From the course: Finding a Job on LinkedIn

Making meaningful LinkedIn connections - LinkedIn Tutorial

From the course: Finding a Job on LinkedIn

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Making meaningful LinkedIn connections

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- [Narrator] One of the best ways to find opportunities on LinkedIn is through the people you're connected with and no, you don't need hundreds of connections. But having the right connections can help you learn about roles, get referrals, or simply get your foot in the door. So who should you connect with? Well, think about former coworkers or classmates, maybe people in your industry or someone working at a company that you're interested in working for. You can also connect with people whose work you admire. This could be someone you follow, someone who spoke at an event, or even someone who posted something helpful or inspiring. In this situation, Nick met Tracy Westbay at a conference recently and would like to connect with her on LinkedIn. So the first thing he needs to do is to find Tracy on here. Now, if he starts typing in here, you can see Tracy here and I can navigate to her account. In order to send a connection request to someone, click on the Connect button right here in their profile. Now, when you send a connection request though, always personalize it. Add a quick message that explains why you'd like to connect. Here, I'm going to click on Connect on Tracy's account, but I want to click on Add a note instead of just sending it without a note. I'll click Add a note, and then inside of here, paste a note that I want to add. Hi, Tracy. It was great meeting you at the conference this week. I enjoyed our conversation and would love to stay in touch here on LinkedIn. Now, once I have that in here, I can go ahead and click Send and it will send that invitation request to Tracy. Now we won't be connected until she accepts that request. Now, leaving a message like that shows that you're thoughtful and definitely increases the chances that they'll accept your request. If someone doesn't accept, that's okay. Not everyone checks their messages or accepts requests from people they don't know. Your goal isn't to connect with everyone. It's to start conversations, build relationships, and grow your network over time. In the next video, we'll take a look at one of the easiest ways to find people who are likely to connect by using LinkedIn's Alumni tool.

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