Why you should have a LinkedIn profile?

https://erinewart.com/2017/02/16/linkedin-update-3-things-you-need-to-know/

    This topic may sound like a cliche since there has been a lot of writing on this topic. In this post I'd like to write about my first hand experience which affected my academic and industrial career. Like everyone my age I do own an account in every social media platform. Out of curiosity I opened my LinkedIn account during my junior year internship. I could add a few people from the office which is a pretty good start. LinkedIn didn't catch my attention back in 2013 when I was only in bachelors and my network was very small. I kept checking it in every few weeks to try to get used to the website.

During my masters in Texas A&M University, getting involved in research and attending conferences helped me grow my network. I attended AISC Conference in 2015 as a student and during their Direct Connect session I had chance to interfere with many PEs from best structural engineering firms. Having hand full of business cards at the end of the day was hard to manage. Also during the session I am sure each engineer handed 30-50 business cards to each student they interacted. I had to stand out and put a picture on their mind so they will not remember me. Adding them on Linkedin and sending a "Thank you" note I believe was a positive thing to remember for them as well and some even invited me to their office. During my job search and every time I needed advise from someone in industry I had contact with many engineers even if they had switched jobs or didn't want to answer an e-mail of someone they didn't even remember.

Last year when I decided to go to full-time industry job, I came across a job posting and immediately added the person. He was the boss of the company he is hiring and he had PhD! Seriously, after all the confusion about academia vs industry I was having those days, finding a potential employer with such a profile really motivated me. They wanted to hire someone with min 5 years of experience however, my self confidence and achievements convinced him that having a new graduate with international experience wouldn't be a bad idea. Long story short, I was hired within 2 weeks after I contacted my boss.

In today's society we are stuck between having many opportunities and very few contacts. Networking through professional websites is a must to be able to know whats going on and to open up a door of a maybe a dream opportunity.