One of my favorite things about LinkedIn is that it hasn’t succumbed to spam. With the larger social networks, it’s difficult to manage user spam and preference abuses. I’ve been on Linkedin for a couple years now, and I’ve yet to receive a spam message in my inbox. Everything on the site seems genuine and professional. Restricting users from sending cold messages to people they don’t know is a great way to reduce spam and avoid overflowing inboxes. If LinkedIn is able to maintain this solid structure, we’ll definitely see more effective networking and collaboration online.

I was inspired to write this post after reading Fortune Magazine’s story in May’s issue entitled: “How LinkedIn Will Fire Up Your Career.” Writer Jessi Hempel emphasized the importance of having a LinkedIn profile and how more and more companies are looking to the 7-year old site for future employees. Accenture, one of the largest private consulting companies in the world has said it will be hiring 50K new employees in the next year. Head of Global Recruiting for Accenture John Campagnino announced that 40% of those new hires will be from Social Media. (Hint: If you’re looking for a job, it might be a good idea to create a profile on LinkedIn). Even if your not looking for a job, it’s good to have a presence on a site that spotlights your professional talents.

Coming out of college I had no idea about LinkedIn. Granted it wasn’t as big then as it is now, LinkedIn quickly became my “go to” site for jobs, networking and potential connections. Before I knew about LinkedIn, I would often use the career office at my schools to find future employment. The problem with this was that the choices were so limited and rarely offered any appeal. I’ll admit I did find a few jobs utilizing the school’s database, but the options were bleak. With the help of LinkedIn, we are no longer boxed into certain careers or job opportunities. We can now research those people in the positions we want to be in and find out how they got there. The resources are limitless and definitely worth exploring.