LinkedIn – the dominant social networking site for professionals – is often referred to as “Facebook for grown-ups”. It’s not. There’s nothing fun or goofy about LinkedIn. You can’t play idiotic games on it, you can’t join stupid fan clubs, and you definitely wouldn’t use it to share photos of yourself desperately necking a bottle of Bacardi at your bogan cousin’s 21st. Put it this way: if Facebook is Buenos Aires, LinkedIn is Brussels.

So, given our preference for beach parties over bureaucracy, we were as surprised as anyone by how much we’ve fallen for LinkedIn. And apparently we’re not alone, as it now has over 70 million users worldwide.

Basically, LinkedIn is really good at what it does, which is connecting professionals and helping them manage their careers. It doesn’t look sexy (I’ve heard it described as “myspace designed by Microsoft”) but it is easy to use and much of its functionality is free. Currently, it’s dominated by the more conservative professions, but this is changing. We’re seeing more and more people in fashion, media and sport getting on board.

LinkedIn is also becoming extremely popular with recruiters, who can use it to search for people by organisation or job title. We even know of one recruiter who claims to rely on LinkedIn exclusively to find candidates (we think he’s bullshitting, but he could just be way ahead of his time).

As a job seeker, you can use LinkedIn to

• Create a user profile, with photo, outlining your career history

• Create a network of contacts (you must know them or be introduced to them by someone you know)

• Mail people (which is handy if you don’t have someone’s email address)

• Research organisations

• Start or join professional or interest groups

• Save (i.e. bookmark) jobs you want to apply for

• Publish references about yourself.

So, in short, you’d be nuts not to be on LinkedIn. It only takes about half an hour to set up a profile and now is the time to do it (as opposed to the week before Christmas when you’ve just been made redundant and your broadband’s on the blink). Joining LinkedIn may not be as much fun as hanging out on Facebook, but it’s a smart thing to do. And if you don’t, we just might throw a sheep at you :)

Check ours out… GXY Search LinkedIn