LinkedIn is a professional network.

This can be used for recruiting, for blog posts, for writing, for schools and universities to find you, there are scholarship groups. Your boss is probably listed on it.

The company you work for is definitely on it.

In a quick Google search about whether or not it can be considered a social media platform, there were many articles, many of them by LinkedIn itself. Some contradicted themselves, as in some said yes, it is a social media platform and some said no, it is not.

I remember when I first decided to use it as a blog post site was after I was encouraged by a nursing life coach. She explained that it was used by many different industries and many different hospital systems, in many different ways.

I am a member of a writing group through it. Also an alumni group for Queens University, and Chamberlain College of Nursing.

I get job alerts daily. I set this up in advance when I was overreacting to the call job and the absolutely shocking decrease in take-home pay that year.

If I want to become more serious about freelance writing, there is a job code for that. I’ve set aside some of the medical-type companies looking for a freelancer. I can explore those when I am done with school.

There is a lot that LinkedIn can do for you, no matter what your level of interest.

AORN is definitely on it, as are the specialty assemblies. The Clinical Nurse Educator Specialty Assembly uses it to advertise their meetings. The e-Chapter of AORN, which is the chapter I belong it, uses it to advertise their quarterly Journal club.

There are lots of ways to interact with the platform, no matter what you are looking for.

It is well worth the exploration time.

And free. Did I mention it was free?

There are a lot of different ways to use LinkedIn for your professional life. And also some ways to use it for your non-professional life.

How would you use LinkedIn as a platform to find other professionals/jobs?