To Use LinkedIn or Not to Use LinkedIn, That is the Question

Purpose Statement: A blog post for the Writing 310 class which answers the question, should I use LinkedIn?

Until going to college, I personally had never heard of LinkedIn. For my job searches, I would just google “Jobs in (City)” or use some job-finding site like Indeed. However, for this class we have been learning a little bit more about LinkedIn.

In this post I’m going to compare two different articles on whether or not to use LinkedIn. The first one is a professional source from Volume 118 of the Journal of Vocational Behavior, “Networking via LinkedIn: An examination of usage and career benefits.” This article is very steeped in academia, which is a polite way of saying it’s extremely dry and no good for casual reading, but I did get a few good quotes out of it in favor of LinkedIn. For example, “this study’s results demonstrate that networking online is associated with a wide variety of career benefits.” The article had an overall positive view of LinkedIn, saying that while it wouldn’t magically get you a job, it gave you a higher chance of getting professional connections.

The non-scholarly article I read was “LinkedIn is the worst of social media. Should I delete my account?” from The Guardian. The title is somewhat misleading, as it has positive things to say as well as negative about LinkedIn. It was full of complaints about the email spam and the people who use it for anything other than its intended purpose. Mostly, the author of the article said that it wasn’t good as a “social media” in the way that Facebook, Twitter and Tinder are social medias, but it sometimes worked well for its original intention, which was to find prospective jobs. “My investigative foray into LinkedIn suggested it offered more than merely a platform for congratulating friends on their ‘work anniversaries’ for a laugh. That’s not to say you should make it the sole site of your thought leadership, but the proliferation of recruiters on the platform means yes, it is advisable to have a profile with a recent picture, kept up-to-date and fleshed out with more than the bare minimum.”

So, comparing the two articles with each other, there is a fairly realistic view of LinkedIn. It isn’t guaranteed to get you a job, and the emails can be very spammy at times, but data and experience shows that it can be an effective tool to look for career options.