“I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” These words are familiar to over 40 million LinkedIn users in over 200 countries and territories around the world who use the webbased program, valued at $1 billion USD, to connect to friends, business associates, industry experts, potential clients, and potential employees. Interesting, while the company started in 2003 in the USA, by the end of that same year half of the users were actually from outside the US, emphasizing the program’s universal attractiveness. Today, it is almost unprofessional not to be a member. There are members from all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies and 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees. LinkedIn members also comprise over 130 different industries, and include 130,000 recruiters. That’s right – LinkedIn is a fantastic HR tool.

Reference Checking

“Possibly the cheapest and easiest ways to reference check is to start with LinkedIn,” says Larry Wang, of Wang & Li Resources. “On a positive level, LinkedIn allows users to collect recommendations from colleagues, suppliers, and customers. This is very valuable in getting a deeper understanding of how the potential employee works day-to-day. Also, while potential employees might have omitted a former employer from their resume, because they were fired or any other number of reasons, this information is often still listed on their formal LinkedIn profile, given hidden insights into new hires.” In LinkedIn, reference checking can also be done directly by contacting other LinkedIn members who have worked alongside the potential employee, allowing for third-party referencing that increases accuracy.

Recruitment

For a fee of $195 USD jobs can be posted to the entire LinkedIn community of 40 million users worldwide. But LinkedIn also allows members to post jobs within groups, at no cost. Simply apply to become a member of a group, say for example, ‘China HR Professionals’, which currently has 1,444 members, and once approved by the group’s moderator, you can post job advertisements. If you are hiring for a manager in, say, logistics, then you might be more specific with your job posting, and target a specific job related group, such as ‘Global Supply Chain Council (Asia, China, Vietnam, India)’.

Some of the human resources related groups that you might want to join include:

- China HR Professionals - 1,444 members

- Linked:HR (#1 Human Resources Group) - 238,660 members

- Shanghai HR Circle – 660 members

- Training & Development – 14,800 members

- Training and Development China (中国培训与发展) – 250 members

LinkedIn also takes advantage of employee referrals, by allowing your employees to pass on job vacancies to friends within their own personal networks. While not everyone is looking for a new job, most people are open to the right opportunity.

Using Groups to Build Competence

Members of groups also post discussion and news related to the group, allowing for further insight. For example, in the group ‘Training and Development China (中国培训与发展)’ member Paris Law has asked the question “Which competencies should a training specialist have?”, while in the ‘Training & Development’ group, Dr. Felecia Harris has posted a discussion titled “Did you know that 90% of what we learn is through listening?” Visiting groups is a great way to stay on top of trends in the field of human resources.

Become an Expert

Offering your own advice and insights will also help your career, as you become known as an expert in your field and start to receive invitations to attend industry events and conferences, even perhaps as a speaker. Alsen Hsien of Take5People concurs that LinkedIn is a great tool to get your voice heard.

“I’ve used LinkedIn to both highlight my expertise and also assist me in understanding specific areas of HR,” said Hsien. “In fact, I’ve just posted a discussion called ‘Great Reading: Five Human Capital process for 2009 to 2013’ which I hope encourages discussion about technology in the field of HR, which is my area of expertise.”

But to become an expert one must first grow their network. The first step is to contact, via LinkedIn, as many people as you know and get them to link to you. That’s as simple as searching for people at the top right-hand side of the LinkedIn webpage. Also, when you are visiting group discussions, and like a discussion posted by a fellow LinkedIn member, let them know of your appreciation and ask them to link. Ask and answer questions in the ‘Answers’ section of LinkedIn and you’ll find that others will want to link into you.

So, if all this sounds exciting, and you are still not a LinkedIn member, here’s three steps to get you started:

Step 1: Go to www.linkedin.com

Step 2: Click on ‘join today’

Step 3: Add your details

…and feel free to ‘LinkIn’ to me Morry Morgan (http://cn.linkedin. com/in/morrymorgan)