Donna Serdula

This is an excellent guide to optimizing your LinkedIn profile to get more views, which is essential if you are a consultant (as I am) or job hunting. There are lots of ways to make your name come up in more searches and place higher when it does appear in a search. Serdula provides step-by-step instructions, which sometimes seem a little repetitive, resulting in a book that is longer than it needs to be, but if you need hand holding, this is where you'll find it.

On the downside, even though this book is fairly recent, LinkedIn features are in a constant state of flux, so certain things, such as being able to rearrange the sections in your profile, aren't available anymore. Or, they could be back by the time you read this!

Bottom line: If you are a professional who uses LinkedIn, you will benefit from this book. Be prepared to dedicate a few hours. I flagged the pages that had changes I wanted to make to my profile, then made most of them at once (with updates turned off, so my connections weren't being constantly notified each time I made a tweak.)… (mer)

These books, the 'for dummies' collection, are excellent. They cover a subject from a stage so obvious that one would think that everyone must know that, to a level far above that which the average person needs to know. There is, however, much in between and this is invaluable.

This particular edition looks at Linkedln and, when I read the early pages, I found the phrase, 'Most people just jump into writing their Linkedln profiles...' How true: if one doesn't promote one's ideas and indeed, oneself, in the best possible manner, is it surprising when the results are not what one wishes to attain?

If you have not used the 'for Dummies' series of books before, you need to know that they are written in such a way that, whilst it is perfectly possible to start at page one and work through to the last page but, if you already have some experience, one may dip in to assist with one's weak points. This also makes them a perfect reference work to which to check on any forgotten gem at a future date.

I would strongly recommend this tome to anyone going on to Linkedln for the first time and also to those not getting the desired results from their current profile.… (mer)