I teach (marketing and business intro classes) part-time at a local community college.  I am often amazed when I ask my students if they are on LinkedIn and I hear either “no” or “what’s LinkedIn?”  I then tell them that LinkedIn is the ONLY professional social media site and that they should be on it.

Despite LinkeIn’s recent hack – LinkedIn is highly respected and I believe they learned a lot from this recent set-back.  It is the ONLY website I recommend to my students when job hunting.

There are 3-key reasons I recommend LinkedIn (I can think of a lot more…just three for now) – especially if you are job hunting:

1. When your name is “googled” it shows up at that top of page one on the search.  This is crucial!  You want those first 10 results on page one to be all about you in a good way.  I will tell you though you should also “Yahoo” yourself to make sure those results are also positive. LinkedIn will almost always show on the first page.  If you are on LinkedIn but it isn’t showing yet on the first page – you may not be 100% complete with your profile.  Make sure you have content on your profile, a picture and have connected to a few friends.
2. The ability to connect with others that you know professionally and those you wish to know is priceless.  This is such a great way to be introduced to someone you want to get to know via a current connection, friendly connections are such a nice way to get to know somone.
3. It is a GREATway to sell yourself.  I know of no other way – other than a website you create – to show off your talents to a wide diverse population.

If you are not on LinkedIn – go there now and get started creating your profile, it will take a few hours, at least if you want it to be complete, which of course you do…this way you show up on page one of the search results.