How to network on LinkedIn

You're right that LinkedIn is the easiest way, but there is really no way of knowing who will be interviewing you unless you get that info from HR prior to your interview. Honestly, the hard part is usually landing the interview, so I would suggest reaching out to people at the organization that you have some sort of relation to-- school alumni, mutual connections, past company employees, etc. Shoot them a message on linkedin about how you see they work at company XYZ and you are interested in learning more about what it's like to work there. See if you can build rapport with them and they can put in a good word to HR and help you land the interview. As far as networking with your interviewers, I wouldn't say it's necessarily more practical to know your interviewers, but it is practical to know people who know your interviewers. You can name drop people you have networked with an it will show that you did your homework and already know people at the company. Better yet you can get insight into the company culture through these contacts and be able to chat about more than what your can read about online. Ultimately you should filter through people on LinkedIn that you can reach out to without it being a totally random connection, and see if you can piggyback off them to connect with more and more people prior to your interview. Whether or not one of those people is your actual interviewer isn't important, but it is important to have multiple people vouching for you.