Social network feature rewards those who follow -- Career Center Blog

July 24, 2010

Social network feature rewards those who follow

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By Randy Woods
NWjobs

Most companies these days are looking for good leadership qualities in their job candidates. But to get to that all-important interview, sometimes it's good to be a follower.

The social media landscape has made the act of following -- friends, family, celebrities, hiring managers, what have you -- part of our daily routine. Twitter is, of course, the first site that comes to mind, and for good reason. What many job-seekers may not realize, however, is that Twitter's older, more stodgy cousin LinkedIn allows you to follow the hiring/firing trends at your favorite companies more closely than ever before with the Follow Company function.

Not long ago, LinkedIn had a reputation of being little more than a static place for professionals to brag to their friends about their accomplishments and collect links that mostly gathered cyberdust. Then, in 2008, the site launched its Company Profiles feature, which provided snapshots of more than 160,000 companies. This allowed you to click on a company you admired and instantly see how many people in your network worked there, or used to work there. Overnight, the Company Profiles feature made LinkedIn an essential tool to find contacts who could lead you to hiring managers.

While this feature makes it easy to find connections, it still requires a lot of legwork. LinkedIn members must actively seek out these connections to find out when jobs become available -- a healthy activity for job seekers, but also a time-consuming task as your networks continue to grow.

Then, no doubt in response to the rise of Twitter, LinkedIn added Follow Company, which enables you to choose specific companies you want to work for and receive updates on the latest personnel news. If you haven't heard of this feature yet, it may be because LinkedIn has not done much to highlight it. To look for companies that you would like to follow, click on the "More..." navigation button at the top of your LinkedIn profile page and select "Companies" in the drop-down menu, which will bring you to a search window.

As long as you are connected to at least one person at the companies you search for, you can click the "Follow Company" link and get up-to-the-minute reports on developments at the company. This information includes recent hires and departures from those in your network, new job openings, the latest news about acquisitions and mergers, and other company information.

By checking the feature regularly, you can find out not only how often a company is hiring but also what types of positions they are likely in need of. For instance, if you are looking for accounting work and notice that the CFO at your coveted firm has recently left the company, that might be a good time to start chatting up your contacts about your number-crunching skills. If you act quickly enough, you may be able to reach a hiring manager before he or she can post an ad for the position.

Like all social media tools, LinkedIn's Follow Company feature is not intended to replace regular networking activities. Those who start "following" every company they can think of and then kick back and wait for the job offers to start rolling in will be just as disappointed as those who are still scanning want-ads. This tool is only as good as the network of contacts you maintain. It can get you a foot in the door as soon as it opens, but the rest is up to you. Start following!

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.