About a year and a half ago, as if under mass hypnosis, seemingly everyone on my team decided to join LinkedIn. After receiving around 10 LinkedIn invitations everyday for a week, I finally caved. I signed up, accepted the invitations and promptly forgot about the whole thing (Yes, Yes, I know. For a techie, I'm an incredibly slow adopter and usually pretty skeptical about The New New Thing. *gasp*!).
Sometime last month, I received a LinkedIn invite from a high-school classmate of mine whom I hadn't seen in years! Intrigued, I signed in, and decided to investigate further.
For the next two hours, I looked through my connections' networks (somehow, this feels a bit dirty - like secretively going through someone else's letters), and what I found was an eye-opener. I had expected the networks to consist mostly of people from the IT industry. However, in addition to techies, there are tons of people from the ibanking and consulting industries, among others. Also a lot of MBA candidates from various schools. Not just that, most profiles I looked at were quite detailed, listing entire employment and educational history!
I did some random searches on ex-classmates from high school and college, with whom I'd falled out of touch. I was able to get back in touch with a lot of them (contacting some of them required a paid subscription, which kinda sucked). The site even tells you how many degrees of seperation there are between you and the person you seek (kinda like playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon :-)), and allows you to contact the person through someone in your immediate network.
This is what LinkedIn had to say about my network:
"Your connections are in 11 industries, but your network gives you access to 147 additional industries, including:
Apparel & Fashion
International Trade and Development
Utilities"
11 industries!! And I thought I only knew people in tech and finance! Maybe I'll seek out someone in "Apparel and Fashion" to get some discounts on designer-wear :-). Or not. I keep forgetting I'll have to start living the penurious student-life soon.
The point is, LinkedIn seems like a very effective professional networking and recruiting tool. I'm curious to find out how many of my fellow mba applicant bloggers are linked in (for all I know, everyone on the planet is already on it, having been networking aggressively for the last 3 years while I was relying on the good ol' approach of "any idea what so-and-so is doing now? last i heard he had some sort of lame blog detailing his mba application process").
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An interview with one of LinkedIn's co-founders from about a month ago:
Interview
6 comments:
yeah - the LinkedIn network is impressive. I atleast was able to find a couple of bloggers, but I still should say that not everyone is up there, atleast yet. hopefully that would change in the years to come.
my friend actually just invited me to linkedin and when I logged I was connected to something like 5 countries and 7 industires, then I spoke with an ex RSM grad about RSM / ESADE and he was on LinkedIn as well... the thing is growing, it's good stuff :)
hmm, never heard of this. maybe i need to get in on it. one more thing to keep me distracted at work :).
So I was curious about my own network...
"Your connections are in 30 industries, but your network gives you access to 147 additional industries, including:
Performing Arts
Supermarkets
Arts and Crafts "
That IS pretty impressive. I have actually had quite a few recruiters and clients find me on there and connect.
re your comment: yes that is my picture and I have seen the thread...those forums are entertaining to say the least :)
I have not joined LinkIn yet, have been thinking about it for a while now. I will join probably after I start b-school.
lol. Yup, the "social networks" and "professional networks" on-line are becoming pretty impressive these days. :-)
Thanks for all the advice on part-time vs. full-time options. Learning more about PT made me reach a final decision.
Hope all is well! And stay LinkedIn. ;-)
BTW, after reading Monkey Business I was positive that I did NOT want to do I-Banking. lol. Did you enjoy the book?
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