by David Strom
LinkedIn is one of the more popular Web sites that is part of what’s called “social networking.” You use LinkedIn to keep track of where your contacts are working and when they and you are looking to change jobs or look for potential partners or consultants to help with new projects. There are both free and paid versions, but in my opinion the free one is suitable for most individuals’ purposes.
You start by clicking on the Join Now button and entering in some basic information. While listing your educational background is optional, I would go ahead and enter it. The site will send you a confirmation message to your email address. If you are thinking about leaving your current employer, you might want to use a personal email address. Once you sign in to the service, you will see your home page which has lots of things on it. But first, let’s show you how to add people to your network. Click on the Expand Your Network button on the top of the page. There are several ways to add addresses – if you are running Microsoft Outlook, you can copy them directly there. Or if you use Gmail or Yahoo or one of the other free email services, then you can import them from these services. You can also type them in one at a time.
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