LinkedIn is a social media site served for career – related purposes. You can use LinkedIn for building professional relationships, enhancing personal image within your network, looking for job opportunities and skills you need to be successful. In order to use LinkedIn, you have to create a profile that contains information about your work experience, your education, your skills, etc.
How I got into LinkedIn
The person who initially brought me to the LinkedIn ‘universe’ was my girlfriend. At that time, I didn’t know what I was good at, what job would suit me best and where to start my career. In other words, I was totally unemployed and lost, not knowing what to do at the same time. For that reason, my girlfriend mentioned this ‘professional’ social media site to me. My reactions came with the logo of the website, which seemed strange to me. Even though it had the familiar colour palette of Facebook, it was a logo that I had not really come across before. After hours of soul – searching, a voice in my head convinced me it was the correct choice to help with my career journey. So, As soon as I created an account, I officially started my new journey on LinkedIn.
First impressions
Delving into this site, I found it intriguing to explore this new space. I didn’t know where to start, so I went to the toolbar on the top of the website. It had many basic functions which were texting, seeing and interacting with posts, and receiving notifications. However, all of these functions didn’t serve for entertaining purposes, but professional and career – related. I immediately associated LinkedIn as Facebook’s twin, used for work and career purposes. Having learned its basic functions, I switched to creating profiles. It was not that different from Facebook, but it had features that really excited me. Apart from the job and work experiences settings, they allowed me to put descriptions or details about it to make it clear of what I did and how it was. One more interesting feature on LinkedIn was how I found people and built relationships with other LinkedIn users. If on Facebook, the people I saw were “Friends”, then on LinkedIn, everyone I saw was “Connect”. Furthermore, these “Connect” users were listed on the network section, who were in fact the business leaders, the successful people, the students pursuing long – term positions, etc. Last but not least, the job section. It contained two spaces, a job searching tool and an area searching tool. I immediately noticed that the job opportunities were open to everyone worldwide, no matter where they lived or settled. They even had a section named “Job picks for you” that helped me search for potential jobs suitable for me.
Challenges encountered
After a few days of learning how to use LinkedIn, I can say that I got comfortable using the site, albeit conquering certain challenges. It took me hours in a row to figure out how to create a profile on my own because I didn’t think it was that tricky to produce such a qualitative and informative personal profile. Another difficult task for me on LinkedIn was planning to develop my network due to the effort I made to find the right connections to “Connect” that matched my interest and helped me choose the right path to a suitable career.
Positive results
However, seeing successful entrepreneurs and friends sharing posts about improving day by day or even gaining success really helped give me motivation to become a better version of myself. LinkedIn really helped me improve my professional skills such as teaching me how to build a great CV t and tips for being a reliable employee from articles found on the platform. Also, I made new connections, meet colleagues who had the same growth mindset as me, which was a blessing I will never forget.
My final comments on LinkedIn
I would say that LinkedIn for me, a person who has a growth mindset and a hunger for success, is a perfect fit. Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn is the space for my personal development, exploring what my major is as well as steps that help me reach it. Furthermore, it absolutely changed the way I perceived social media: not all the social media sites are created for entertaining purposes. If you are a person who has a burning desire to be successful by building connections and learning skills that could be utilized in the future, LinkedIn is for you.
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