| Any working professional knows that LinkedIn is the de facto hub for networking and career development. This online resource is an excellent way to cultivate your professional network, building relationships with acquaintances, keeping your current achievements and ideas top of mind, and more. It also (conveniently) serves as a live portfolio of your career achievements, replacing the need for a resume and cover letter in a networking setting.
What you may not realize is that there are a myriad of ways to utilize LinkedIn in your career progression that don’t necessarily have much to do with the networking aspect at all. More than simply the “professional social network” it began as, LinkedIn offers multiple resources in its bid to be an all-inclusive professional development hub. Below, we explore a few of those resources for you. 1. – Easy Apply One of the biggest complaints among jobseekers in today’s market is that job applications are too tedious and time consuming, with the average job application taking upwards of 35 minutes to complete on an employer’s website. LinkedIn has taken steps to streamline that process and take the pain out of applying for jobs by introducing its “Easy Apply” feature. For jobs posted to the site’s built in job board, employers can elect to have candidates utilize “Easy Apply”. With this feature, eligible candidates can get their resume and profile to a hiring manager within just a few clicks without ever leaving the LinkedIn site. 2. – LinkedIn Learning Whether you’re currently in a job search or simply looking to stay up to date with current trends, you’ve likely heard that one of the most important things a mid-career or seasoned professional can do to remain competitive in the job market is to take advantage of upskilling opportunities. LinkedIn provides an excellent avenue for upskilling through its on-demand learning platform, LinkedIn Learning. This platform provides access to more than 13,000 high-quality courses on a litany of subjects that you can access wherever (and whenever) you’d like. LinkedIn also takes it a step further by offering badges of recognition to let your network know when you’ve completed a course! 3. – Company Research While this one is not something specifically outlined as a separate feature on LinkedIn, it is one of the best advantages of being a member of the site. LinkedIn essentially functions as a huge database, and with its excellent filtering system, there are many opportunities for job seekers to perform company research, including getting a good understanding of company titles and organizational structure, keeping up with the latest news from a company, seeing job postings all in one place, finding employee reviews, and more! In short, there are no shortage of advantages to keeping up to date with LinkedIn, regardless of where you are in your career progression. Even if you are not huge on networking and sharing information about yourself, the platform offers many helpful ways to improve your career standing and get to your next level. This month, our Job Club session will focus more intently on how seasoned professionals can use LinkedIn to their advantage in their own job search. More info is below – we hope to see you there! *** Job Club: LinkedIn and the Seasoned Professional with Dr. Elisse Wright Barnes LinkedIn has become a mainstay in the professional networking arsenal of working professionals. It is especially important for savvy seasoned professionals seeking to make career advancements to understand how to leverage the power of this platform in order to fully access the opportunities that may be available to them within their extended networks. Join the Alumni Career Management staff and special guest Dr. Elisse Wright-Barnes, lead trainer at Your LinkedN Driving Instructor, for an innovative conversation on how to best put LinkedIn to work in your career endeavors. Tuesday, April 26 2–3 p.m. ET Cost: Free Registration: https://www.osu.edu/alumni/activities-and-events/events/2022/job-club-linkedin-and-the-seasoned-professional.html
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