Thursday, April 28, 2011

Getting connected... Start using LinkedIn


What is LinkedIn? 
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site.
The site officially launched on May 5, 2003. At the end of the first month in operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the network. Today it counts more than 100 million professionals!
Roughly one million new members join LinkedIn every week, at a rate equivalent to a professional joining the site faster than one member per second.
One purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called “Connections”. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:
  • A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact.
  • It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
  • Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
  • Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
  • Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
  • Users can now follow different companies and can get notification about the new joining and offers available.
  • Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs which they would like to apply for.


LinkedIn worldwide
  • 100m+ professionals around the world as of March 2011
  • 20m+ members in Europe as of December 2010
  • 5m+ members in the UK as of December 2010
  • 1m+ members in France
  • 2m+ members in the Netherlands
  • 1m+ members in Italy
  • 1m+ members in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland)
  • 1m+ members in Spain
  • 9m+ members in India
  • 3m+ members in Canada
  • 3m+ members in Brazil
  • 2m+ members in Australia
  • As of April 2011, LinkedIn counts more than 11 million recent college graduates* around the world as members (*LinkedIn defines recent graduates as members who have graduated within the last five years--between 2005 and 2010.).