Linked-In Reflection

My experience with Linked-In is limited to what I have done for this semester and admittedly, it is not much. When I look at Linked-In and see the profiles I see professional individuals who have very established careers and skill-sets. When I think of myself as a Master’s student with very little ‘real world’ experience, I begin to doubt my relevance on a site like Linked-In at such an early stage in my career. I can see the benefits of being exposed to people in the LIS industry through my connections and I can see why people would utilise this service to make more connections, it’s just at this stage I am still a unconfident in my abilities.

I have expressed in earlier reflections about my initial reservations for networking. I need to practice my networking skills and accept that it is a natural part of business practice, Linked-In is just an online extension of that. The more I think about it, the more I feel like Linked-In is like a dating site... but for professionally minded people. When you go out to a bar/club/professional conference, the idea is the same: you get dressed up and think of interesting things to say so you can meet people and (hopefully) take them out to coffee. Personally, I get nervous in these situations and I would like to think I am not alone. For the most part I feel like everyone is standing on the sidelines wanting to talk to the person they spotted across the room but are too nervous to make the first move. On a dating site, or professional networking site like Linked-In it is an even playing field. Networking (or dating) in the online world is more transparent, everyone is there for the same reason: to network and expand their business contacts. Linked-In makes networking seem less contrived, at least for me.

My profile is far from being complete, even at my limited skill level. I have yet to really think about my professional skills, upload a professional photo of myself, or even start networking with fellow students. Once I start to feel more comfortable in the online world of social networking I think I will utilise Linked-In in my professional life.