Getting Started With LinkedIn - Part 1

Submitted by mauzenne on Fri, 04/02/2010 - 02:31.
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LinkedIn is an essential career tool. We're going to explain the first steps you must take to create your profile, and ways of using LinkedIn to support your career. If you've created a profile and you're not sure what to do next, or you've got a network but you're not using LinkedIn regularly, we think there are some gems in here which will help. If you're already a super user – we'd encourage you to post your suggestions in the forums.

  1. Career Tools Recommends LinkedIn
  2. First, Complete Your Profile
    1. This Is Not Your Resume
    2. Employment History
    3. Education
    4. Other Sections
  3. Photos Aren't Necessary – And Must Be Done Right
  4. Connect With People You Know
    1. Contact Settings
  5. Ok, So I'm On, What Now?
    1. Recommendations
    2. Groups
    3. Questions and Answers
    4. Job Board


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    Members Only    Manager Tools Individual License
    Career Tools Individual License    Interviewing Series
    First Job Fundamentals   
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afmoffa's picture
Submitted by afmoffa on Mon, 09/19/2011 - 05:49.

Gaps in LinkedIn but not in Resume? How?

 Is it okay to leave gaps of six months or more on a LinkedIn profile? What about on a resume customized for a particular position?

My CMD is three pages long. My resumes are one page long. I always have gaps in the resumes I send out to employers. I don't know how I'd keep my resumes to one page if I included every year-long job I held in my early twenties. I mention the jobs/duties/accomplishments I judge relevant to the position, and I leave out the other jobs.

(I spent six years working at a FTSE-100 company, and I always include that because it was recent and because that tenure might alleviate concerns that I can't stick with one job.)

 I couldn't quite understand Mark's and Mike's guidance on having gaps in one's resume vs. having gaps in one's LinkedIn profile. From 19:30 -  21:00 on Part 1 of this cast, they suggested that gaps concerned them, but I'm unclear what action to take on my resume or on LinkedIn.

Mark: "Your Core Document is literally a history of your professional experience, and then you cull from that the things you want to position with the particular employer, while not essentially picking and choosing and leaving out large swaths of stuff..."

Mike: "In your resume, if you had six months in a job that you didn't do well at, or you didn't like, or for whatever reason you didn't want to talk about it? If you left a six-month gap in your resume, that's not  good, right? LinkedIn, you have an opportunity to do things like that. You don't need to have every single I dotted and T crossed when it comes to LinkedIn."

Mark: "Exactly."

My takeaway from this is:

1. My Career Management Document should have every job, with every role, responsibility, and significant accomplishment.

2. My Resume, which I tailor for each new role, should list every job I've ever had, but it should include only the roles, responsibilities, and accomplishments I believe will be relevant to the particular opportunity.

3. My LinkedIn profile need not list every job I've ever had. My LinkedIn profile should be a broader, more generalized version of my resume.

If my LinkedIn profile is bigger/broader/more general than my resume, and if my resume can't have lengthy gaps, then how can my LinkedIn profile have gaps?

arynjosh23's picture
Submitted by arynjosh23 on Fri, 09/28/2012 - 05:11.

Linkedln is a very powerful

Linkedln is a very powerful that is used by businessmen these days. They are now hooked with Linkedln. - Dan Sciscente