With job-hunting season just around the corner, many seniors dread what comes next: spending countless hours surfing Monstertrak and Careerbuilder.com, filling out time-consuming job applications and giving up the cushy student lifestyle.
One tool seeking to make the job search easier is LinkedIn.com, a social networking Web site that essentially functions like Facebook.com for professionals. It is becoming an increasingly important and necessary career tool, with some users even choosing to include a link to their own LinkedIn profile on their résumés.
The site currently has 47 million members in over 200 countries and territories and is available in English, Spanish, French and German. About half of LinkedIn users are based outside the United States, according to the site.
The recession is pushing companies to use LinkedIn as a recruiting method, said Lindsey Pollak, a campus spokesperson for the Web site and the author of the bestselling book "Getting from College to Career."
"Companies are cutting back on their recruiting dollars, so they are using the Internet and LinkedIn to find candidates," Pollak said.
On LinkedIn, users create profiles in which they post information about their work experience, education and interests. They can include contact information, have colleagues write recommendations for them and join related groups. Like Facebook users, people on LinkedIn can connect with old friends and colleagues, but instead of putting people on their list of "friends," LinkedIn users add acquaintances to their "network."
The LinkedIn phenomenon has already reached the Tufts community. Not only have many students and alumni signed up, but there is also a Tufts University Alumni group and a Tufts University "Company profile" on the site. Members who join the Tufts Alumni group periodically receive e-mail "updates" that list new group discussions, job postings, articles and events.
"Your Tufts alumni network is one of the strongest job connections there is," Pollak said. "So many alums will want to help graduating students, but they won't know how to find you."
One Tufts LinkedIn user is impressed with the Web site, although she said the new technology has yet to overtake print ads in terms of effectiveness.
"I really get the best response to my … newspaper ads, but I think LinkedIn is certainly a useful tool," said Janna Mintz, a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts who attended several classes at Tufts while studying for her degree. "I've gotten [LinkedIn] submissions from all over the country and from Canada. I've also gotten responses from people in the Philippines and in India."
Mintz lives in New Mexico and works as an independent distributor for the Shaklee Corporation, a global health and wellness company that manufactures products for healthy lifestyles. She has been using LinkedIn for the past two months in the hopes of promoting an opportunity for independent distribution work at Shaklee.
Like any networking tool, LinkedIn requires a certain degree of strategy and expertise. According to Pollak, students should put time and thought into creating or improving their LinkedIn profile.
"The biggest mistake I see students make is that they have crummy profiles," Pollak said. "LinkedIn is essentially your online résumé with a lot more information."
Students with limited work experience are sometimes reluctant to join LinkedIn because they do not think they will be able to fill out a profile. Pollak believes that these students should still become members and should include information about their extracurricular activities and volunteer work. She also suggests that students visit grads.linkedin.com to browse the site to view examples of strong LinkedIn profiles.
In addition, Pollak said that students should ask for feedback on their LinkedIn profiles when they go to Tufts Career Services to have their résumé reviewed. Career Services Director Jean Papalia said in an e-mail to the Daily that Career Services is working to help students better utilize and navigate LinkedIn.
"Using social media is an important component of a job or internship search today," Papalia said. "In fact, we have developed a workshop called ‘Using Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter in your Job Search' to ensure that students understand the most effective and appropriate strategies for employing these new channels. Likewise, we are developing content for our website that addresses this issue."
Papalia advised students to keep in mind that social networking sites, despite their growing popularity, are only one of many job search tools.
"Even [LinkedIn's] most enthusiastic fans will agree that face-to-face contact is always most effective," she said.
