A lot of people find it ironic that I put an end to my job search by starting a company that helps other people with their job searches. I’ll admit that it’s a bit odd, but it seems to be working out pretty well. Maybe you’ll do something similar by starting your career with an internship at a job-search focused company like Mountain View, CA based LinkedIn. There are plenty of other companies trying to build professional social networks and online résumé sites, but none of them seem to have any hope competing with LinkedIn. LinkedIn reached critical mass first, and that’s why they’re one of my favorite online job search tools. Not only do they allow you to visualize your own professional network to see whom you’re connected to, but they also let you browse through the networks of different companies to learn more about their organizational structure. Where else can you get access to the résumé (which includes where they interned) of someone whose job you want to have five years down the road? LinkedIn is an amazing tool for smart job and internship seekers, and it’s also an amazing business—they’ve been profitable for nearly three years (which is impressive for a startup of their size and scope).
LinkedIn is obviously much more than a job search tool, but that’s its most common use for college students. If you’re not already on the site, you should sign up today. If you are, you should invest some time and effort into learning more about how to use the site—we have some great tutorials in our job search training course, Found Your Career. This goes doubly if you want to land a job at LinkedIn—I can’t imagine their hiring anyone who isn’t extremely familiar with their product. It wouldn’t make sense. Oddly enough, LinkedIn’s Careers site and Job Search function leave something to be desired. Maybe it’s because I expect theirs to be best of breed, but I’m disappointed. The Careers site provides all of the normal information that you’d expect, and the Job listings are just that—a list of jobs. They don’t seem to have a specific section on internships, so all you can do is look at their job postings—I find using this link more helpful for that, as it will make the results a little easier to sort through. Right now they have a number of internships posted including Summer Software Engineer (iPhone, Mobile) Intern, Summer Software Engineering Intern, Summer Technical Operations Intern, Marketing Intern – Recruitment (Mumbai, India), and Marketing Intern – Inside Advertising Sales (Mumbai, India). They don’t seem to mention whether or not these positions are paid. Since LinkedIn is all about networking, you may even want to skip the job postings, and just focus on using the site to connect with people at the company—that would show true knowledge of how their product works.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Do you use LinkedIn?
Do I Know Anyone at LinkedIn? - Check LinkedIn | Check Facebook
Tags: advertising, California, engineering, India, information technology, international, Internships, marketing, operations, recruiting, sales, software development, web development
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