LinkedIn hounds, you have a new member of the pack–just don’t be intimidated that she has put Secretary Of State on her resume. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined LinkedIn today because she’s hunting for a new job–have you heard? Like most aggressive candidates, Clinton listed her extensive experience stretching all the way back to her first gig out of Yale Law School along with her five-book bibliography.
But Clinton wasted no time showing her LinkedIn networking savvy by publishing an article about how to jump-start small businesses. The article is less a how-to and more a how-I-will-do-if-elected. It recommends, in order: Cut the red tape holding back entrepreneurs, expand access to capital, provide tax relief and tax simplification to small businesses, and expand access to new markets.
Well, Clinton, we have a lot of experience networking and job-hunting using LinkedIn. Here’s some required reading as you learn the ropes of the social network:
- 10 Tips For Keeping Your LinkedIn and Business Connections Fresh: Drop your contacts an update every once in a while to let them know you see them as people, not just as references to use when you need a new job. Bonus points for following up about their lives.
- The 3 LinkedIn Etiquette Rules You Should Never Break: Stop using auto-generated messages that look straight from a template, do not copy and paste updates from other social media platforms straight to LinkedIn, and stop asking for endorsements from people you don’t know.
- 13 Invaluable Tips For Writing LinkedIn Messages That Will Attract The Perfect Candidates: When hunting for the perfect new employee, write as you’d want to be written to: Go for quality over quantity, do your homework in researching them, use your/you’re often to focus on the candidate, don’t lie, and suggest a specific date to meet.
[via Mother Jones]