1. Request for introductions. If there's anyone I want to get connected with, first place I go to is LinkedIn and see if he is friends with any of my friends. If a friend of mine knows him, I will ask my friend to send a personal intro.
2. Look for outside experts. Yesterday I was looking to connect with some iPhone game devs. I posted a discussion on 2 LinkedIn groups (GameDevs, and Social Game Devs), and I have received over 10 messages already.
It's a really powerful tool to create professional relationships.
Currently use it to find those hiring(seeking work now) and then find them on Facebook and message them there. Ppl use facebook everyday and supposedly recruiters and HR people are perusing social networks to help with their hiring decision, so I'm using such too to highlight myself from the crowd.
I use LinkedIn to gather info only, then find them on Facebook; they reply awesome, if not move onto the next one! I did subscribe once to LinkedIn and let them continue to charge my card. Though once i tried to cancel it i ended up in web consumer cancelation purgatory; they let u in but make insanely difficult to leave. All web services do this - ick. Have a dislike for LinkedIn and all that pull such crap!
I use it as a personal resume archive. LinkedIn has a feature where your work and school experience will download as a nice PDF, but I really just use it to archive my work. Then, when I'm preparing a resume, I cherry pick the most relevant parts and edit them to fit 1 page. I also provide it to employers so they can take a look at other work (and more importantly, recommendations) I have done (or received).
1. I have introduced people to each other, often via requests. Just recently I used it to pass on a request from a former colleague inviting another former colleague (at different companies) to speak at a conference.
2. I have got at least one job where the hiring manager found me on LinkedIn
3. It's my rolodex
There are other uses. It's not a high touch service, but definitely very useful.
It's an easy way to find recommendations for professionals like accountants and attorneys. When someone is connected to or, better yet, recommended by someone you know, it's basically what you would get with a verbal recommendation while eliminating the hassle.
I've used it to keep in touch with former co-workers after they've moved on or been layed-off. :-(
I started using it actually after a few of my friends have got jobs by using linkedin to contact former co-workers to see if their current workplace has anything available.
When I was looking for a job I'd find a potential job, then used LinkedIn to find who at that company I had some possible connection to. That was incredibly valuable.
The funny thing is that I do used Xing, the European competitor to LinkedIn, and even though I have more contacts in LinkedIn, I really don't use it.
In Germany when I go to business events almost everybody hits up the people whose business cards they were handed within a day or so; in the US I've tried the same to discover that a large percentage of the people that I meet at founders' meetups aren't on LinkedIn.
The first use case makes a lot of sense for me -- if nothing else, it's an easy way to convert a business card to a vCard and have contact info track the person in question over time.
I use it as my resume since I gathered a couple of recommendation from my old colleagues, and I also receive letters from recruiters from time to time.
What is with the top option being $500/month? It's ten times the price of the second best account type but is only marginally more powerful. Are 15 extra requests for introductions and 40 extra InMails that valuable?
While this irks me because I use LI quite a bit, but this is the reason why LinkedIn > Facebook. They know how to monetize really well.
I have always wondered why Facebook doesn't charge annual fee for their service. They are at the point where if they charge me $20/year, I am too dependent on it to not pay that fee. While you can argue another free service may come along and take all that away from Facebook, but building a 250M user base is not trivial...
Personally speaking, I wont pay if facebook starts charging me $20/year. Rather, it might improve my life because I wont waste anytime on it. However, if google starts charging for gmail, I will totally pay an annual amount as long as they open a customer service center.
They don't charge because a good number of people won't pay that $20/year. And if those friends/colleagues/family don't pay and aren't on the site, it becomes less valuable for you. And then suddenly you won't pay the $20. :)
I used to be able to google names and view their profiles. Now I can't. I think that's a change. (Maybe I just never found anyone I didn't have a 3rd degree relationship with?)
Regardless, it's impressive that LinkedIn has found a way to monetize data created by users, straight-up. Even if it's annoying. It won't actually stop me from using LinkedIn, after all.
Is this a new change? I don't feel like I've ever had a problem viewing someone's full profile, but maybe they define your network so broadly that if you have several hundred connections, it includes almost everyone?
I read the title and detected a bit of outrage. But really, I think this is great. If we want resources like this to exist, somehow they will eventually have to make money. Ads aren't going to work here, but this might. So it seems fine to me.
(Actually, I have no use for LinkedIn, so I don't even have a profile. If I want to get a job or hire someone, I have other resources available. I believe they are called "friends".)
And they also charge for 'inmail' (drastically, see the link) which means if you accidentally stumble upon someone you'd actually like to talk to (potential business partner, employer,..) you gotta pay, there's usually no other way to talk to them.
It's unclear what the comparison chart means for "Expanded LinkedIn Network profile views". Could I see any more of my own connections' profiles than I already do?
(Can anyone with this service provide a comparative screenshot?)
my understanding of the "Expanded LinkedIn Network profile views" is that you can view the profiles of folks you are not connected to and the ones that are typically a 3rd/4th/ no connection to your network.
I suppose as long as LinkedIn doesn't become the next Classmates.com (in terms of holding data and contact info ransom after years of collecting them), I don't care too much. Glad to know they're paying the bills, and someone finds value (they're willing to pay for) in the service.
This is a situation where something being free or cheap creates negative value. I get contacted through my LinkedIn account every once and a while because someone was looking for a bilingual programmer and we're rare as hen's teeth in my language pair and region. I have never actually been in the market for a new job, but they're typically pitching jobs which would be fairly attractive to me if I was.
I don't get spammed daily by someone who searched for "All programmers listing Java experience" because LinkedIn's business model forces people to a) be serious about hiring from it (or you wouldn't be spending a few hundred dollars) and b) be selective about who you contact (rather than casting a dragnet).
...and I never use it for anything.
Obviously some people have figured out how to use LI for their benefit, but I haven't.