I attended a developer un-conference yesterday called Minnebar, and received a lot of great advice, learned a lot, and best part is that it was free!
But I’m not writing this to brag about how awesome the tech community is here.
I want to share some of what I learned at one of the sessions I attended, which was about LinkedIn and networking. I am currently looking for my next job and looking to grow as a developer, but I realized that I am, as I’m sure many others are, terrible at networking.
If you have less than 501 LinkedIn followers, you are irrelevant. Once you get above 501, it will forever say 500+. But you need to get above that to show, especially in the tech field, that you are relevant.
I can only tell about my experience from Minnesota (USA), but I assume it would be similar around the would as well. So to help fix that, anyone who wishes to add me on LinkedIn, I will do the same. My linked in is:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-frederiksen/
But of course that is only the first part!
You need to fill it all out of course! Fill out as much as you can even if you don’t have actual development work, you can include FreeCodeCamp on your LinkedIn (I did as well feel free to look as an example, but I’m still trying to take the advice myself!). Max out your summary. The first two sentences need to POP. Because if it doesn’t, who will want to even keep reading?
You only get one first impression. And the first thing most people will see is your picture. Use a professional picture! Very important. And it needs to be recent. People expect you to look like your picture when you meet them.
Next suggestion is to use key words. Target jobs that you are applying for. You do not need to ever hit 100% of the check boxes either. Just use as much as you can. But don’t lie! You will most likely get found out and when you do there goes that opportunity.
The last few suggestions are only after the rest is completed, as those are most important. But these will still help.
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Join a group on LinkedIn and post often! This will get your picture seen more, and the more seen you are, the better! Even if it’s just short comments at first. Just participate as much as you can. And groups between 500 - 2000 people are best. You don’t want too few people in the group so you are are the only one saying anything. But also you don’t want to be in a group where what you said gets lost immediately among all the other posts.
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Next step is to actually write articles yourself! It sounds scary I know. But start by taking what other people say, and then share your view about it. Find a new JS framework that interests you? Share it and tell why!
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The last suggestion I heard was to get recommendations from people. And not from close friends. If you can get a mentor or supervisor to give you a recommendation, great! Even a co worker or someone you pair programmed with.
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Overall there was a lot of information and I wanted to share it with this community as well. If this goes over well I’ll try to write about other sessions I go to and what I learned. We’re all here to help each other.
Tl;dr →
I went to a conference. Learned a lot. LinkedIn is important.
3 main keys:
- Create a great profile.
- Connect as much as you can.
- And share content / converse (relevantly).
Thanks for reading! Let me know if this was helpful or not! And feel free to connect on LinkedIn! 
