Whether you’re considering new employment opportunities or not, LinkedIn is a fantastic tool to build your professional profile. Beyond the amazing job search benefits it provides, it can also put you in touch with professional colleagues that may contribute to your future success in the industry, and may attract future clients to you and your company.

Looking for a new job? Many employers and recruiters in your field may be using LinkedIn as one of their main sources of finding good candidates for the position. Having your profile listed as public allows them to find you.

Not actively looking for a new job (but you’re open to the possibility of something better coming along)? This is a great way for companies with fantastic new opportunities to find you without you having to take the effort to search for them.

Not looking? Why is that? Is your current job the best job you could ever imagine? If yes, congratulations! Are you SURE there isn’t something even more wonderful out there?

Is the idea of job searching too much work? If so, having a public LinkedIn profile is a good way to cut out the lion’s share of the work. As you create your LinkedIn profile, take care to have a complete work history and completed skills summary. If you are just passively looking for a position, LinkedIn is a professional network that will have hiring managers coming to you.

Are you not open to even the possibility of a great opportunity finding you? If so, why is that? Are you afraid of fake or unworthy companies regularly harassing you if your information is available? There are three things you should consider:

1. Many LinkedIn accounts have limited amounts of InMails that can be sent unless they pay a larger amount of money, so they will be saving those InMails for the candidates most likely able to fit their position.

2.  If someone wants to connect and you have no interest, you can click reject and by clicking I don’t know this person, their LinkedIn account could be shut down when they get a number of these. Most companies will not send invitations unless they think you might respond favorably.
   

3. It’s easy to ignore companies you’re not interested in. If you do find them to be of interest, you can do a brief amount of internet research on the company to gain additional information.

Does your employer need you to make your personal page private because they require you to use a LinkedIn account in your job and they need your LinkedIn presence to be solely related to their company? You should still keep your personal private LinkedIn profile updated as much as possible so that the moment you’re looking for a new opportunity, you can easily make it public again with as minimal effort as possible in order to jump back into the job search.

Alternately, are you afraid your employer will find out that you’re looking for or are open to other employment opportunities? Other privacy worries? LinkedIn knows to protect their members and they have a privacy section that you can easily control the amount of information that is public.

A whole new world of fantastic job opportunities will open to you by creating a public LinkedIn profile. What’s holding you back?

Investing in a Lifetime of Success,

Angela Roberts