Guy Kawasaki Shares 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job

In a recent blog post, startup guru Guy Kawasaki explained how to use LinkedIn to find a job. For those not familiar with the site, LinkedIn is a professional networking site with over 35 million members in over 140 industries. Members "connect" to each other to form networks, and then share business referrals, marketing tips, job opportunities, and much more (check out LinkedIn for Lawyers 101 for a short LinkedIn tutorial tailored to attorneys).

Below, in summary form, are Kawaski's ten tips (see Kawasaki's full blog post referenced at the link above for further details for each point). While Kawasaki's tips are tailored to a general job search, one can modify the tips to apply to a law firm job search.

1. Get the word out (that is, tell all of your LinkedIn connections that you are looking for a job).
2. Get LinkedIn recommendations from your connections
3. Find companies where people with your background and skills are working
4. If you are interested in a particular company, find out where people at a company came from to give you some idea what kind of "pedigree" the company is looking for.
5. Find out where people from a company go next (to see what kind of career path the company might open up for you).
6. Check if the company is still hiring.
7. Get to the hiring manager.
8. Alternatively, find a connection who can get your resume to the right HR person.
9. Find a connection who can help you learn more about the job requirements.
10. If you'd prefer to try joining a startup, you can also search LinkedIn for startups to join.

One extra tip: start building your network on LinkedIn today so you'll have one available when you need to tap it.