As competition for opportunities intensifies by the day, LinkedIn is a tool that can open doors for your business to gain a competitive advantage over others. It is a networking site for professionals that helps people connect with other professionals in their industry and beyond.
LinkedIn for learning
One of the main features on LinkedIn is the newsfeed showing all the recently published posts by your connections, or from organizations’ pages. For instance, connecting with industry leaders like Richard Branson, One Acre Fund, Growth Africa etc. would enable you to always be aware of industry developments, problems and investment areas for your business.
LinkedIn also provides a Slideshare, platform with over 15 million downloadable presentations, videos and informational graphics arranged by of topics. You can ask questions and get replies on the platform, in addition to following world leaders such as Ogilvy (a world leader in marketing).
This provides even smallest of startups in Kenya, access to excellent information for decision making and gaining competitive advantage.
You can also bridge your skills gaps through accessing LinkedIn Learning, which hosts short video courses ranging from web development to business planning, accounting etc.
According to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, the platform is all about individual professionals doing business with their network, working together to find the right people and information.
LinkedIn for recruitment
Organizations are required to open company profiles from where you will be able to launch recruitment campaigns and advertise job openings free of charge through status updates or within groups. Alternatively, you can pay to have jobs listed on the LinkedIn network as sponsored listings, which will show on peoples’ homepage and inbox.
The platform is well suited for recruitment because all users have profiles that act like mini-resumes, with their experience, skills and endorsements laid out openly
Use these profiles to vet applicants’ credentials, for instance, you will know something is amiss if someone claims to have worked in company A for ten years yet there are no endorsements or connections from any colleagues. Additionally, you can view the groups applicants are involved in and use their comments and activity as indicators of their knowledge and skill level.
