LinkedIn is one of those resources that AAPG members may find of great use.
♦ Stick out your hand and say hello.
Have you ever gotten that advice to meet new people and make new contacts?
That’s fine, but much of our professional and personal lives now take place online – and LinkedIn is the electronic way of doing just that.
LinkedIn is a way to expand your network to promote your skills and to search for jobs, because it provides the platform for you to showcase your virtual résumé through your online profiles.
LinkedIn can be used for any kind of career opportunity – a new job, collaboration or a speaking engagement.
Pew Research Center reports that LinkedIn is the only social networking site with higher usage among 50-64 year olds than 18-29 year olds!
♦ Create your online profile.
The heart of LinkedIn is your profile. It can be longer than a standard résumé and can highlight your skills, presentations you have given, special projects, research areas, basin studies and anything else you care to share.
It is important that your profile is complete, detailed and up to date.
Others using search engines will be able to find your profile if you include the key words that describe you. A profile for a geologist’s set of skills, to name a few, might include greenfield and brownfield exploration, field development, petroleum geology, basin analysis, drilling, well site geology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, mapping, geophysical interpretation, structural geology, carbonate reservoirs, turbidite reservoirs, well log analysis, well log correlation, sequence stratigraphy, reservoir modeling, unconventional reservoirs, horizontal wells, operations and software packages that you are skilled at using.
And don’t forget to make your profile public to be accessible to the most people. Upload a professional looking headshot and a 120-word headline about yourself.
A good online profile will help people find you.
♦ Start making connections.
Make sure that you are thoughtful in your choices. It’s not the number of connections you have but the quality of the connections. Use the “Get Introduced” tool to use your existing connections to ask to be introduced to some you would like to know.
Create a LinkedIn signature and be sure to include it in all of your emails. You can use LinkedIn’s private messaging to request recommendations of your contacts. These serve the same purpose as references in your résumé.
♦ Explore companies using LinkedIn.
Look for people employed by companies you are interested in. Check the Job Openings that match with your profile. All of these are powerful leads in looking for a new position, making new connections and assessing the current business climate.
There are dozens of websites available with suggestions on the best ways to make yourself known using LinkedIn, but it all starts with setting up your profile at www.LinkedIn.com.
Don’t delay. Do it today!