Before I picked up LinkedIn for Dummies, I really had no idea what LinkedIn was all about. I knew it was growing into something big because I had started to see its name more and more around the internet. I honestly thought that it was just another social networking site. While it is a networking site, it is nothing like Facebook or MySpace. It is a place to build your professional profile and get your resume out to possibly millions of other people who are willing to hire you based on your job history and skills or wanting to form a business partnership with you.
If you don't know anything about LinkedIn or you already have an account, but you're not sure where to go from there, LinkedIn for Dummies is a great guide to help you along the way. The book starts off with a brief history of the website and shows the reader step-by-step how to create an account, build a profile, find people, grow a network, find a job and so much more. I'll have to admit that some parts of the book were a bit slow for me when going through basic things, such as signing up for an account and searching for people. But when it came to building a profile, I found the author's way of breaking down each section extremely helpful because he gives the reader a good idea of the kind of information that should be entered regarding eduction, skills and job history, as to attract the eye of the right person, such as an employer. Of course, I'm sort of looking at this in a one-sided way because I don't own a business or have a reason to hire someone for anything, but this is also a great way for employers to find employees for their business. Or maybe someone were to need a website built, they could search for someone with the proper coding skills to do that for them on LinkedIn. This book covers the website from any angle that you would want to use it for. There is even a chapter on how to use LinkedIn to increase business sales.
All-in-all, I liked this book. I walked away with a full grasp on what LinkedIn was all about, what it was used for and how I could use it for my benefit. I think one of the most beneficial parts of the book is that there are pictures, TONS of pictures, that help guide you with everything the author is teaching you how to do. There is no way anyone could possibly get lost or confused. Something that I found to be kind of a downfall is that the author paints this image that anyone can use LinkedIn by just jumping in and getting started. And while it is true that it's quite easy to get an account started, this site relies heavily on getting a network built and gaining connections. The network connections are built in three degrees: first-degree connections, second-degree network members and third-degree network members. First-degree connections are people that you know personally, whether they may be friends, family, people you went to school with and so on. Second-degree connections are basically the friends of your first-degree connections. And then your third-degree connections are friends of your second-degree connections. So by the time you get to the third-degree, you may have quite a large network going and that's what you want. What my problem is is that I don't know anyone on LinkedIn at all. When the author shows the picture examples of his account, he has quite a large number of connections and it seems like he expects the reader to have some connections on LinkedIn already. Of course, the book goes over how to invite people to join LinkedIn and so on, but I don't think I'd be able to find people willing to join. There is the option of searching for random people and starting a network that way, but it seems less effective to me. So what I'm really getting at here is that I think this website is a great tool to help someone professionally, but I think it would help greatly if the person already knew at least one person on there. If you happen to be that person, then I recommend this book to you. Anyone who wants to use LinkedIn or who is already using it could benefit from this book because it probably covers things that you probably didn't even know about yet.
One thing the author is not going to tell you is how much like spam the constant bombardment of "news" items is from your alma mater or any other organization you publically link to. After all, if you are trying to use this angle to make connections, others are using it to get to you, too.
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