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LinkedIn can be great networking tool in downturned economy
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Published: August 28, 2009
Stan Gwizdak stands at the front of a classroom, his serious-faced students following his every word. They include an electrical engineer, an attorney and an accountant.
The students all brought a laptop, but many scribble down notes on paper as well. The 43 class members each paid $35 to attend the four-hour session in downtown Concord.
"You've got to give them something," Gwizdak tells the class. "If you're going with your hat in hand, it won't work."
The subject Gwizdak is teaching? How to use the business social media site LinkedIn.
More than 200,000 Charlotteans are on LinkedIn, with more than 28,000 from the hard-hit banking and financial services fields. But because LinkedIn is businesslike -- the least social of the social media sites -- many people don't spend time on it.
That could be a big mistake as the country emerges from the recession, experts say. A new survey from the job site CareerBuilder shows that 45 percent of employers check the social media sites of their job candidates.
And, increasingly companies are looking online for prospects in the first place. If you've slapped up a resume and not expanded your connections, you might be about to get outnetworked.
"If you've done that, you're better off just deleting that account, frankly," says Gwizdak. LinkedIn and other social media are the No. 2 job-finding tool today, behind only face-to-face networking, according to a survey of human resources executives released last week by the job-placement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Online networking was ranked ahead of recruiting firms, Internet job boards and job fairs.
Jenny Savage, a senior account manager at Record Storage Systems in Charlotte, said she signed up for Gwizdak's class because, "I thought it was timely, with the economy. I had an account, but I didn't understand how to use it."
LinkedIn allows users to post their resumes online and to build a network of connections. The company, based in Silicon Valley, is funded by venture capitalists, and turned a profit in 2006. The site has 43 million registered users.
Posting a detailed work and education history, writing and receiving recommendations, joining industry groups and corresponding with others all give a user a complete online presence that shines when they're seeking a job, experts say.
"It is so important if you're looking for a job," says Joanna Gammon of Integra Staffing and Search in Charlotte, who has been finding job candidates through the network for the past six months. "But a lot of people don't know how to do it. They do a quick profile, and then they never check back or network." Gammon estimates she has found about 15 job candidates for interviews through LinkedIn, and found jobs for five of those in the past six months.
Charlotte employers rely on networking, staffing professionals say.
"Charlotte is a relationship-driven market, much more than other cities I've recruited in the past," says Dan Hepka, an executive recruiter of KellyDirect. "With employers being overwhelmed by applications and phone calls, job-seekers can use LinkedIn as an alternative means to network."
"It's a town that's built for networking because everyone's from someplace else," says Lori Ruff, a social media coach at Integrated Alliances who owns a home in Kannapolis, but mostly works in Denver, Colo., and elsewhere.
She agrees with other experts that the time to save into your "favor bank" is before you need to cash in. "It's a pay-it-forward community. It's really important that people build the network before they need it."
That proactive networking sparked a success story when IT consultant Jason McKinstry started the LinkedIn group Charlotte Business Professionals in June of 2008. By mid-October, he had about 300 members. Then the recession hit. In the next three months, his group grew to 10 times that size. Today its membership is 4,300 Charlotteans. A hundred new members joined in the past week.
"The banks were hit so hard," McKinstry says. "Most of our members were not sure if they'd have a job tomorrow." His group's success was because "We were able to take it outside the virtual. We have events. Our members get together."
And, sometimes it helps get a job.
Other Charlotteans have used LinkedIn to diversify their networks. Juan Pablo Giometti, a marketer with The Latin Focus, says he uses LinkedIn to connect the Latino business community with an old-Charlotte community. "People who are from here also need to network with people like myself."
And there are many success stories. Last winter, Charlotte's Sean Owens was sitting at his desk, worrying. His wife was due to have a baby in six weeks, "And I thought, 'I just need to be making more money. I need a better opportunity.'"
Owens, who works in sports and entertainment promotions, got a LinkedIn e-mail from a recruiter asking if he wanted to hear more about a job opportunity. A month later he had his dream job at Live Nation, as the premium seat manager at music venues, "and it paid a lot more."
"It fell out of the sky and into my lap through LinkedIn," he says.
Recruiters say it doesn't normally work that way. You have to build a network. And, some believe, the bigger the better.
LinkedIn shows how many connections members have, up to 500, then just indicates that an account has more than that number. Charlotte's Jay Rao, president of Evolve Management, has a few more than that. He has "somewhere around 26,000," he says. Where is that in the ranking of the most in the world? "Two places ahead of Barack Obama." Rao is No. 26, the president is No. 28, according to the rankings on the site www.toplinked.com.
When Rao faced the prospect of being relocated to Europe in 2008, he reached out to LinkedIn friends, and on the strength of those meetings he started a new business, pairing top professionals with companies' part-time needs.
Has he ever turned down a LinkedIn connection request? "One -- out of the whole 26,000. An XXX-rated movie producer in California."
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