Why You Should Use LinkedIn When You Aren’t Looking For A New Job

I probably started using LinkedIn sometime in 2010 primarily as another place where I could post articles from one of my blogs. At that time I had transitioned out of retail and into running my own business, so I wasn’t using it for the sake of networking or trying to find new jobs. Anyway, sometime between 2010 and today I started using LinkedIn more and despite being happily employed I’m still checking the app multiple times per day. So why do I do this, and why should you?

Their News Feed Isn’t Terrible

Facebook gives me memes, and the occasional legitimate status update. Instagram lets me see selfies of my friends that I didn’t care to see. Snapchat lets me see people being themselves. LinkedIn provides me with legitimate news in a list (also known as a feed).

I can always find something interesting to read on LinkedIn. Sometimes I get to learn about a friend’s new job, other times I get career/professional advice from someone else’s post. About two minutes ago I learned that MailChimp doesn’t let their new hires work for the first week (and now I have and idea to bring up at work).

My career is currently my top priority, and right now the news feed on LinkedIn offers me tremendous value. If you want to become a more productive professional then make it a habit to check LinkedIn at least once a day and you’ll be surprised by how much you’ll learn.

I’m Not Good At Networking IRL

Ask the people I work with, I tend to be fairly quiet and usually keep conversations brief. Likewise when I go to a Startup Grind talk I usually gloss over or skip the networking portion of the event. On LinkedIn I’m able to contribute to conversations easily or just passively read the lessons from others.

I’m also a senior level engineer, which means in a given week I’ll probably have someone reach out to me about a new job opportunity. At first I tried to talk to every recruiter, but that usually led to me changing what company I worked for. These days I still talk to recruiters that can probably help me in the future (more on that later). So without putting in much effort I’ve been able to build up a rolodex of people that specialize in interviewing and hiring people.

The final thing LinkedIn has helped me out with is staying in touch with past coworkers that I don’t really talk to that often. It’s great being able to see what people on my previous teams are up to as well as being able to help some of them find a new opportunity.

I Can See Where I’ve Been

I’d like to think that I’m not the only one that does this, but I probably am… Sometimes I look at my own LinkedIn profile; I’ll take a look at my job history and what my past responsibilities were. Sometimes life gets me down and makes me feel incredibly hopeless. Then I look at my profile and remember my past jobs and the future gets a little better. Let me elaborate.

Just seven years ago I was working for a home improvement retailer. Back then my day consisted of unloading trucks with a forklift, and getting on a Big Joe (those platform lift things) to go about 20 feet in the air to wrestle down a front loaded washer and dryer. It was a pretty fun job, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Today (seven years later) I build mobile apps and mentor other software engineers within my company. It’s very humbling to see just how much can change in such a short period of time.

It’s A Contingency Plan For My Friends (And Me)

The last reason is you can use LinkedIn in the same way you’d use an emergency fund. Sometimes stuff happens that is out of your control and if “stuff” involves losing your job it’s pretty nice to know people.

Recently a friend of mine was laid off. That’s an incredibly depressing text message to receive, and what could have been more depressing is feeling like I couldn’t do anything about it. Thankfully since I have been building up my network with awesome recruiters I was able to pass his information along to several people and get a few interviews lined up.

I put money into an emergency fund every month to help cover unexpected expenses. To me it only makes sense to try to add new contacts to my network every month that can help me find a new job should the need arise.

Hopefully this helps you see that LinkedIn has value outside of actively searching for a new job. If you enjoyed it feel free to recommend it (click the heart button), share it on LinkedIn (only appropriate, right?), or if you have something you’d like to add leave a response below.

I’m also on Twitter, I usually try to post links to my articles on there as well as do mini-Medium posts in 140 characters or less, feel free to follow me on there.

Cody Engel (@POTUS404) | Twitter