Let's Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work (Paperback)

~ Ajay Jain (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

LINKEDIN.COM JUST LEVELED THE PLAYING FIELD
Linkedin.com has made the world of business a much smaller place. The contacts you seek are no longer separated from you by six degrees; the number is down to one, two or three in most cases if you are on LinkedIn, by far the most successful and vibrant of all professional networking sites.

And it has leveled the playing field in ways one could not have imagined. The community of LinkedIn users can now be used by anyone for accessing faraway markets, landing dream jobs, raising capital, attracting the best of talent, building corporate brands and more. What you can achieve is limited only by your imagination and effort.

The ingredients are all there to whip up something profitable for yourself. And it is not rocket science.

This book is full of ideas, real cases and suggestions on how to get LinkedIn to work for you. Because, as you will see, LinkedIn works for you even as you sleep.

This book has been written to help you understand the possibilities offered by LinkedIn. And how to get the best out of it. This is NOT a primer or a manual on how to use LinkedIn. there is no step-by-step handholding showing you how this site works. The reasons are simple:
* The objective is to show you the big picture the user manual part has been left to others.
* LinkedIn thrives in a highly dynamic environment just like all other forms of new media. How you navigate the site, its look-and-feel and specific features are constantly undergoing change.

What you see today may look very different in a matter of a few weeks. So a LinkedIn manual has every chance of becoming obsolete overnight! But the utility of this book might not go away in a hurry.

This book is all about the principles behind using LinkedIn. While a general guidance has been provided to be able to use the site, the detailed nuts and bolts can easily be figured out on this user-friendly and simple-to-use platform.

This book is for everyone, right from those who may not have even heard of LinkedIn to those who are experienced users. There is always something new and different one can learn on this site, and this book hopes to highlight all of these.

The book has not been sanctioned or commissioned by the management of LinkedIn in any way it is an independent and objective work.

Can you afford to be Linked Out ?

About the Author

Ajay Jain is a New Delhi, India based journalist, blogger and now author with his first book, Let s Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work.

He has worked in the Information Technology and Sports Management industries before taking up a career in writing. Currently, he is focused more on covering technology and travel. He is also working on a travelogue, expected to be out early 2008.

Besides writing, his other passions are photography and travelling. He has worked as a business journalist with The Financial Express and has written columns and features for national publications in India including Outlook Business, Mint>/i> (a business daily published by HT Media in partnership with The Wall Street Journal), The Hindustan Times, Indian Management and Rediff.com. He has also edited a youth newspaper, The Campus Paper.

He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering (Delhi College of Engineering, 1992), Business Administration (Fore School of Management, 1994) and Journalism (Cardiff University, UK, 2002). His schooling was in St. Columba s School.

His Blogs
AjayJain.com
TechGazing.com
Kunzum.com

Email
[e-mail]

LinkedIn Profile
linkedin.com/in/ajayjain9

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: TCP Media Private Limited; 1st edition (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8190600702
• ISBN-13: 978-8190600705
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #670,142 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great guide on how to use LinkedIn to advance your professional career, March 25, 2008

By	Hjortur Smarason (Reykjavik, Iceland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Let's Connect is not a manual about LinkedIn and how to use it but a book about the principles behind using LinkedIn as a networking tool and the philosophy behind it. In it Ajay talks about how you can make the most of LinkedIn, the worlds largest network of professionals with over 17 million participants, for your professional career. Let's Connect is based on his research and interviews with participants on LinkedIn and is full of great quotes and real examples of effective use of the LinkedIn network.

I signed up on LinkedIn in September last year and it has turned out to be a great move. I have learned a lot from Questions and Answers, got to know great people and got projects and business opportunities I would never have imagined. Part of it is thanks to Ajay Jain's white paper on how to use LinkedIn, which was the start of this book.

This new book, Let's Connect, is full of great tips on how to make LinkedIn work for you. I realized there are still so many opportunities on LinkedIn that I haven't fully utilized yet. Business is all about communication between the right individuals and LinkedIn is the place to start that communication. As Ajay asks at the beginning of his book, "Do you want to be Linked In or Linked Out?" The choice is yours.

It's a network of professionals on all levels, including executives from almost all the Fortune 500 companies, known authors and specialists. One of Ajay's examples of users of Answers is Barack Obama who posted the question: How can the next President better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive? A smart use of the LinkedIn network.

The most valuable chapter, and by far the largest, is chapter 5 "Ten ways to get LinkedIn to work for you". There Ajay covers these ten topics:

i Your Ever Expanding Rolodex
ii LinkedIn Answers: A Global Focus Group
iii Networking Plus
iv Branding and Marketing Yourself
v Hiring People
vi Finding a Job You Love
vii Finding Vendors and Service Providers
viii Running Background Checks
ix Entrepreneurs: Get Opinions and Investors
x Selling & Brand Building

I would have liked to see more on using LinkedIn for personal branding, but then again, personal branding is one of my special interests. Other chapters where eye opening for me about subjects I had not given much thought before.

If you are serious about advancing your professional career and making the most of your personal brand and your network, LinkedIn is a must and Ajay's book "Let's Connect" is your guide, whether you're new to LinkedIn or not.

Hjörtur

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lets's Connect - A Guide for Beginners, April 20, 2008

By	David Morris "New Year Publishing" (Danville, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I enjoyed this book as someone who is specifically interested in Online Social Networking properties. The Author is definitely an expert in using LinkedIn and provided numerous facts about the service that the average person would not know. I did not know that there is a limit to the number of invitations that a user can send out (3,000). There were too many quotes from people that I had never heard of to suit my taste but that would not prevent a new user from gaining a lot of value from this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't let you LinkedIn Account gather dust - use Let's Connect to discover strategies to put it to use, March 25, 2008

By	Andrea Stenberg "The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur" (Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Many people get an invitation from a friend or colleague to join LinkedIn. They accept, sign up, get a couple of other links and then wonder, "now what?" So they sit with a LinkedIn account and do nothing further with it.

Others may put a little more effort in it; they invite their friends and colleagues, check the size of their network regularly and feel happy they're making progress. And yet, they're still not using LinkedIn to its full potential.

If you're one of those people who has an account but doesn't quite know what to do with it, then Ajay Jain's book is for you. Not a how to use LinkedIn manual, Let's Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work is a guide to using LinkedIn strategically.

Jain's book is a nice mix of practical strategies and quotes from LinkedIn users illustrating how they've used the methods Jain is writing about. These mini case studies add real authority to Jain's book and are interesting reading.

For example, Jain writes about strategies for using the Answers section of LinkedIn to your benefit. You can pose questions to conduct market research or to get ideas to solve a business problem.

You can also use Answers as a subtle form of marketing; by asking questions related to your field of business you put your name - and perhaps your website - in front of potential customers who may visit your site or start a conversation. Or they may invite you to become a connection.

Let's Connect includes some ways for using LinkedIn that I hadn't considered. If you are hiring an employee, looking them up on LinkedIn can potentially find you information that you couldn't get elsewhere. While candidates tailor their resumes to the position they're applying for, they may have a more complete resume on LinkedIn.

Furthermore, if they are connected to someone you know personally, you may get more information about this person than by contacting their past employers. You also know that any recommendations are real and haven't been altered by the candidate.

Jain also provides some information about LinkedIn that is not widely available. For example, you have a lifetime supply of 3,000 invitations. When you've used them up, that's it. Forever.

This is one piece of information I've never seen publicized on the site. As a result of reading Jain's book, I'm a little more choosy about who I send invites to. In fact, for people who are not currently a member of LinkedIn, I'm considering sending them invites by regular e-mail so that I don't waste an invitation on someone who may not be interested in joining LinkedIn at all.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Let's Connect. I'm planning on using some of Jain's strategies to build my own network and my own business. If you're a member of LinkedIn - or thinking of it - and aren't sure how to use the site effectively, Jain's book is a worthwhile purchase.

Andrea J. Stenberg
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