# Professional Social Media accounts



## Lefty375 (Jul 24, 2016)

Are professional networking tools like LinkedIn considered a "plus" as a college student considering jobs like  civilian intelligence, or do they limit job possibility? Haven't seen an updated opinion on this, just what I saw on another SOF forum a long time ago saying social media limits you.


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## TLDR20 (Jul 24, 2016)

For many hiring managers the first stop is LinkedIn.


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## Lefty375 (Jul 24, 2016)

TLDR20 said:


> For many hiring managers the first stop is LinkedIn.



Thanks, I guess I have a profile to build.


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## Florida173 (Jul 24, 2016)

Don't rely on it though. Networking in person and knowing which companies support which contracts for each customer is much better. 

Depending on the customer you may want to keep your LinkedIn account a bit vague. There is a pretty sizable aggregation of intelligence professionals from LinkedIn pushed to a Wikileaks hosted ICWatch page.


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## Il Duce (Jul 24, 2016)

One of the things those networks offer is common-reference people.  If you can see someone you're interviewing with is connected to someone you know you've created some instant credibility with a reference.


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## DocIllinois (Jul 24, 2016)

Il Duce said:


> One of the things those networks offer is common-reference people.  If you can see someone you're interviewing with is connected to someone you know you've created some instant credibility with a reference.



Completely agree.

When looking at a prospective employee, not only do I first see how they present themselves in social media but also examine what peeps we have in common.

The Who You Know Network usually works well when hiring.  This probably  gets into  illegal territory, but so do small business income taxes.


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## Brill (Jul 24, 2016)

The accounts themselves are not a threat but the connections and content are...especially given the recent hacks and insider stuff that has occurred.

To be honest, there are zero benefits for a Intel pro to have a SM profile.


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## DA SWO (Jul 24, 2016)

LinkenIn will give you one year free Prime Membership, ask for it just before you graduate.

ClearanceJobs has helped a few of my friends.

Do you FB?  I have a general yuck, yuck, account; and another professional account (with 2 friends,LOL).


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## Lefty375 (Jul 24, 2016)

DA SWO said:


> LinkenIn will give you one year free Prime Membership, ask for it just before you graduate.
> 
> ClearanceJobs has helped a few of my friends.
> 
> Do you FB?  I have a general yuck, yuck, account; and another professional account (with 2 friends,LOL).



Sounds good, I'm going to start getting my LinkedIn account together. I have a FB account with a different name than mine and no friends, just use it to sign up for things that require a FB account. A post on another forum scared me into deleting all my social media years ago.


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## Brill (Jul 24, 2016)

DA SWO said:


> ClearanceJobs has helped a few of my friends.



I wouldn't say that's a social media site since it's just for current clearance holders and is more of a networking site.



Lefty375 said:


> A post on another forum scared me into deleting all my social media years ago.



What sort of job are you looking for?


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## Lefty375 (Jul 24, 2016)

lindy said:


> What sort of job are you looking for?



Keeping options open, but getting into the IC is the goal.


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## Marauder06 (Jul 24, 2016)

Many of my friends in the IC have been very successful in using LinkedIn to network their way into jobs.


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## Florida173 (Jul 24, 2016)

Seems recruiters always want to link with me after I've gone through the process.


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