ETP Manalapan

With over 36 million members and much media exposure, you would think by now most people would know how www.LinkedIn.com works.

Recently, I sent a LinkedIn invitation to someone I met. They wrote me back in being excited about joining my network on LinkedIn. Then the person said "what is LinkedIn and what do I do next"? The reality is the power of LinkedIn facilitating social network connections for a job search or closing business deals is a foreign thought to many people. For people who know about LinkedIn, getting started is still a daunting challenge. Using all of LinkedIn's powerful features does take some dedication in time, mixed with a little patience.

by Thomas E. Kenny

Although valuable communications with your professional network should be ongoing, a career transition (change of job) provides valuable opportunities for communication!

Communications going into transition.

Announce any unplanned job search via the status message of various online social networking sites such as: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. This is less intrusive and impersonal than broadcasting the same canned email to all your network contacts. If you have a warm trusted relationship with your social networking contacts, they will notice and respond to your change of status.