Up until now, you might have come across only casual social networks. However, did you know there is a professional social network as well?
I am speaking about LinkedIn. It is geared towards professionals and can help you build your career as well. Before you make up your mind about it, do check out the LinkedIn review below.
Once you do so, it will become simple to understand why this network is imperative to your career and professional growth.
Review Details
Name: LinkedIn
Website: LinkedIn
Owners: Allen Blue, Reid Hoffman, Eric Ly, Konstantin Guericke, and Jean-Luc Vaillant.
Year Established: May 2003
Industry: Business Networking Platform
Price: Free – $119.99/month
Overall Rank: 4.5/5.0
Overview
With over 706 million members, LinkedIn is one of the largest social networks online. It caters to professionals and incorporates.
The official website LinkedIn.com is open to registration for users around the globe.
The company has over 15,000 employees. Not only that, but it also has its dedicated advertising platform.
It has got glowing reviews and ratings on various platforms. Such ratings clearly indicate that it is a great social network to be on and a great company to be employed with.
As stated above, it caters to professionals as well as incorporates. Many companies use it for recruiting. Job seekers use it for reaching out to recruiters.
It has a publishing platform as well. It allows any user to publish their blog posts, thesis, as well as case studies.
With its user base growing by leaps and bounds, it is fast turning into a personal branding tool as well. As you can see, it is a social network that caters to every individual’s life’s professional aspect.
Its growth by leaps and bounds and the fact that it caters to professionals, certainly helps this social network stand out.
Training and Tools
The basic membership of LinkedIn is completely free. As a free member, you can send anyone a connection request (anyone that has a public profile).
It is up to that individual to accept your connection request or not. Once the individual accepts your connection request, you can send them a Private message.
Free members can also post articles as well as share various other media. Like in real life, LinkedIn helps you socialize with people from multiple industries and business circles.
The greater your number of connections, the better it is.
Apart from the free membership, LinkedIn offers paid membership plans as well. I will go into the details of such plans below.
-
Premium Career Plan
The premium career plan is geared towards individuals seeking a job. The plan allows you to use LinkedIn’s InMail messaging system.
You get three InMail message credits. Additionally, you can also view the individuals who have not viewed your profile.
The membership also provides you with access to LinkedIn Learning. The platform consists of over 15,000 different learning courses that allow you to learn new skills.
Not only that, since it is geared towards the job seeker, it also provides you with interview training. You get interview questions to solve, expert interview answers, and much more.
When it comes to job seeking, it allows you to apply to jobs with featured applicant status. Not only that, but it also provides you with applicant insights.
This is what makes this membership so much more valuable.
The applicant insights let you know how you scored with respect to other candidates who applied for the same job.
You can work towards improving your application so that you bag the job more easily. Thus, if you’re seeking a job through LinkedIn job listings, this membership is a must.
The cost of this plan is $29.99 per month.
-
Business plus
The business plus membership is for business owners. You get 15 InMail message credits.
Moreover, with 90 days of data to check who viewed your profile, it is easy to reach out and connect with other individuals.
Unlimited profile searches allow you to network and socialize with other business owners and job seekers quite easily.
All these features certainly justify the price of $59.99 per month.
-
Sales Navigator
This membership also offers 15 InMail message credits. The plan is geared towards helping you generate leads. You can create custom playlists and also get lead recommendations.
With the help of 15 InMail message credits, it is easy for you to reach out to other businesses to generate leads for your organization.
The ability to generate leads certainly justifies the cost of $79.99 per month of this membership.
-
Recruiter Lite
The recruiter lite account gets you 30 InMail message credits. Not only that, but you also get template saving functionality as well.
You get to view the name of individuals who viewed your profile. Also, if you’re trying to recruit anyone, you can add an automatic candidate tracking feature as well.
The number of profiles which you can search is limited as well.
With these and numerous other features on offer, it does provide great value for money $119.99 per month.
As you can see, LinkedIn has a membership type for every professional. You can find a suitable one without any worry.
The good news is that all of them provide excellent value for the money.
Before you decide about the membership you want to get, take a look at customer support’s quality.
Customer Support
LinkedIn offers a contact us form for all the users. However, if you’re planning to get a membership, a dedicated sales team can get back to you.
There is a separate dedicated support department for businesses and individuals on LinkedIn.
The good news is that you can certainly expect a reply from LinkedIn support agents in a few working days whether you’re a free member or a paid member.
In terms of customer support, that is not much to complain about.
Price
LinkedIn offers free basic membership. However, if you want to get InMail messaging credits or many more features, you can go for their paid plans as well. The price of paid plans is as follows:
- Job Seeker membership plan costs you $29.99 per month.
- Business Plus plans Plus plan will cost you $59.99 per month.
- Sales Navigator plans Navigator plan will cost you $79.99 per month of $700 per year.
- Recruiter Light will cost you $119.99 per month.
While on the face of it, these plans might seem expensive, but they provide tremendous value in reality.
Because you will be able to network across your industry and other individuals globally, it is an exceedingly small price to pay.
Compare this with the cost of attending an exhibition or a conference, and you will understand why these LinkedIn membership plans provide great value.
Final Evaluation
My final evaluation states that LinkedIn can help you in more ways than one. It excels in various departments like:
-
Job seeking
You will be directly able to approach the companies. Companies can post job vacancies on their profile page. Consequently, it is quite easy for you to find a job.
Since you will contact the companies and individuals in an instant, it makes sense to get the job seeker membership plan if you’re looking for a job.
-
Networking
This is the strong point of LinkedIn. Rather than wasting weekends trying to attend exhibitions and events, you can network with other individuals on LinkedIn.
Moreover, you can consistently expand your business circle, as well. That will help you in generating more business eventually.
-
Lead generation
This is one of the best things about LinkedIn. You can use it for lead generation as well. That ensures you can directly generate revenue and monetize your presence on LinkedIn.
Sure enough, it has a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it is easy to grow your business with the help of LinkedIn.
-
Recruitment
With the help of the candidate tracking feature, recruiting on LinkedIn is easier than ever. You will be able to get candidates of the caliber which you want.
Normally, on other job posting sites, the caliber of candidates you get depends on the number of applications you receive and the type of candidates who apply.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, allows you to have control over the candidates whom you hire.
As you can see, irrespective of the purpose for which you are joining LinkedIn, it provides enormous value. You will be able to use it to your advantage with minimal effort certainly.
Conclusion
In my opinion, instead of spending time on casual social networks, LinkedIn is a much better option. The time which you spend on LinkedIn can help you find new jobs, create a brand identity, or recruit candidates for your business.
It covers every aspect of your professional life, so you can use it in the way you want. I would like to conclude this LinkedIn review by saying that it is essential for you to be on the social network if you want to excel in your business or career.
I would love to hear what you think of LinkedIn? Did you know it had several different plans? Are you a member of LinkedIn? What has been your experience been with LinkedIn? You may share your questions and comments in the section below and I will be happy to respond.
All the best!
Barbara
Founder/Creator: Living On Lean Means 💰
2
0
20
Great information….One thing I would like to share here is if you’re going to use LinkedIn, you need to set aside time for reading through all the settings and customizations, as many of them are very important and will make or break your experience with the site.
One huge gripe LinkedIn members have is that the service sends them excessive email. There are more than 20 different types of email notifications to customize or disable.
I absolutely feel that LinkedIn sends too much email by default, but I also think the options it offers are excellent. It’s just that going through those options is a mandatory exercise.
Satish,
Hello and I certainly appreciate you checking in and reading my LinkedIn Review.
Thank you for appreciating the fact that I presented great information in my article.
Sorry that you have had bad experiences with emails from LinkedIn, but I’m sure like anything else, there is a way for you to only request emails that are specific to your own needs.
I have had a LinkedIn Account for almost the entire 17 years that they have been in existence, and I cannot say that I’ve come across this email situation at all.
All the best,
Barbara
Hey Barbara,
It’s great that I have came across this article. I have been using LinkedIn for a while but it was only recently that I started to use it differently. When I began posting content daily and engaging on other people’s posts, my network just grew and grew. I love being on there and I love helping people on their.
Thank you for sharing and it would be great to connect on LinkedIn with you.
Keep sharing these great posts.
All the best,
Tom
Hello Tom,
Great to hear from you. I’m glad that you found my LinkedIn Review interesting.
Once your determine the best use of LinkedIn for your business, there is no telling how quickly youur business can grow.
It is the only social media tool I find that works the best for me. I would be happy to connect with you on LinkedIn. Just send me request at https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-mcginley-36b50a150/
Best wishes,
Barbara
I haven’t used LinkedIn before, but once I figured out how it works and how to use it, my business skyrocketed. I’m now getting at least 20-30 warm leads, and the numbers keep on increasing by the hour.
Hopefully, your readers will realize the potential that this network has and take advantage of it. As for you, great job on crafting such a fantastic review. I had an amazing time reading it!
Hello Gorjan,
Thank you for checking in and reading my LinkedIn Review.
I certainly do believe that LinkedIn is an excellent networking opportunity for everyone. I know that once you have discovered how to use it, you will be quite successful.
I am glad that you found my post to be informative and helpful to you.
Best Regards,
Barbara
Hi,
Thanks for the information,
Such an informative article, the LinkedIn profile allows an individual to create an online professional brand which can help open doors to new opportunities and networks. It is a great platform to demonstrate credibility in the industry and highlights achievements.
It is so important to be on LinkedIn these days as it helps to tap powerful job board, helps to build the brand, act as a research tool, helps in getting skilled as it provides a wide range of courses.
And as you mentioned with the LinkedIn premium account we can access even more information about job openings, compare to other applicants via insights or even instant salary insights.
Have a Nice Day!
Hello and thank you for stopping by and reading my LinkedIn Review. I sincerely appreciate your comments as well and I couldn’t agree with you more when it comes to all the benefits having a LinkedIn profile offers.
Best regards,
Barbara