Monday, July 18, 2016

Linking up and in


I'm going to write about some aspects of job hunting this week. After all, I'm not the only one in this position, and there are some things that can be wise to do even when happily employed. One good project at any time is improving your LinkedIn profile. Here's mine:


I have added job history and training and even some test scores, but my big focus has been increasing my connections. I was told I should try to get to at least 500. I think I was previously at 85.

That makes my current number of 319 connections very impressive, but the early fast accumulation has petered out. At this rate, making it to 500 is very far away. However, I now understand why they give you 500 as a goal - after that your connections display as 500+. You appear to have a maximum level of connectedness then, even if the actual number is 501.

There is a value to having many connections beyond the appearance of being well-connected, and effective networking is its own topic. LinkedIn will do job searches, and when you are interested in one, they will tell you if you have connections or fellow alumni at the company. In addition, people try to fill jobs before they are posted publicly. When whom you know matters, knowing more people is helpful. That is not what I am writing about today.

If you are currently in the phase of trying to build up your connections, and need enough connections to be somewhat undiscriminating, I have made some observations on that process.

There are three options for growth under My Network: Add Contacts, People You May Know, and Find Alumni.

Add Contacts: This feature allows you to use your e-mail address book to find potential connections. It can be useful, but depending on your e-mail habits it may cast too wide a net. In addition to having made several agent inquiries recently, I have in the past been the administrator on different preparedness newsletters.

Find Alumni: I have not found a way to do this for my high school, where I would know lots of people. For my college, first it brings up all the Ducks I am already connected to - whom I do know - and then quickly goes to people who are completely unfamiliar.

It is handy that if you have a school in common that is enough to request to connect, even if you have no other connections in common. Some alumni may not remember you specifically, but still be willing to connect because of school spirit. I generally do not try and connect with people I have never met, but you can do it. This leads to our final tool...

People You May Know: This will contain a lot of people you don't know. There will be people that you know too, and you will click Connect, and if they check LinkedIn regularly your numbers will soon grow, but there will be many more that are not suitable for connection.

Initially this is pretty interesting. You see people you know, and then people who are familiar but not really known - like that guy you always used to pass in the hall on your way to the cafeteria. Now you know his name without ever having gotten close enough to read his badge.

There are near misses that give you an idea of the algorithm. Okay, I think that's Deanna's daughter-in-law, and that's Rachel's father. That is definitely my sister's manager's son's wife.

Then there are things that are more confusing. I know someone with that name, but this is not that person. This name is not familiar, but they look a lot like a different person I know.

Sometimes it can be very sad. One time a former co-worker and an old friend who both died of cancer came up right next to each other.

Generally speaking, these are not people you would not click to Connect with, but scroll past them and the list will keep getting longer. The task of going through them all grows, inversely proportional to the hope of finding other acquaintances.

You don't have to keep scrolling through the same unfamiliar faces. Clicking the X in the upper right corner dismisses them, at least temporarily. Do this a few times, and even previously populated rows will go away. "Fine!" the algorithm seems to say, "I guess there are no people you know."

I try and do a combination of both, scrolling far down looking one time, and dismissing early the next. At first I would feel guilty about clicking away these smiling faces, but I had to remember that I am not rejecting them as people; I'm just saying we don't know each other.

That leads us back to that question of connecting with people you don't know. You can try it. It might work. They might think they know you or decide more connections is good regardless. They might feel the attempted connection is an imposition too, but as strangers they will probably have forgotten you if you do encounter each other in the future. The risks seem relatively low, but it still feels weird to me. I need to have some memory of you.

But if you want to connect, and I don't remember you, but you seem like a reasonable person, I am probably going to accept that. And right now, I am on there every day.

And every connection increases the chance of me finding more people that I actually do know.

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