In 2020 I received an interesting request to connect on LinkedIn. Thanks to (then) high school student Evita David for discovering me on the Social Psychology Network, contacting me on LinkedIn, and sharing her first blogpost. Since then Evita has become a productive blogger and a Friend You have taught me a lot, even when you were a precocious sixteen-year old from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Thank you! I look forward to learning more from you. Thanks for sharing below what led you to LinkedIn, how you have used it, and what you like and dislike about it
SWITCHING INTO THE LINKEDIN WORLD: Evita David
- The year when coronavirus struck India. A year full of anxiousness. Unpredictable days. A year when a lot of them lost hope. It was a year full of chaos. A year that some might never want to look back at. Amidst this chaotic India, we also found people who comforted themselves and others with their talents. There was another set of people who started discovering themselves. I was one among them.
I had completed my 10th-grade exams then. A couple of months into the lockdown left me feeling stressed. On the advice of one of my family members, I started involving myself in a few online courses. Psychology being one of my interests, I enrolled myself in an introductory course on Coursera.
After completing my 6-week course, I felt more inclined toward the subject. This made me explore more courses. But this time, I turned to LinkedIn. However, I didn’t find much for me. What could I do by connecting with professionals? I have no idea whom to connect with. What can I do on a platform that offers jobs? These thoughts made me hibernate my account. And as before, I enrolled myself in a course on Coursera. But this changed a lot of things. I started involving myself in discussion forums. We were given access to plenty of other resources too. I noticed a lot of people talking about LinkedIn. I found some profiles as well. This made me reactivate my account. I looked out for people whose profiles I found on the course. I connected with them. I started exploring. This made me land my first internship. That’s when I started blogging. And, LinkedIn did let me blog as well.
When I started connecting with more people, I had a couple of questions running in my head. Why would somebody connect with a sixteen-year-old? They were well-established people, and what could they learn from me? Despite these thoughts, I sent connection requests. Sending requests along with a note worked for me. A lot of reports have also found that people are more likely to accept requests that way. While some accepted, some didn’t. But the ones with whom I connected were some brilliant and incredible people. I also found the platform more inclusive. It widened my perspectives.
The fact that I could connect with people across the globe and browse using filters interested me. I also love the profile creation process. The analytics have fascinated me. What kind of people have searched for my profile? What keywords have they used? What kind of people have engaged with my posts? Where do they live, which industry are they into, and what’s their seniority?
While I love these features of LinkedIn, like any other platform, there are also some that I dislike. For example, the platform displays posts that some of our connections have liked or commented on. Moreover, it displays posts of those connections with whom we engage the most. As a result, we don’t get an opportunity to engage with the posts of other connections. And it would be exhausting to search for posts separately.
But on a whole, I’m grateful for being a part of the LinkedIn community. I’ve learned a lot. And I’m excited to meet more amazing humans. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s connect and have some fun! I would be glad to hear your LinkedIn stories too!
