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Monday, October 01, 2007

Are you LinkedIn?

Recently, joined LinkedIn after a friend sent me an invitation. I was hesitant about joining yet another site but joined anyways because of my friend’s request.

Within days after joining it, I heard back from a school friend with whom I had lost touch for years! So, joining the site proved to be a good move. Another friend told me that her husband got an offer for job interview based on his profile in LinkedIn. So the site definitely has some usefulness.

The site also seems to be making some changes recently. To make itself more informal, it will also allow users to add their photo to their profile. May be some users will like that feature, but for now at least, I am not planning to add any photos or provide more than a limited amount of information, especially since I already had my identity stolen in the past. Although the site is in media frequently for supposedly providing great professional networking opportunity, I am personally planning to use it at this time mainly to get connected to a few friends.

I also read an article in the Wall Street Journal mentioning that more and more recruiters and potential employers are using the LinkedIn connections as an informal tool for checking on a potential job seeker. This can be good or bad depending on the kind of references a person provides about the potential job seeker.

“Such reference checking exposes job seekers to certain risks. Many site users routinely connect online to people they have only a glancing relationship with -- say, someone who simply works at the same company -- and there is no guarantee that the references will be favorable.”

Like most things in life, sites like LinkedIn have the potential to be both useful and harmful. It is always good to be careful about who you accept for connections when using social networking sites like LinkedIn, and be cautious about the type of personal information you provide on such sites.

For related articles, see:

Yahoo/BusinessWeekOnline: Smile, You're on LinkedIn

WSJ: Job References You Can't Control

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posted by Ruby @ 7:11 AM

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