LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for job seekers, but it’s also pretty notorious for constantly updating and changing its site.
Not to worry, though. To help you keep tabs on LinkedIn’s latest and greatest, here’s a round up of a few new features for you to take advantage of as you continue your job hunt.
1. Send Personalize Invites in the LinkedIn App
When connecting with new people, you’ve probably heard the advice that you should really be customizing your messages instead of sending the generic “I’d like to add you on LinkedIn” script. Problem was, the LinkedIn app didn’t support personalized invites for a very long time.
Well, finally, that feature has been added. Now, you can add people as soon as you meet them, while the conversation you had with them is still fresh in your mind. Here’s how:
- Go to the profile of the person you’d like to connect with.
- Tap the icon to the right of the search box that looks like a box with an arrow (or the “More” icon, which looks like three vertical dots if you use Android).
- Tap “Customize Invite.”
- Write your personalized message and tap “Send.” Voilà!
2. Use the “Field of Study Explorer”
Having a little trouble figuring out what you want to do with your life? This neat LinkedIn feature won’t necessarily solve that conundrum for you, but it can give you a nice start. The “Field of Study Explorer” shows you data based on your degree. Now, you can get a sense of which companies are hiring people with your educational background and for what types of roles.
And LinkedIn isn’t stopping there. For more information on what the company’s doing with all this user data, check out the LinkedIn University Rankings and other tools related to education.
3. Explore Your Insights Graph
One of the most fascinating parts of LinkedIn is the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” page. And now, that page has even more information. As described by Sachit Kamat in his post for the official LinkedIn blog, LinkedIn has added “an additional component to the existing insights graph so that, in addition to seeing who is looking at your profile, you can see which actions you took that led to that specific increase in engagement, including making various updates to your profile, endorsing a connection, joining a group or expanding your network.”
That’s great news for users who are trying to figure out what increases profile engagement. Now, when you tweak your LinkedIn strategy, you can gauge how well it’s working by seeing who you’re attracting to your profile with each change. That’s valuable info to have as a job seeker.
4. View Recent Activity
A long time ago, you used to be able to go to people’s LinkedIn profiles and see their recent activity before scrolling down to their summary, their experience, and so on. Then that feature seemingly disappeared. But it turns out, it was just tucked away.
You can now see a person’s LinkedIn activity by clicking on the little triangle that opens a drop down menu next to the “Send a message” button and then clicking on “View recent activity.” And just like that, depending on how active people are, you can see what they’ve shared professionally, their comments or “likes,” their LinkedIn posts, and their profile updates for promotions and new jobs. Hint: This is super handy if you’re about to do an informational interview or catch up with an old acquaintance over coffee.
Did I miss anything? What are your favorite new LinkedIn features and how do you use them?