July 17th, 2008. LinkedIn Maintenance: Do This Right Now (or else?) (61 comments – once you do this, leave a comment to report back )

Make today the day you spend a few minutes to back up your LinkedIn stuff… this post tells you how to backup CONTACTS and your PROFILE (including Recommendations).

It might be the most critical thing you do today… I’ve heard of many, many people who have lost access to their LinkedIn account.  How would you like everything you’ve done on LinkedIn to go away?  I wouldn’t like that either.

So go read the post, and backup both your Contacts (by exporting your LinkedIn Contacts) and your Profile (by saving your Profile as a PDF).   Do this at least once a year.

BONUS IDEA: Once you have your Contacts exported, do something with them!  Many people import them into a CRM system (like JibberJobber).

If you don’t do that, at least go through the spreadsheet and look for people you should reconnect with.  The spreadsheet will have their email address, so it will be really easy to write an email and reconnect.

A big part of networking is NURTURING the relationship, and you do that with communication… like an email.

I dare you to nurture relationships!

My work continues to get awesome media mentions.  This one is from Meridith Levinson at CIO.com.  She titles it How Writing a Book Can Boost Your IT Career and Your Income.

She starts:

“Jason Alba always wanted to write a book. When he started his own business, a service for job seekers called JibberJobber, in 2006, he finally had the time. One night in January 2006, while dining out, Alba shared his book idea—an explanation of how job seekers could use LinkedIn in their job search—with some friends who had books published. Alba says they loved the idea, and one of them offered to introduce Alba to his publisher and serve as his executive editor.”

This is really a fun story… you can read the article here. I know many of you are interested in writing a book. My advice? DO IT!

One of my favorite quotes from her article:

“Even if your book sucks, even if it’s small, even if it’s lame, just being the author of a book … gives you credibility.”

Even if it SUCKS?

Yes, even if it sucks.

I’m not saying to write a sucky book, but don’t put it off for years, while you get to “excellent,” when you can get it published sooner, at “good enough.”

Meridith, thanks for letting me share my story with your readers

The Power of your LinkedIn Status: December 20, 2008 on my LinkedIn blog.

This is a really powerful story about someone who was laid off, started a job search, and changed his status to what he thought would be helpful but instead was not helpful.

Lesson learned.  Check out the post here (and the link to the whole story).

Here are three ways to learn how to use LinkedIn:

1. Join me on Thursday at 4pm EST for a live webinar called LinkedIn for Executives – BEYOND the Basics.  This is through Netshare’s Experts Connection.  I’ve done this a few times for them and it’s always fun, and packed full of content. Cost is $50 or $60. Register now to get on the webinar.
2. Get my DVD called LinkedIn for Job Seekers. Cost is $50 + S&H.  This has about three hours of content to help you get value out of your LinkedIn strategy. Click here to buy.
3. If you are a career coach or in the career space, you should become an Online Professional Networking Strategist (this was the LinkedIn certification, but LinkedIn’s lawyers said we can’t use the word LinkedIn in the title of the certification).  We’ll spend six 70 minute sessions going into a number of things on LinkedIn so you can become an expert for yourself and your clients with this online professional network (aka: _________).  Cost is $897, and I work hard so you feel like it was worth it (this is the second time I’m doing this)! More info here.  TIME SENSITIVE: The first session is TODAY!

I continue to see a ton of potential with LinkedIn “users,” whether they are newbies, veterans, so-called LIONs, and even recruiters, with how they can make some marginal changes to get much better results!

Oh yeah, if LinkedIn is interesting to you, check out the LinkedIn blog behind my LinkedIn book: I’m on LinkedIn – Now What???

Optimizing Slideshare On Your LinkedIn Profile

This is a really recent post (from my LinkedIn blog) but I like it for a few reasons:

1. I finally got to optimize something on my LinkedIn Profile, instead of neglecting while I work on other profiles
2. I LOVE the Slideshare application and think that EVERYONE should have (at least) one PowerPoint presentation on their LinkedIn Profile.
3. Before, I was giving my Profile viewers TOO MANY options, while I really wanted them to focus on ONE presentation.  Cleaning it up included the bonus of making that one presentation BIG (since it didn’t have to show 4 ppts in the same space).

Check out what I did, and get your presentation on your profile with the Slideshare app!

I am excited to announce I’m starting a LinkedIn Certification for career professionals (resume writers, coaches, counselors, college career centers, outplacement people, etc.).

The first certification program starts next Friday, January 28, and goes for 6 weeks.

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time but the sun, moon and stars have finally aligned and this is going to be done right (as opposed to me throwing something together without knowing what I’m doing).  I’ve partnered with Susan Whitcomb of The Academies to put this program together and deliver it in the most professional way possible.

I have designed, and will be teaching, the 6 week course and it will be offered by The Academies, which as offered a number of other certifications and trainings for career coaches.

If you are a career coach, resume writer, etc., learn more about this LinkedIn Certification here.

I regularly do interviews on the radio… here are links to 4 I’ve done for Job Talk America:

10-12-10: “The Simple And Important Steps To Start Blogging To Help You Get A Job”

6-30-10 : “How To Get Noticed Among 40,000 People In Linkedin”

6-23-10: “How To Use Facebook To Get A Job”

6-15-10: “Your Job Search Data Is All Over The Place. Now What Do I Do?“

I like interviews but don’t do them as often as I did when the LinkedIn book first came out.

I hope you enjoy these short interviews

When I do LinkedIn webinars I always get a question about LinkedIn Recommendations.  A common question is: what do you do with the LinkedIn Recommendation request from someone who you don’t know?

How utterly lame it is for someone to ask for a LinkedIn Recommendation if you don’t know them…. a LinkedIn Recommendation is essentially a professional endorsement.  Can you professionally endorse someone you don’t know, or haven’t worked with?

On my LinkedIn blog I wrote Model of a Letter of Recommendation of a Person You Are Unacquainted With (Benjamin Franklin).  Franklin’s writings are so fun to read.  Here’s most of the post:

My answer is to [these types of LinkedIn Recommendation requests is to] ignore (archive) [them].  Don’t even respond.

Here’s a humorous recommendation from Benjamin Franklin… you can find it on Google Books in Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin as well as inLittle masterpieces of American Wit and humor.

“Sir:  The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his name  This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here.  Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person brings another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another!  As to this gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be.  I recommend him, however, to those civilities which every stranger, of whom one knows no harm, has a right to; and I request you will do him all the favor that, on further acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve.  I have the onor to be, etc.”

Hilarious!

Happy Fourth of July folks!  Think of your liberty and freedom and what you can do to keep it

I did a quick 12 minute interview with Diahann Boock of Women’s Ally… here are some questions she asked… click here to hear the entire interview.

Diahann Boock - Women's Alley (click for interview)

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I’m doing a special webinar for Experts Connection (Netshare) called LinkedIn for Executives.  This is a 90 minute webinar and will be for those who are in transition as well as for executives who want to get more out of LinkedIn.  In other words, it’s not just on how to use LinkedIn in a job search.

We’ll focus on strategy and concepts as well as tactics to get results…. here’s a link to more details.