How to make the most of LinkedIn

如何充分利用LinkedIn

Social media and career development typically don’t mix. Doom-scrolling Elon Musk’s tweets or getting sucked into the latest TikTok craze do not exactly enhance your work prospects. Unless, that is, the social network in question is LinkedIn. Founded in 2003 in Silicon Valley as a platform for professional networking, and purchased in 2016 by Microsoft for $26bn, it has become a fixture of corporate cyberspace, with more than 800m registered users worldwide. Its 171m American members outnumber the country’s labour force. High-school students are creating profiles to include with their college applications. The chances are you probably have one, too. How do you make the most of it?

不要在社交媒體上尋求個(gè)人職業(yè)發(fā)展。翻看埃隆·馬斯克的推文，或者沉浸在最新的TikTok熱潮中，都不會(huì)提升你的工作前景。除非這個(gè)社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)是LinkedIn。LinkedIn于2003年在硅谷成立，當(dāng)時(shí)是一個(gè)專業(yè)社交平臺(tái)，2016年LinkedIn被微軟以260億美元收購(gòu)，現(xiàn)已成為企業(yè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)空間的一部分，在全球擁有逾8億注冊(cè)用戶。其1.71億美國(guó)會(huì)員的數(shù)量超過(guò)了美國(guó)的勞動(dòng)力數(shù)量。高中生們正在創(chuàng)建個(gè)人資料，以提交大學(xué)申請(qǐng)。很有可能你也有一個(gè)賬號(hào)。你如何最大限度地利用它?

For those who have yet to link up with LinkedIn, the first, critical, step is fashioning your profile. First, choose a slick photo: think visionary resolve meets empathetic authenticity. Next, list your educational and professional history. Remember, nothing is too trivial. Went to a selective kindergarten? Say so; it illustrates that you were a winner from a tender age. As you draw up your list, make sure that it reads in the most deadpan way possible: no adjectives, no personal touch. The mechanical and the matter-of-fact is at a premium.

對(duì)于那些還沒(méi)有與LinkedIn建立聯(lián)系的人來(lái)說(shuō)，關(guān)鍵的第一步是塑造你的個(gè)人資料。首先，選擇一張漂亮的照片: 想象有遠(yuǎn)見(jiàn)的決心和同理心的真實(shí)性。接下來(lái)，列出你的教育和職業(yè)經(jīng)歷。記住，沒(méi)有什么是微不足道的。上的是名牌幼兒園? 就這么說(shuō); 這說(shuō)明你從小就是贏家。當(dāng)你起草這份清單時(shí)，確保它盡可能讀起來(lái)不帶感情色彩: 沒(méi)有形容詞，沒(méi)有個(gè)人風(fēng)格。機(jī)械的和實(shí)事求是的東西是很珍貴的。

Armed with your profile, you can get down to business and begin creating your network. You need to have 500 or more connections in your profile to be taken seriously. To achieve this, you need to step out of your comfort zone and accost complete strangers. Do not treat it as you would inviting classmates you do not know to your birthday party, which in real life makes you look desperate. On LinkedIn, cringeworthy is not part of the lexicon. Your columnist, a guest Bartleby, has amassed 6,315 connections, of whom she actually knows maybe 300.

有了你的個(gè)人資料，你就可以開(kāi)始著手創(chuàng)建你的網(wǎng)絡(luò)了。在你的資料被認(rèn)真對(duì)待前，你需要有500個(gè)或更多的“人脈”。要做到這一點(diǎn)，你需要走出自己的舒適區(qū)，去和完全陌生的人搭訕。不要把它當(dāng)作是邀請(qǐng)你不認(rèn)識(shí)的同學(xué)參加你的生日聚會(huì)，這在現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中會(huì)讓你看起來(lái)很絕望。在LinkedIn上，“cringeworthy”(令人尷尬)這個(gè)詞并不存在。你的專欄作家巴托比已經(jīng)積累了6,315個(gè)人脈，其中她實(shí)際上認(rèn)識(shí)的可能有300個(gè)。

Remember that cousin Dimitris your mother always mentions on the phone, who works at Bain Capital in Boston? What better way than an innocuous LinkedIn invite to reconnect—and get a toehold in his private-equity network. And that man who sat next to you on the red-eye back from Chicago? Even if you recall only his first name and the company he works at, LinkedIn’s algorithm should be able to let you track him down with relative ease.

還記得你母親在電話里經(jīng)常提到的那個(gè)在波士頓貝恩資本工作的堂兄迪米特里斯嗎? 還有什么比一個(gè)無(wú)傷大雅的 LinkedIn 邀請(qǐng)更好的方式重新建立聯(lián)系呢？而且還能在他的私募股權(quán)網(wǎng)絡(luò)中獲得一個(gè)立足點(diǎn)。那個(gè)從芝加哥坐紅眼航班回來(lái)時(shí)坐在你旁邊的男人呢?即使你只記得他的名字和他工作的公司，LinkedIn的算法也應(yīng)該能讓你相對(duì)容易地找到他。

If you are an analyst at Goldman Sachs, connect with every analyst in JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and ubs. Don’t worry, they are thinking the same thing, so are likely to oblige. While you are at it, you might as well approach everyone with a pulse at Goldman, too. If a higher-up—best of all, the ceo— happens to accept, you have struck gold. The boss’s existing connections will treat you as more of an equal; those desperate to get one degree of separation closer to the top dog will come begging. Your network will explode.

如果你是高盛的分析師，那就聯(lián)系一下摩根大通、摩根士丹利和瑞銀的每一位分析師。別擔(dān)心，他們也在想同樣的事情，所以他們很可能會(huì)幫忙。當(dāng)你這樣做的時(shí)候，你還可能接近高盛的每個(gè)人。如果一個(gè)高層——最好是首席執(zhí)行官——碰巧接受了，你就挖到寶了。老板現(xiàn)有的關(guān)系會(huì)更加平等地對(duì)待你; 那些渴望離老板更近一步的人會(huì)來(lái)“請(qǐng)求”。你的網(wǎng)絡(luò)將會(huì)爆炸。

Next, flaunt your every success. LinkedIn is to white-collar workers what Instagram is to fashionistas: a way to present the most envy-provoking version of yourself. “Deeply honoured to have been ranked in the Global Elite category of Thought Leaders by [insert name of obscure organisation which hands out random titles].”

其次，炫耀你的每一次成功。LinkedIn 對(duì)于白領(lǐng)而言，就像 Instagram 對(duì)于時(shí)尚達(dá)人一樣: 這是一種展示最令人羨慕的自己的方式。“很榮幸被[這里插入某個(gè)鮮為人知的組織的名字，該組織隨機(jī)頒發(fā)頭銜]評(píng)為全球精英思想領(lǐng)袖。”

If you want everyone to know that you were a speaker at the Bloomberg Global Regulatory Forum, attach photos of yourself on the podium—and own it. Posting is, in essence, showing off, so any attempt to mitigate invariably comes across as humble-bragging (“I was told by colleagues I should be sharing my successes. So I am proud to announce that I was invited to participate in the Innovation Leaders panel.”). Bartleby posts only her columns (such as this one) with zero commentary.

如果你想讓所有人都知道你曾在彭博全球監(jiān)管論壇上發(fā)表演講，那就附上你在領(lǐng)獎(jiǎng)臺(tái)上的照片——并承認(rèn)它。從本質(zhì)上講，發(fā)帖是一種炫耀，所以任何試圖減輕壓力的嘗試都會(huì)被認(rèn)為是謙虛的自夸(“同事們告訴我，我應(yīng)該分享我的成功。因此，我很自豪地宣布，我被邀請(qǐng)參加創(chuàng)新領(lǐng)袖小組?！? 巴托比只發(fā)布她的專欄(比如這篇)，沒(méi)有任何評(píng)論。

While you are feeding the app your achievements, do not pay too much attention to those of others—that will allow you to appear poised and unflappable, not envious. Ignore automatically generated prompts like “Congratulate Dimitris on starting a new position as co-head of European Private Equity at kkr”. These are designed, as if by your mother, to rub it in your face and motivate you to be more ambitious (come to think of it, she did mention your cousin had moved to London).

當(dāng)你在APP上展示你的成就時(shí)，不要過(guò)多關(guān)注其他人的成就——這會(huì)讓你顯得泰然自若，處變不驚，而不是嫉妒。忽略自動(dòng)生成的提示，如“祝賀迪米特里斯開(kāi)始擔(dān)任kkr歐洲私人股本聯(lián)席主管的新職位”。這些都是設(shè)計(jì)出來(lái)的，就像你媽媽設(shè)計(jì)的那樣，好像是為了戳你的痛處，激勵(lì)你更有野心 (仔細(xì)想想，她確實(shí)提到過(guò)你的表兄搬到了倫敦)。

You need to play it cool so disregard all automatic prompts such as “Take a moment to recognise one year of being connected to your co-worker”. That time is better spent forging fresh connections to rack up the numbers—which, in the gratification-seeking, gamified world of social-networking, is ultimately a big part of what LinkedIn is all about. According to the latest notification, “You appeared in 178 searches this week.” So you must be doing something right.

你需要保持冷靜，所以不要理會(huì)所有自動(dòng)提示，比如“花點(diǎn)時(shí)間回顧一下你和同事交往的一年”。這段時(shí)間最好用來(lái)建立新的聯(lián)系來(lái)積累人脈數(shù)上——在社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)這個(gè)追求滿足感、游戲化的世界里，這最終是LinkedIn的重要組成部分。根據(jù)最新的通知，“本周你出現(xiàn)在178個(gè)搜索中。” 所以你一定做對(duì)了什么。