraged to link their profile to their e-mail account. Then, LinkedIn extracts all of your contacts from your email account, including informal contacts with whom you have only exchanged one or two e-mails. Once these contacts are extracted, the user can choose whether to e-mail each contact with an invitation to join their network. For example, a friend of mine sent me an invitation to join his Linked In network soon after he got his long-coveted job. I accepted the invitation and was instantly one degree from his massive network of people. Then I added my contacts and was immediately one degree from my contacts’ networks. Now I have an accessible network of something like 200 people. The growth of a network grows almost exponentially as more contacts join your network. LinkedIn also has built-in features that push the user to take full advantage of the site. Specifically, when you start your account, the site gives you multiple prompts and status reports. It tells you that you have an 85% complete profile, for example. LinkedIn also gives you notifications about how your network is growing. It can be both gratifying and empowering to see how your network expands. Again, these features encourage professionals from all walks of life to use the site. The more people get on to LinkedIn, the greater your chances are of landing your dream job. Finally, LinkedIn is young, hungry and has a growing reputation of being good for finding choice jobs. The site helps people capitalize on the principle of having an ‘in’ to a company. It is through the power of finding an ‘in’ on LinkedIn that my good friend was able to get the job he had been seeking for several years. So if you are aching for a job, keep trying with Monster and Careerbuilder, but now you have another resource with LinkedIn, that might just be a better tool. 2010-02-09T22:31:01Z Using LinkdIn to Network Your Way to Your Dream Job 10

2010-02-09T22:31:01Z