It has been a few weeks now since LinkedIn released their new “Follow Company” feature.  Rather than be brash and predict what would happen with the appearance of this new feature, I always like to look at things with a little historical perspective and try to understand how professionals can truly leverage these new LinkedIn features.

As you are most likely aware of by now, just as you follow someone on Twitter to subscribe to their tweets in your news feed, LinkedIn now allows you to not only get “Company Updates” on your LinkedIn home page but also receive notifications of Company Activity in the convenience of your cozy email inbox.  While getting an update on New Hires, Recent Departures, and New Job Opportunities might seem strange for a professional networking site like LinkedIn, it does allow LinkedIn to offer more “value” to its core customers: companies who utilize LinkedIn to recruit employees as well as job seekers in transition.

That being said, the new Follow Company feature, while simple in functionality, offers a lot of value in different ways to the following 6 types of professionals:

1. Job Seekers

• It doesn’t take much imagination to see why job seekers should be all over LinkedIn’s new Follow Company feature: by following companies you can automatically get notified when there are new job openings.  This happens through receiving an email notification of your Company Updates as well as the updates appearing on your Home Page.
• Even if there isn’t an opening appropriate for you, if you spot someone leaving the company it may be a good excuse to try to contact the hiring manager to see if a replacement has been found.
• See a target company start to hire for a previously unknown division?  There may be hidden jobs for you there.
• See a lot of people leaving the same firm at the same time?  That may not be a good sign.
• While some say by just the mere act of following a company that they might notice you, companies do not get notified when they have a new follower.  Furthermore, with thousands of people following big companies, you may not stick out.  On the other hand, if there was a lesser-known local company with zero or few followers, you may just get noticed…
• While it doesn’t appear on your Profile, if someone in your network starts following a company and you catch sight of it in your Company Updates or in your connection’s “Activity” part of their profile, you may find out about new companies to follow or add to your target list.
• Since you can see the other Followers of the business that you are interested, you can also size up your competition.

As you can see, you can interpret a lot about a company just by looking at these details, which LinkedIn has always made available on the Companies page.  With the new Follow Company feature, you can see all of this information in chronological order in the convenient location of the “Activity” tab of each company.  It has never been easier to glean this much detailed information about a company’s HR moves in the history of the Internet.  Job seekers should be taking full advantage of this opportunity.

2. Hiring Managers

Hiring managers should always be interested in building a pipeline of talent that they can reach into when they need to expand or replace.  They may have found a new source for their talent: those that are following their company.  Unfortunately, unless it is available in a paid version, there is no way to search through Followers to find certain people from a certain discipline or who live in a certain city.  But if someone is following your company, you have all of the excuse in the world to reach out to that person to strike up a conversation.  What if your firm is not well known but your competitor has a lot of followers?  Why not search through their followers for ideas of potential people to contact?  These people may be interested in your industry and have just not had a chance to hear your story!

3. Recruiters

Recruiters should love the convenience that following Companies provides you.  You want to know which talent are leaving companies as well as what types of positions companies are hiring for?  Where companies are looking for their employees?  By following LinkedIn Companies that are on your target list, or by following your competitors, you get a very good snapshot as to the hiring trends in a certain company.  Ever try to get into a company and had no luck?  Perhaps that new hire is someone that you know and all you need is to get back in touch with them.  This information has always been available by digging through LinkedIn: LinkedIn has now made it extremely convenient for recruiters to keep tabs on now.

4. Sales & Business Development Professionals

A lot of information can be gleaned for sales and business development professionals by following companies in their target territories.  Did the decision maker that never wanted to give you time leave your prime customer and be replaced by someone you have a good relationship with?  Did your Champion get promoted to an Executive position?  Is that your Ally who jumped ship and went to a competitor in your territory, giving you a chance to penetrate a new account?  Is your target customer starting to hire for a new division with a product name that is appropriate for you to sell into?  Sales and business development is relationship-centric, and now following companies gives you up-to-date information to make it easier for you to discover valuable business intelligence about the people within a company.

5. Marketing Professionals

While people on LinkedIn who follow companies may not be the brand advocates of those who “fan” Facebook Pages, they could be a new source of brand advocates to cultivate, a new group to reach into for ideas or support.  Time will tell if the followers are just job seekers or if they truly “like” the business, but there is no reason why you can’t go out and contact these followers.

6. Professional Networking

The relationship between LinkedIn’s new Follow Company feature and professional networking?  Simple: just as you want to connect with people who have similar interests, perhaps you might be able to find a connection with someone who follows the same company you do.  This could be especially relevant if it is a lesser-known firm with fewer followers.  Give it a try and windmill network!

There is one catch to all of this that you should be aware of: With the exception of the new Job posting announcements and the people following companies, all of the information about recent hirings or departures is based on user-generated content.  In other words, the timing of all of this is dependent on that person actually updating their profile with their new information.  If you leave an old company or join a new one, you may not update your LinkedIn Profile for several weeks…

What other types of LinkedIn users can benefit from LinkedIn’s new feature?

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I will start out this post by letting you know that I am not in any way nor have ever been a recruiter or a headhunter.  While I have been a hiring manager for previous companies, my experience in being able to write this post comes from helping out many recruiters looking for candidates on or off LinkedIn.

Because I am a Windmill Networker, I see great value in establishing relationships with recruiters and helping them out when I can.  In fact, my LinkedIn Profile Contact Settings explicitly state:

I also enjoy speaking with recruiters and providing introductions whenever possible as I have a personal database of skilled contacts in the high tech and IT space, both in the US as well as Asia. Please do not hesitate to invite me to connect with you.

With that in mind, today’s post goes out to the wonderful recruiters that I have been able to create a fruitful relationship with, most importantly the great @Animal, @DavidGraziano, and @CincyRecruiter.

The impetus for me to write this post is two-fold.  I had one recruiter recently review my LinkedIn book hoping that it would have more targeted information for recruiters.  My LinkedIn book is really for professionals of all industries and job titles, so the information is obviously applicable to recruiters as well.  But, it is true that I did not have a special “LinkedIn for Recruiters” chapter.

The other reason I am writing this is, just like I get a lot of people asking me for help in finding them jobs, I get requests from recruiters with a specific opening asking me for help in facilitating introductions.  I am going to assume that if you have been using LinkedIn for recruiting for awhile all of my advice below might all be no-brainers; but, just in case, this is how I would use the social networking site to find a candidate:

1) Searching for Candidates Always Starts with the LinkedIn Advanced People Search

This should be a no-brainer.  Put in the territory, industry, company names, keywords.  If you don’t get a lot of candidates, widen the net.  LinkedIn is so incredible because it gives you the ability to do all of this for free!  Today I received a request for help finding a candidate in Malaysia: the process is no different than for looking for someone in Orange County!

Switching keywords or even enlarging areas to get a good number of potential candidates will require experimentation.  This recruiter was looking for a pre-sales engineer.  I tried both “pre-sales” and “FAE” in the keywords but got very little.  Changed that to “engineer” and got a lot more results.  Obviously, not everyone you are going to find are going to be suitable and/or willing to leave their perfect job, but it gives you the opportunity to contact more people with the potential for finding recommended friends of friends.

2) Contact Your Potential Candidates!

This is another no-brainer.  You may not be connected with them directly, so ask for a “warm introduction” from one of your trusted connections.  This is the same advice that I gave in my post on how I can help you find a job on LinkedIn.  You’re not going to get your candidate without trying to contact them!  Obviously, if I am connected, let me know and I shall help make the introduction.  Some people do leave their email addresses and/or phone numbers somewhere in their profile, so don’t forget to look for those or read their Contact Settings at the end of their LinkedIn Profile.  They may very well be open to being directly contacted by you.

3) Connect with Other Recruiters in the Target Candidate’s Industry or Region

Recruiters are often OK in splitting commissions, right?  If you’re out of luck, try connecting with other recruiters in the targeted region and/or industry and create a relationship.  Since many recruiters also Windmill Network and understand the value of being a LinkedIn LION, you don’t even have to tell them about the open position yet.  Because LinkedIn is a huge database, simply connecting with them gives you the ability to cast a wider net.  Obviously, if you can’t contact the candidate directly and need to get an introduction from the recruiter, you’ll need to start your commission-split negotiations.

4) Try Increasing Indirect Connections to Your Targets

Sometimes it’s not about the person that you connect with but with their connections.  Why not try connecting with people in the target candidate’s industry and/or geographic region?  These new connections will help you widen your net and may be able to provide you introductions to candidates that may not even be on LinkedIn.

5) Don’t Forget about Connecting with Local LIONs!

Connecting with LinkedIn LIONs in your target industry and/or geographic region is another no-brainer.  Search for “LION” in the keyword or look for LION-related Groups that they are members of.  Beware, though: not every LION will accept your invitation!

6) LinkedIn Groups: Join, Search, Discuss, Post!

There are tons of Groups out there for you to join.  The objective is not to spam these Groups but to actually engage with potential candidates there.  Think of it as a virtual networking event, a chance for you to make connections with people in your industry or geographic area that may be able to help you with introductions in the future.  And sure, if you have a job opening, it can’t hurt to post it on a relevant LinkedIn Groups Jobs board, can it?

A lot of the above tips involved actively growing your network to be able to search for more potential and relevant candidates.  For more advice on how to do this, please read my blog post which started off this blog: 15 Ways to Grow Your LinkedIn Network.  And if all of this sounds like I am making LinkedIn out to be a huge database of professionals, you are absolutely right: Work the database, and you shall find what you seek.

Recruiter friends, did I miss anything here?  Let me know so this can become a great resource for all recruiters and headhunters!  Thanks!

Plugging Your Windmill into the Grid (Copyright by Neal Schaffer, Image by Jimmy Giokaris)

(This is the second in a two-part blog post on how to utilize LinkedIn for Executive Job Search.  This first part looked at using LinkedIn in the “traditional” manner of utilizing Jobs Boards and searching out Hiring Managers.  This second part will take a Windmill Networking approach to utilizing LinkedIn for Executive Job Search through a deeper understanding of social networking.)

LinkedIn itself advertises that “Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.”  But it is not enough to just sign up for the service and wait for things to happen.  LinkedIn is, at its heart, a social networking platform.  And Windmill Networking treats all social networking platforms the same with the notion that you should maximize your presence on each site for whatever objective you may have.  Don’t stop at just connecting with ex-colleagues that you already know or even simply trolling the Jobs boards.  If you are in transition, you need to maximize your presence on LinkedIn.  You need to be become both more visible as well as become a better Windmill Networker.

Let’s start with understanding the importance of becoming more visible.  You have to understand that:

* LinkedIn is fueled by recruiters and corporate HR organizations
* Because of this fact job-seekers are flocking to LinkedIn to be found
* LinkedIn, and social media in general, are slowly replacing the “traditional” methods of looking for talent

In other words, if you are not visible enough on LinkedIn, you may not be found and may be missing out on potential career opportunities.  As I mentioned in the first part of this blog, LinkedIn is a huge database.  And you need to ensure that you are found on it.  Period.

How to Become More Visible on LinkedIn

Recruiters will utilize the Advanced People Search (or the LinkedIn Talent Advantage software platform with even more functionality) to find potential candidates.  In order to be found, therefore, you need to:

* Completely fill out your profile, including relevant work experience.  Each position that you worked at gives you additional companies, titles, and keywords that will allow you to be found.  Don’t be shy here and don’t stick to a rigid resume format.  This is an exercise in Search Engine Optimization for YOU!

* Connect and expand your network.  The more connections you have, the higher the chance that you will be found in search results.  You do not necessary have to become a LION, or LinkedIn Open Networker, like I have; simply connecting with the 10 LinkedIn LIONs & Super Connectors that I recommend will help you greatly expand your network.  My friend expanded his 3rd degree connections by 1 Million people just by connecting with one person on that list.  That’s 1 Million more people that now may find my friend more easily when they search.

* Establish relationships with relevant recruiters.  Many recruiters are LinkedIn LIONs because it is in their inherent interest to build out a large network.  This also makes it easier for you to connect and develop relationships with them, as they will often accept your invitation.  Search for key recruiters in your industry and locale.  The Ladders offers this as part of their premium paid service; LinkedIn enables you to find recruiters for free.  Take advantage of it.

In connecting with people that you might not know, you are including others in your LinkedIn network that might not be part of your physical network.  And that is exactly the objective of Windmill Network: to empower you to maximize LinkedIn and meet the people you need to in order to reach your objective.  In doing so, you are creating a unique virtual network that can now supplement and hopefully become part of your physical network over time.  You are now starting to Windmill Network!

The Stigma of “Social Networking”

Social networking may have been something that was not looked upon positively in the past.  After all, “Social networking was just for the unemployed, right?  And that is why everyone is on LinkedIn, no?  Just to look for a job?  As they say, you know when someone is looking for a job when they revise their LinkedIn profile.”  These are words that I used to hear a lot of in the past.

I believe this has been the prevailing argument until now.  But this recession, and the growth of social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, where Gen X & Baby Boomers are joining the sites by storm (my 80+ year-old dad just friended me on Facebook yesterday), social networking is going mainstream.  Executive search firms like McDermott & Bull and career management sites like Netshare and ExecuNet are providing social networking “meetups” as an integral part of the services they provide to executives in transition.  All generations are starting to realize the inherent value in social networking of digging your well before you’re thirsty; however, it is often the case that they don’t realize this until they are unemployed.

The Social Networking Aspect of LinkedIn

With this in mind, there are many other things that you can do while on LinkedIn that will indirectly aid you at finding your next job: networking beyond just recruiters.  As many say, it is now what you know but who you know.  Obviously LinkedIn can and should be used to help you connect with others that can not only help you on your journey, but also lives that you can touch through sharing your experience and expertise by Paying It Forward, which is the guiding principle of Windmill Networking.  These activities include:

* Joining LinkedIn Groups in your industry or profession and participating in conversations.  There are hundreds of thousands of LinkedIn Groups, so I am sure you can find one that is relevant to you.  Here is my advice on what LinkedIn Groups you should join.

* Answering questions on LinkedIn Answers and sharing your expertise with others.  You may learn a few things along the way and meet some truly inspirational and remarkable people to add to your LinkedIn network.

* Writing LinkedIn Recommendations for all that you feel deserve recognition.  Even if they don’t ask you for one, I am sure they will be ecstatic to receive one.

The beauty is that all of these activities will lead to a greater presence on the social networking site, allowing you to kill three birds with one stone:

1. Be found by even more potential people as your “footprint” will now be seen by many others.
2. Pay It Forward in assisting others.
3. Solidify your personal branding. Your “LinkedIn Brand” will be defined by everything that you do or don’t do on the site.  Every Group you join, every question you answer, every recommendation you give, and even your profile language should be consistent and advertise who you are.  In doing so, you will be come better “branded” and differentiated from others in a positive way.

A presence on LinkedIn is an integral part of the Executive Job Search in this day and age.  Take advantage of LinkedIn and truly leverage your presence on the social networking site to the maximum.  It will help you not only find your job, but also aid you in building out your network for the next time you are in transition.  After all, your next job may not be your last one.  It is a fact of life that we should all better prepare ourselves for.  Why not start today?

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Today’s blog post is influenced by an article I read from the comments made by LinkedIn at the Social Recruiting Summit.  Let me further expand the argument for the case of LinkedIn.

Like many others who have learned to embrace LinkedIn, I did so when I was in transition.  I realized that I had not been digging my well before I was thirsty, and I vowed to not only build up a larger network, but also to both stay in better touch with that network as well as provide more value to those in my network.

As I mentioned in my very first blog post “15 Ways to Grow Your LinkedIn Network”, you should always be filling out your profile for every company that you have worked for.  The reason being that not only will you find all of your past colleagues, but you will also be found by others looking for you, both people you used to work with as well as recruiters potentially looking for talent from a specific company.  The same goes for your past education.  And you obviously should have a crisp Summary at the top of your profile to introduce to the world who you are.

In terms of a resume, then, you should have the same Summary, Experience, and Education in a LinkedIn Profile that you would also have in that resume that you use when applying for a job.  What makes your LinkedIn Profile more accurate then?

1. Your Profile Reveals More About Your Personality & Passions. Your LinkedIn Profile goes well beyond a resume in terms of giving you the ability to list your interests, associations, as well as display those LinkedIn Groups that hopefully you’ve become a member of.  People interested in learning more about you can glean glimpses of you in these sections.  Furthermore, if you are utilizing the Answers section to answer questions or even taking part in LinkedIn Groups discussions boards, anything that you went out of your way to respond to or help someone on reveals a little something about what makes you tick.  Your Status Update is also revealing something about you depending on what you write, and that is why I urge you not to use it to merely tell people that you are unemployed.
2. Your LinkedIn Profile is More Socially Credible. Come on, anyone can pay someone to draft up a great resume.  But could you pay off all those executives and former managers who are putting their reputations on the line to write you a great Recommendation?  Probably not.  And to those who say you don’t want too many Recommendations, I say the more you have the more credibility you have, so long as your Recommendations are legit.
3. Your LinkedIn Profile is Public Domain. You have connections in your profile that can be researched.  You are advertising yourself to the world, or at least the 40+ million members on LinkedIn.  If you are lying, your trusted connections, co-workers, or friends won’t let you get away with it.  With a resume, no one is checking it except for people on the other end who know nothing about you.  And, believe me, they are checking your LinkedIn Profile to make sure it matches up with your resume!  That’s right: the accuracy of your resume is being confirmed by your LinkedIn Profile.  That in itself should tell you how accurate your LinkedIn Profile is thought of as representing the real you.

So what should all of this mean to you?  You should be utilizing LinkedIn to the fullest to show off your strengths.  If not, it may be working against you if your competitors are doing so and you are still not displaying much of anything.  After all, in this day and age, what professional isn’t on LinkedIn?  And, if you’re on, you need 3 Recommendations in order to get to 100% profile completeness, so why would you avoid getting recommended by your ex-bosses and colleagues?  And don’t you want to show the world that you are at least social media savvy by having a complete LinkedIn Profile?  I heard a true story today of someone who got a $10,000 signing bonus because they were competent in social media.  That’s right, the ability to understand and utilize social media is something that companies who don’t understand it will pay for.

Start thinking about your LinkedIn Profile more seriously.  Brand it with keywords you want to be associated with and show off your interests and passions.  It will all add to a more accurate representation of who you are, and that can only work for your benefit.

Image provided by Olivier Charvel / http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliviercharavel/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

There are many resources on the web for finding people to follow on Twitter.  Just do a search for any particular type of person you want to follow (student entrepreneurs? job seeker advice? etc.) and chances are you will find a list.  But why none for LinkedIn?  Well, just as I have been the first to write on other things LinkedIn-related, I think it is important to introduce people on LinkedIn that I think you should invite and/or connect up with.  These people are either LIONs or “Super Connectors”, people with lots of connections that are open to receiving new invites as well as helping people connect and pay it forward.

The importance of connecting with LIONs and Super Connectors on LinkedIn cannot be understated.

They help you build out the virtual network that you will need for successful Windmill Networking, and it also improves your visibility when searching for others as well as when they search for you.

Now, I do need to point out that LinkedIn caps the number of connections you can have at 30,000.  So those people below that have over 30,000 connections can receive your invite but cannot accept it.  I still think it is worth sending an invite with an introductory paragraph about yourself in the hopes that someday this limit will be lifted and they will be able to accept your invitation.  After all, the new LinkedIn Search now allows you to not only sort by connections but also to see the number of connections above 500 someone might have instead of that old “500+” text.  This is a very welcome modification and gives us all hope that the limitation on the number of connections will be lifted soon.

As a final disclaimer, I am personally connected to all of these people but have yet to meet any of them.  That being said, I have had various communications with each of the people I recommend either directly or indirectly.  When you send them your invite let them know that Neal Schaffer of Windmill Networking sent ‘ya

(guide: Name – Worldwide Ranking – # of Connections – Location)

Ron Bates – #1 – 41,000+ Connections (San Francisco)

Ron Bates is a retained executive search expert and is also the most connected person on LinkedIn.  Perhaps it is his proximity to LinkedIn headquarters in the Bay Area that helped him along the way, but Ron is a great person who I happened to hear speak on a free webinar for executive job seekers several months ago.  Intelligent and passionate, if your company is looking for a retained executive recruiter or if you are an executive looking for guidance, Ron is your man to connect with.

Steven Burda – #4 – 37,000+ Connections (Philadelphia)

Steven is currently employed at The Boeing Company in a financial analysis and management role.  But he is better known for being the “Mother Teresa of Networking.”  Some people love him, others hate him, but I can tell you from my personal experience that Steven is the ultimate pay-it-forward Windmill Networker.  He has been featured in the press of saying controversial things about LinkedIn’s practices and limitations, but like myself, I can not think of anyone else out there who evangelizes LinkedIn more than Steven does.  And, if you don’t believe me, look at the 2,000+ recommendations he has from real people that have been touched by him.  Please reach out to him and experience the warmth of his connection yourself.  If you think that Steven can ever help you, ask him, as I am sure that he will take the time out of his busy schedule to listen and lend a helping hand

Marc Freedman – #5 – 31,000+ Connections (Dallas)

I have never met Marc but I have heard the fascinating interview he had on Stan Relihan’s Connections Show.  Some of you who have been around on LinkedIn hopefully remember the original MyLink500.com database, which allowed us all to openly add our information to a huge database of LinkedIn users for the purpose of open networking (this has now been moved to http://mylinknetwork.com).  Marc is also the founder of the Dallas Blue LinkedIn Group, which has over 25,000 members and has traditionally been one of the largest LinkedIn Groups.  And if that wasn’t enough he also created the excellent MyLinkWiki which contains loads of documentation about LinkedIn.  The amazing thing is that this is someone who apparently had his 20,000+ connections LinkedIn account removed for “spamming” (he was trying to raise money for charity) and then rebuilt it from scratch to be the #5 most connected person on LinkedIn today!  Amazing!

Stacy Donovan Zapar – #9 – 29,000+ Connections (San Diego)

Stacy is located just an hour away from me in sunny San Diego and yet we have never had a chance to meet.  She is in the recruiting industry, but more importantly she brands herself as a “Pay It Forward Open Networker”, a fundamental characteristic of Windmill Networking.  I have recommended friends in San Diego who were in transition to contact her, and she has answered every one of their emails and phone calls.  Stacy, I hope to meet you some day!

Shally Steckerl – #13 – 28,000+ Connections (Atlanta)

Shally is a leading recruitment speaker and consultant, and he is also Chief Cyber Sleuth of what used to be called The Job Machine and is now called Arbita.  I subscribe to his newsletters because he truly is a pioneer in using the Internet to source for candidates.  If you are in transition, doesn’t it interest you to see how recruiters “source” or find you on the Internet?   Reading the annoucements of the webinars that he does for recruiters blows my mind.  Definitely on the leading edge of understanding social media for recruiting and a must person to connect with.

Christian Mayaud – #26 – 24,000+ Connections (New York City)

Christian is the founder of a Venture Capital firm.  But more importantly, he is the founder of the original Linkedin LION Group.  What else can I add?  He is the grandfather of the LinkedIn Open Networking movement.  Please pay him your respect.

Thomas Power – #27 – 23,000+ Connections (United Kingdom)

Thomas is the Chairman of Ecademy, one of the premier social networking sites for business people with 500,000+ members worldwide.  I have exchanged some tweets with Thomas on Twitter, but it is the power of Ecademy that makes his connection so valuable.  I once met an entrepreneur from New Zealand in Japan who was on a several week tour of Asia looking for partners.  He was able to attain all of his appointments and meet many people solely through networking on Ecademy!  Ecademy is a place where there is some serious Windmill Networking occurring, and Thomas is at the helm.  Please connect with him and check out Ecademy as well.

Barack Obama – #28 – 23,000+ Connections (Washington D.C.)

That’s right, President Obama, the first President of the Social Media era has a presence on LinkedIn.  He doesn’t seem to be very active on LinkedIn, but you have to admit he has a busy job.  Will he answer your messages?  Probably not.  But wouldn’t it be cool to have the President as your connection?  I thought so.  Heck, I even wrote a blog post last year regarding how to connect with Barack Obama.  Let me know if that address doesn’t work anymore, OK?

Stan Relihan – #30 – 22,000+ Connections (Sydney, Australia)

It was a sad day when I heard that Stan was no longer going to be doing his Connections Show podcast.  This is someone who I got to know through my ipod and his frequent podcast, and I truly have learned a lot about social networking, Web 2.0, and LinkedIn from him.  Stan, by the way, is a headhunter and is Asia-Pacific’s most connected person.  Whenever I meet someone from Sydney, I always ask if they have ever met Stan, and I always get the “Yes!” answer.  He is a great guy who completely understands the value of Windmill Networking…I do hope to have a chance to meet him someday!

Neal Schaffer – #60 – 16,000+ Connections (Orange County)

OK.  We are probably already connected, but just in case  And if you want to find out the latest on Windmill Networking and find other people that share value in open networking, building out large virtual networks and digging wells before they’re thirsty, please join my spanking new Windmill Networking LinkedIn Group.  Yeah, I know, not so many members yet, but once we all get plugged into the same grid I am confident it will grow and provide tremendous value to all of us!

The minute I post this, some of you are going to start recommending other LIONs & Super Connectors that did not make my list.  I welcome all suggestions!  If you want to be on this list, I do plan to post updates, so please, connect and communicate with me!  I look forward to hearing from you.

Happy Networking Everyone!

After I recently wrote about why I am a LinkedIn LION, I have gotten positive response from a lot of the readers of this blog that they are starting to “see the light” despite the negative wrap that LIONs have traditionally received.  At the same time, for those that want to slowly venture out and start to become a LinkedIn Open Networker, there is still a worry about keeping their private circle private.  Which leads to today’s question: is it right for a truly Open Networker to close up visibility of their connections to others?

Why many people keep their contacts private on LinkedIn was the subject of one of my very first posts in this blog last year.  And I commented on this as well in a more recent blog post concerning how you contact your new connection’s direct contacts.  I would like to add one more reason to my previous blog posts as to why you may want to hide your connections: prevent your contacts from being targeted by potential spammers, those with fake profiles that are increasingly becoming harder to detect.

What is important here is to note the distinction between an “Open Networker” and “Opening Up Your Connections”.  A LinkedIn Open Networker means 1) you are open to receiving invites from new people and 2) you will not respond with an IDK.  Whether you open up your connections or not is your prerogative and is unrelated to being an open networker.  It’s like saying, “Neal, since you are an open networker, will you recommend me even though you don’t know me?”  Of course I won’t!  So if you are in sales, recruiting, or want to try your best to protect the privacy of your trusted direct contacts, I see no problem in keeping your connections browsing closed.

I should note that LinkedIn is about social networking, so even if you close up your connections, they can obviously still be found if someone does an Advanced Search and that person that you are connected to appears in the search results.  In this scenario, you will show up as being the person that can make the introduction, and thus the end result will be the same in terms of your being able to make an introduction despite your connections being closed.  In other words:

Search for someone and if I am connected I will introduce you.

Don’t use my connections database as your virtual address book.

Seriously, if you connect with me and want to browse my connections, why not just give me a call or send me an email stating what types of people you are looking for that I am connected with?  I’d be more than happy to help if it is a valid request.  But more than likely, unless we went to school together or worked in the same company, I’ll tell you to do an Advanced Search and let me know who I am connected to that meets your search criteria.  It’s just much more time-efficient than going through several hundred screens of my contacts looking for a needle in a haystack.

I would like to point out that if you are NOT a LION and personally know all of your connections, then it may makesense to open up your connections because you don’t have to be afraid of spam.  But what happens if you are in sales and your good friend, who is also in sales, works at your competitor…will you still be opening up your contacts?  And that’s my point: it is the same issue and is your prerogative regardless of if you label yourself a LION or not.

To confirm your current Connections Browse status, please visit “Account & Settings” and go to “Connections Browse” which is on the right-hand side in the “Privacy Settings” section.

Before I event start answering this question, I will tell you that I am going out on a limb on this one.  I am going against what a lot of people are actually doing.  You may think that I am crazy or just wrong, but my intention is only to help those that are unemployed with the best advice possible.  You can take my advice or leave it.  I welcome all opinions, but I do hope you will continue reading to the very end of this blog post to better understand me.

This question came recently from a LinkedIn/Twitter friend, and it is actually something that I almost put in my post of Favorite LinkedIn Pet Peeves yesterday.  It is also related to my previous post on What Do You Use Your LinkedIn Profile Status Bar For?.  In essence, should I tell the world that I am looking for a job in my Profile Status box?

You will be able to read about my thought process in my upcoming LinkedIn book, which is nearing completion as we speak.  But as a preview of what I plan to discuss in that book, you need to remember that everything that you do and do not include in your LinkedIn profile becomes your brand = how people perceive you.  Is “unemployed” something that you want to include as part of your brand?  My answer is “NO!”  You want positive qualities associated with your brand.  And whenever I see someone with a Status Update that says they are looking for a job, I want to tell them what I am about to tell you.

Now, I am not suggesting that you lie about your status.  Obviously you want to tell your network, and if asked by a recruiter, that you are unemployed.  But what I am saying is that the Status Update should be utilized differently in order to promote your brand.

For just a moment, let’s pretend that we are recruiters looking at LinkedIn profiles.  Now, I am not nor have ever been a recruiter, but I have engaged with enough recruiters that I have a faint idea of how they work.

First of all, do you know how recruiters find you on LinkedIn?  They search for you, of course, and if they are using LinkedIn recruiting solutions they are looking at a screen that looks something like this.  The key to being found?  List as many companies as you can that you have worked for with accurate titles in your profile.  And include those keywords that you want to be associated with in your profile.  Simple enough.

But what happens after they search and find you and start looking at your profile?  Recruiters want to see that you are happily employed.  Why?  Because, in a recent LinkedIn Poll, 60% of Recruiters said that passive candidates are better employees.  And, furthermore, quoting from this same LinkedIn Blog post, “It’s a widely held belief that the best talent is employed,” and “if they are actively looking then maybe they are not as good, or not as loyal.”

I can tell you from the talent that I meet while networking that the above statements are absolutely and totally false.  If you are talented and happen to be unemployed, the above types of comments obviously hurt and fill your heart with anger.  There are so many reasons why someone loses their position or chooses to be unemployed.  How can you lump all of these people together into one category of people and say they “are not as good?”  It’s ridiculous.  And it is discriminatory towards those that deserve better treatment.

Now, the above blog post was not the opinion of LinkedIn; it was merely the results of a LinkedIn Poll.  So do not direct your anger at LinkedIn.  In fact, we should be thanking LinkedIn, because they have provided us a service by telling those who are unemployed what they need to know: DO NOT ADVERTISE THE FACT THAT YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED. We cannot change the way that recruiters think about us.  We can only play up to their expectations.

If you are unemployed, I understand the temptation to put that you are unemployed on your Status Update.  But, just as you can easily waste your time sending out applications to positions that are hiring on the Internet and compete with the several hundred other applicants who saw the same advertisement, letting the world know that you are unemployed by broadcasting that fact in your Status Update is only diluting your brand and making you look like an active, not a passive, candidate.  It is potentially lowering your value in the eyes of 60% of those recruiters in that poll.

What to do then?  If you want to tell your friends and close connections that you are unemployed, do so over the phone or in person.  Don’t use Social Media to broadcast it to 40 million other people.

Now, there may be people out there that have found a job by broadcasting the fact that they are unemployed just like there are always rare people who do find jobs on the Internet.  But, in my opinion, based on the above evidence, it is always best to preserve your LinkedIn Brand and get out and meet new people to network with that may directly or indirectly lead you to your next lead in your job hunt.  In fact, regardless of your employment status, you should always be networking and meeting people: dig your well before you are thirsty.

I rest my case.  Feel free, as always, to comment.

The following story of LinkedIn Profile ownership is a true one, and as with my other blog posts, I am hoping to get your feedback as to what the “right” answer to this question should be.

Imagine that you began a job as a recruiter.  Part of your job is, obviously, building out a network.  After being hired you learn about LinkedIn and sign up using your personal name.  You start inviting your network as well as new contacts to connect with you on LinkedIn.  In order to better facilitate your sourcing activities on LinkedIn, your company starts reimbursing you for a paid account.

I think the above is a very likely scenario for a lot of people, not only in the recruiting industry, but in any outward-facing role (such as sales and marketing) as part of a larger organization.  And if you don’t feel the problem brewing, then maybe you need to make sure that you don’t end up like my networking contact did.

This person decides to leave the company.  The company demands ownership of his LinkedIn Profile.  That’s right, they are not asking for the database of his LinkedIn connections, which is fair game, but for his username and password.  The company wants ownership of this employee’s social networking account in its entirety.

It would be interesting to see if there have been any court cases regarding who rightfully owns the LinkedIn account in this instance, so that we can all confirm what the legal precedent is.  I am not a lawyer in any fashion, but something tells me 1) the company should have opened a LinkedIn account and provided the employee with a username and password to use (along with a legal agreement that ownership of the account passes on to the company when the employee leaves) and 2) because the company did not do this and merely reimbursed the employee, they do not have the legal right to ask for outright ownership of the account, although they obviously deserve access to the information in the database.

I always tell my networking contacts to make sure that they use their personal email address, not company one, as their primary LinkedIn contact information.  Should you have to suddenly depart your company, you want to make sure that your account is completely portable.  But this employee did just that, and is still facing a problem.

As you can see, we are navigating uncharted waters when we talk about social networking.  There are no rules established for this.  And professional networks like LinkedIn truly blur the lines between your “professional” network and your “personal” one.  Add the fact that there is a paid service available on LinkedIn, and you begin to wonder why we haven’t heard about this potential problem before.

So, in this scenario, who do you side with, the employer or the ex-employee?  And for what reason?

Regardless, if you are potentially in a similar situation, save yourself future headaches and create your own personal LinkedIn account, making sure that you separate your private network of connections from your employer’s.  You never know when you may be fighting this same battle when you leave your next job.

There has been some heated discussion this morning on a LinkedIn Group Discussion Forum that I belong to concerning this topic (if you haven’t been maximizing your LinkedIn Group membership please see my advice here).  One of the Group members attended a LinkedIn seminar where the presenter said that those in transition should NOT include a photo as part of their LinkedIn profile, the reason being that it would be an Equal Opportunity violation if a recruiter selects you after seeing what you look like.   Furthermore, the presenter went on to say that most recruiters actually restrict their search to candidates that don’t have photos.

For those of you in transition who may be reading this blog, let me start out by saying that first of all I am not nor have ever been a recruiter.  But I have used LinkedIn while in transition and have taken similar seminars as well as attended webinars put on by recruiters and career coaches.  One thing I can say with confidence is that just as every career coach or  resume writer will give you a different spin on how your resume should be written, there will be many divergent opinions as to how to utilize LinkedIn. 

My own idea about displaying a photo in your profile, which is the same as in giving and receiving recommendations, is that they show that you are real.  There are many fake profiles out there, and anyone can say that they worked at a company and put it on their profile.  The photo shows that you are authentic, and the recommendations should back up what you say about yourself and you career history.  It’s as simple as that.  After all, LinkedIn will prompt you to upload a photo in order to get to 100% profile completeness, and considering that LinkedIn’s main customers are recruiters, don’t you think that they would request LinkedIn to disable the feature if it could create that big of a problem? 

I have been contacted by recruiters on LinkedIn on several occasions over the last year for potential positions which proves the theory wrong, unless these recruiters were not being “careful”. Did you know if you google someone’s name, and they had added their photo to their Google Profile, that the photo will show up in the search results? Does that automatically disqualify this candidate? I tend not to think so… (you can google my name and see an example of this at the bottom of the search results page) 

Now I could be wrong since I am not in the field of HR, so it would be great to get a lot of recruiter’s opinions on the subject.  Please feel free to comment and give us all more insight!