It doesn’t take long to sign up for a free general account. Once you’re inside, consider adding both present and past work colleagues, as well as your friends to your network. Really, the more contacts you have, the better. However, your LinkedIn network is not a popularity contest. Instead it is meant as a means of showing your professional network. The larger your professional network, especially within your industry, the more reputable you will appear.

As you add people to your network, the LinkedIn system will separate it into first, second, and third degrees. First degree consists of your primary contacts, those people you added. Second degrees consists of your primary contacts’ first degree contacts. Third degree is, as you might imagine, the first degree contacts of your primary contacts first degree contacts. Hopefully that wasn’t too confusing! If you can sort out your extended family you should be fine with LinkedIn–and by the way, you’re already doing better than me.

The functionality of these three tiers of contacts is interesting. Just like in the real world, you can leverage your primary contacts for introductions to potential employers who may reside on your third degree contact list.

In fact, LinkedIn offers you the opportunity to ask for introductions, gain recommendations from colleagues, friends, employers, and clients, and ultimately grow your network through your existing one.

I recommend not only joining yourself, but also encouraging your friends to join. Again, the larger your initial network, the larger it will ultimately be.

LinkedIn also gives you the opportunity to prove your professional expertise by answering questions posed by other users. The more you answer questions and show yourself to be someone with good input, the more likely it is people will ask for an introduction through a shared contact or ask to be a contact directly.

Quite aside from LinkedIn’s internal functionality and use, they also recently created a plugin for your browser that activates when you are on Careerbuilder.com.

The browser plugin works as you click on jobs in the Careerbuilder system. When you click on a job, the LinkedIn bar to the left of your screen will give you a list of contacts within the company at each tier of your network. You can then ask for information about the company from someone within it, or again, leverage the contact for a recommendation inside the company you’re interested in joining. This is a truly revolutionary Web 2.0 tool which allows you to take your career into your own hands with a visible network of contacts and the means to take advantage of their connections.

Elena

In your chaotic world full of responsibilities and demands, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and exhausted.  Juggling your presentation at work, a final exam at school, and still feeling connected to your family is a tiresome balancing act.  Yet, at the same time, this quandary provides the opportunity for great success.  Demonstrating quality time management and life balancing skills affords you the opportunity to become a role model for your family’s future successes.  Follow these steps throughout your personal, professional, and academic journeys and you will discover the keys to a happy, balanced, and successful life.

1. Share your dreams with your family; in return they share in your success.

2. Describe the ways in which returning to school affects each member of the family, and share your hope that reaching your goals will ultimately benefit all.

3. Place a high value on personal needs.

4. Create an efficient environment in your home where all work and study materials are kept and where you can shift-gears and work resourcefully.

5. Ask for uninterrupted quiet time, but remember to reciprocate with your time later.

6. Prioritize your responsibilities and define for each of you what requirements you have in order to complete them.

7. Learn to delegate age-appropriate tasks to your children and discuss household responsibilities with your spouse.

8. Create a schedule and stick to it.

9. Consider keeping a large family calendar where every member posts his/her schedule.

10. Remember to be flexible and realistic.

Amanda

For those of you still unfamiliar with Facebook (http://www.facebook.com), this social networking website is set up for you to get to know people in your classes and at your school. Using your NIU e-mail address, you can become part of the NIU Facebook network.   Facebook is structured as a series of networks. These networks can be people in your highschool, university, company, or region. You can join multiple networks at the same time. Your basic profile on Facebook includes name, contact information, and interests. For all of this content, you can choose what is visible publicly, meaning by your network(s) or by friends only. There are a number of reasons why it is important to manage what is visible on your profile carefully.Increasingly, because Facebook opened its doors to everyone as opposed to just students in school specific networks, employers have begun looking at potential employee profiles on social networks like Facebook and MySpace.  In order to limit the amount of information they can see and potentially judge you on, you should think very hard about first, what content you put up, and second, what you should make private to your friend network. Recently, Facebook opened up to include enhanced profile content, including externally built applications that allow you to do everything from compare movie and music tastes with other users, to upload video and store documents. For every application you add, you can to choose whether to make them visible on your profile page.  Picking and choosing which applications are visible and to whom is a smart way of managing your privacy, while still networking with people with similar interests. For more Facebook privacy information go to http://niu.facebook.com/policy.php. The NIU network on Facebook is growing every day and includes students from the main campus as well as those off-campus.   As just one of the pieces of information you can upload, your course schedule can connect you with other students in your particular classes as well as people taking the same course at a different time and location.   This means that off-campus students can remain connected to on-campus students with the same classes and similar interests. This is ideal if you want to compare or exchange comments about your classroom experiences, track assignments, and make connections both on and off campus.  

The Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org) is a subject-oriented guide providing easy access to an array of library services and internet resources.  This site provides specific categories that link to over 45,000 reference sources.  Each source has been reviewed and selected by professional, degree-holding librarians.  Users can email on-site librarians regarding research topics and receive a reply within three days.

The Librarians Internet Index (www.lii.org) is a publicly-funded website featuring quality links already screened, reviewed, and organized by a staff of reputable librarians.  In addition to the database, the librarians deliver a newsletter, “New this Week,” highlighting the staff’s favorite links.  Review or subscribe to this free report at http://www.lii.org/pub/news/50.

The University of Wisconsin produces the Internet Scout Project (www.scout.wisc.edu), a site dedicated to facilitating the research process.  Check out “The Scout Report,” (www.scout.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/scout-report) published every Friday and available on the web or by email.  This service keeps you informed about valuable resources on the Internet. Expert UW librarians and graduate students select, research, and annotate each resource.  Access requires a log-in, but is free for all users.

Google has developed a new beta site called Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com).  This resource searches multi-disciplinary channels so users can identify relevant sources from a variety of fields.  Links provide information and knowledge produced by scholarly research in specified fields. 

Google U.S. Government Search (http://www.google.com/ig/usgov) provides users with a single location for searching through government content and keeps you up-to-date on federal news. A key feature of this site is access to federal, state, and local government websites from a single search box.

The U.S. Government Printing Office has created GPO Access (www.gopaccess.gov), a search engine providing free access to a wealth of information produced by the federal government.  Materials on this site are published officially and can be used without restriction.

We would be remiss if we did not also direct students to the NIU Libraries (www.ulib.niu.edu).  NIU offers comprehensive services including online catalogs, research tools, and instruction in use of all library resources. The “Ask a Librarian” chat service responds within 48 hours to online questions.

NIU participates in several Interlibrary services such as Illinet Online, WorldCat, and Statewide Illinois Library Catalog. These lending services connect you to local, national, and international academic libraries.

NIU students gain off-campus access with a library ID (usually a social security number with no dashes).  If your ID is not recognized, contact the library’s circulation desk at 815-753-9844 for helpful assistance.

Happy research surfing! 

Amanda