Use it every once in a while.

LinkedIN is a little to viral for me. I can't stand the fact that I get 3-4 invites a week from suckers who downloaded their "outlook integration tool".

I use it quite a bit. Have helped some colleagues find new positions, keep in touch with others, etc.

I'm on everything (and am conflicted on how I handle friends requests). Linkedin is a bit too dependent on the actions of others within your social network. I'm not convinced that it's going to take off a ton more, but of course that changes with any fad social networking site.

This month's hotness: Facebook.

I use LinkedIn pretty heavily. It is a great way to check on job candidates to match up what is and is not on their resume and find references on them. I have friends who have used it as part of their job search. I've also used it to reconnect with old colleagues. For one old colleague this has led to a very interesting M&A opportunity due to newly mutual connections.

LinkedIN is quite popular in my industry. I have only issued maybe two or three invites, but I have well over 100 connections. I am two degrees separated from over 44,000 people and three degrees from over 2 million. I'd say it is pretty cool.

I have a friend who is an attorney, and she pushed me to sign up for Linked-in about 3 years ago. Until recently, she was the only contact in my network. I finally created a profile and have been using it for about 3 months now, however I still have not gone "deep" into the tools to develop clients. So far, I've just been using it as a tool to get in touch with old co-workers, and a few of them are somewhat heavy users.

I just signed up for it last week, and am very cautious with sending and receiving invites. I downloaded the Outlook tool and wound up uninstalling it because I realized that anyone that I really wanted to invite was already top of mind.

If anyone wants to add me, I better know them and know why!

I joined it pretty randomly, and ended up getting a new job in a new city I am really enjoying as a result of it. Having said that, I hardly use it, and I don't get many problems with spam or recruiters that some friends have. I'm in a very specialist industry, so not of interest to most recruiters :)

Maybe you can tell a bit more about how you ended up with the new job. It might help people understand how best to make use of it and what the possibilities are.

Not much to tell - I was sufficiently well connected (network of 11, but pretty diverse) that a recruiter looking for the specialist skills I do have was able to find me and approached me with a real opportunity. At the time, I was keeping one eye open for new jobs anyway, so we talked, I ended up going for interview, liked what I heard, they liked what they heard, and circa three months after the first approach (I'd had a month where I was basically not able to take it any further, and then had to time notice giving carefully), relocated back up to Scotland to start the new job.

So I actually didn't do that much - the job kind of fell into my lap :o At the outset, another friend was vehemently opposed to me talking to anyone on LinkedIn because he's only had bad experiences with them... he did kind of have to eat his words when it all came good ;)

cordelli said And that has been my experience as well. I've been on for at least a year, with no spamming or untoward advances, and am pleased to reconnect with ex-coworkers.

I use LinkedIn for my North America/Asia contacts and Xing for Europe. I tend to like Xing's features/usability a bit more and since I live in Europe right now, everyone here seems to be on it.

fduvall

I use it as well. Feel free to add me (if you know my name).

I also use LinkedIn fairly often - finding it quite useful to connect with ex-colleagues here in Europe ...

Regards,

John P