Indydrafter.com has now become a group on Linkedin.  Guess what else, so is AUGIndy.  If you aren’t familiar with Linkedin and what it’s purpose is, now is as good a time as any…

We all have resumés typed up and saved on our computers and maybe a few copies of them printed out on some nice stationary.  Unless you email, snail mail, or physically hand that resumé to someone, though, how are they supposed to know who you are, what you do, and what level of skill and experience you have in doing it?  I also have the opinion that paper resumés rarely tell you anything about the personality on the other side of it.  This is where Linkedin comes into play.

Linkedin allows you to create a professional profile on their website where you can include everything that is traditionally on a resumé:  work experience, educational history, skills and specialties, professional associations and clubs, etc.  However, Linkedin incorporates the concept of social networking with this service.  This promotes an atmosphere of getting to know your peers as well as networking with potential employers, clients, and business partners.  Linkedin makes it easy to find people you already know and to discover other professionals that have a common interest, goal, or potential future prospect.

The website has many features to make all this happen; from messages to each other, introductions to people your connections should know, industry and interest groups to join, and listing out the connections of your connections (creating a ‘degrees of separation’ scenario).  You can also give recommendations to people you have worked or done business with as well, though, I caution you to use this feature in a genuine and honest way as it is very apparent when friends are trying to ‘push’ each other.

There is much more to be done on Linkedin, such as search for and post jobs, update your status (much like a feed or tweet), and incorporate applications to include posts from your blog or website (much like I do on my Linkedin profile with this website).  Also, don’t forget to look for past classmates while you’re there.  They can become valuable contacts, too.

Although Linkedin isn’t the only site of its kind out there on the interwebs, it appears to have the largest visibility and members amongst them.  I think that it is really easy to use, though maybe a bit of a learning curve for those that haven’t been influenced by the MySpace and Facebook generation.  The alerts and updates work well with email notifications without being overly redundant and obnoxious and give you plenty of options for regulating the level of information you want delivered to your email box and how often.

On a final note, I’d like to ask you to visit the Indydrafter and AUGIndy group pages on Linkedin and join them.  If you don’t have a Linkedin account yet, sign up here and then go to the Indydrafter and/or AUGIndy pages of Linkedin to become a member. Don’t forget to visit my personal Linkedin professional profile while you’re there either.