Looking for LinkedIn newbie advice

[shaynaatl]

I know this is bad, but I don't have a profile set up on LinkedIn. I'd like to complete that this month, and have a couple of questions:

1) I'm not looking for a new job. How detailed should I be for my current and prior positions? Should it be as detailed as a resume would be? 

2) What is the typical protocol on who you invite to connect with? Is this like social media where I send an invite to all of my friends and family? What about co-workers? 

Thanks!

[ellipses84]

I leave mine pretty vague. Company (not even necessarily location / city) and years of employment. There’s a location to click on skills. This is mostly for business colleagues, not friends or family unless they are in a similar industry. You can add them if you want more connections. I do have some college friends who were other majors. It’s a good way to have the ability to contact former acquaintances without needing to be fb friends. Like, if I need a reference, I might message an old mentor to make sure it’s ok and that I have their current info to pass along. I get contacted by a lot of recruiters, most of whom I don’t contact back unless I’m looking for a job. Look at profiles of coworkers or former coworkers with a similar role to see what you should include.

[litebright]

I am fairly detailed in terms of history -- but I've been with the same company in various roles since 2005, so it still isn't a lot. And the pre-2005 things I have on there help establish that yes, I have a work history beyond this company and also have educational stuff on there because LinkedIn lets you connect with the LinkedIn presence of your former schools/programs and I find that useful sometimes.

I have almost no family on my LinkedIn. I'm not even sure I have my DH on there, lol. It's strictly for professional contacts and while I connect with people frequently, I don't use the site that often, so for me it's sort of the digital equivalent of exchanging business cards -- passive, but I know how to reach you if I need to and you know that you know me, and vice versa. The messaging feature is nice. I like checking who is looking at my profile.

It's crazy how much geography matters, though. When I lived in Denver my title was the same but I'd get maybe two dozen views in a good week. Since moving to the DC area, it's double that on average and frequently triple or more, just due to my keywords and title coming up in searches.

[chpmnk1015]

So mine is pretty detailed... A lot of history.

99% of my contacts are work related- vendors, colleagues, people i have worked with in some capacity or met through work related or industry related functions. I have a couple of my siblings because our work experience overlap- so we have actually referred people to each other, etc.

[twilightmv]

Almost all my connections are work related. I don't bother with friends or family unless they connect to me. I usually connect with anybody who asks.

[babsbunny]

Chiming in that not having a profile (like me) is not a bad thing if you don't need it. As with all public websites, you should put as little information as you can to accomplish what it is that you want to accomplish.

If you're not looking for a new job, then I would not create a profile.

[spinnaker5]

As PPs have mentioned, what is the reason you want to set up a profile? LinkedIn is useful for professional networking even if you’re not currently looking for a job. These days with most conferences and events being virtual, it’s often the only option. I’ve reached out to speakers after online events in my industry with messages like “I really enjoyed your panel at the XYZ Virtual Roundtable; you made some great comments about A B and C” and have been pleasantly surprised at how often people respond.