LinkedIn Importance

more of a showcase of what you have achieved, less of a tool to get you to success

I would advise getting one, especially given that you are in the early part of your career, EB or not. It is good to connect with your peers, mentors, bosses. These people will be important to your growth moving forward - especially if you are looking to network with alums of your EB that have moved on to PE, HF, grad schools, etc.

Agree to your point above - it is a lot of self promotion, the "blessed" posts to getting a coffee chat/one day workshop, etc. But, it is a great way to keep tabs on where your peers have moved/who can be of help 5-10 years down the road. It gets harder after school to keep in touch and time goes by. Just don't end up on LinkedIn Flex..

During a superday for an EB (virtual due to COVID), the MD interviewing me went on my LinkedIn during the interview and was seeing who I was connected with at the EB. In hindsight I think it was to gauge my interest in the firm and see who I connected with through networking because he mentioned the names of those I was connected to at the firm during the call.

I reached out to an alum of my school over a Linkedin message and our conversations grew into my current internship. Not the most useless thing in the world.

I'm wary of people who don't have Linkedin.

Okay, somewhat surprised by the negative comments on LinkedIn, especially since its free... Here is why I think it is important..

1. It is a virtual resume that has no page limitation, is searchable by headhunters, and easy to be reviewed by future employers during recruitment. Almost all search firms pay for the high end version to search by title, dates of employment, education, etc. Not being on here could have you literally get passed over (clearly, this is a 5+ year exp issue, but time will fly).

2. It is way to contact your network and keep tabs regardless of where people go (assuming they update). Finding out an old email doesn't work sucks.

3. You can proactively reach out to people to network. School alum, shared organizations, even in the same firm, or a firm you want to work for. This has lots of uses.

4. You can share content that gets you noticed. Clearly, there is a right and wrong way to do this, but it can be useful at points in your career.

My advice, start early. Build good content and keep your profile intact. It is crazy not to. And this should start while you are a UG student.

I think its a plus. I've been recruiting PE/VC because I've had recruiters reach out to me via linkedin (for SA 2021)

I’ve found it helpful in finding and reaching out to bankers at whatever company I’m interested in recruiting at. Unfortunately, without LinkedIn premium this is very limited, and considering it’s something absurd like $60/month, its not really worth it.

It’s positive for having your resume/profile out there and accessible for others to see. Sometimes, you learn a thing or two from what your connections post. However, it’s a negative for the random people who try to give you a sales pitch and 70%-80% of the jobs on LinkedIn are not legit. 

1. It's free

2. It makes researching people's backgrounds incredibly easy

3. It's a great and easy way to connect with people 

4. If used properly (with the right sense of finesse), very easy to get referred to others with THE OTHERS doing the work (introducing you to other people vs. giving you a phone number- seriously makes a big difference when X sends a message including both parties and says some flowery things. I have done that for others many times and have had it done for me. Virtually always results in a scheduled conversation.)

5. It's table stakes

6. Networking is a never ending process, not an event. It keeps you current on job changes, accomplishments, etc.

7. Oh yeah - it's free

Personally I think it’s most useful to just keep track of who you have met in the professional world. In my internships I have met with too many management teams to remember all their names. LinkedIn allows me to keep track of them if for some reason I ever needed that info in the long run. Don’t care for the humble bragging and right now is the worst for it. Every intern posting about how their 5 week virtual internship was an out of body experience and that the firm is such an amazing place.

I used it to recruit executives for our portfolio companies. So far best place to do so.

Use it to connect with people you'd actually be interested in calling/meeting, and as an extension of your CV. Ignore and don't participate in the brown-nosey post-internship posts, influencer-esque monologues and cries for help.

LinkedIn has become critical for a successful B2B marketing strategy. It has great importance for B2B and other businesses. Many of them are also using LinkedIn automation tools to find their ideal leads quickly on this platform.

It is useful for researching firms and the type of background they seem to like (if you can discern one).

Its also useful for figuring out the path people have taken and getting a feel for turnover...

Is's easier to search if you have an account. 

The buy in feature seems to be targeted at sales types trying to develop relationships...