Well I have been hanging around in linkedin.com recently (about a week) the people are good and sometimes intresting also but then the topics are pure BS or FUD. I hope no one judges forums like "Black Hat" or "IT Security" by the kind of articles they post.
But again I am doing this so that I am trying to get a job in IT. My main drawbacks are (1) persuing graduation (sshhhh do not tell the HR) and (2) lack of _company experience. All the experience I have is on my own computer and with my own VM.
What I want to ask you guys is what are the chances of me getting a job with the website (and the friends -in high places_ helping me) or am I just wasting my time.
I understand the answer cannot be a simple 'yes' or 'no'. I just want this in terms of probability.
Thanks for reading.

Getting a job from LinkedIn on its own? Zero. It's not a job bank.

I personally have not found it useful, but then I am not and have never been "an Internet social butterfly." It doesn't do me much good to know about thousands of peoples' "connections," or even what they say about themselves personally. What I am looking for is someone who has a problem and for that who perceives both the need for a consultant with 30+ years' experience in software and the willingness to pay for one. (Is that you? Great! See my profile...) While it is very important to maintain a good set of connections, my experience has been that these have to be your personal connections, built out of prior business encounters. LinkedIn tends to make that a "commodity," and to sell it for (quite naturally...) their own purposes. Maybe for you it's the cat's meow, and if so, I'd love to hear about your experiences.

I do not know how you manage to get that _one_ person with a problem that you can solve. This is one of the most difficult problems for me to solve. How do I know there is someone who has that one problem that I can solve. My social skills are not very good to say in the very least.
I spoke with one of the managers (I got to know from linkedin today) and he was dealing with pentests (something I have not really looked into) and all he asked me was to describe the boot process and what is a shell. I gave the right answers (ldp is awesome) but the manager simply could not understand what I was talking about (managers are sometimes dumb). So this far it has been ok.
Will post more as things progress hope someone will be around to give me pointers or suggestions.
Thanks for reading.

Experience.

(Pardon me, I don't mean to sound like a horse's asterisk.)

(Pardon me, I don't mean to sound like a horse's asterisk.) [/QUOTE]

I understand. I just wanted to know what everyone felt. I thought perhaps a lot of people here would also have some experience with linkedin. So I was expecting a lot of suggestions but then again it seems like no one really believes in linkedin.
I will try and keep this thread alive so that I can some more (or better) ideas.

I think that LinkedIn is mostly aimed at the lonely unemployed.

I heard from a journalist that I was dating recently that linkedIn might replace xing soon.
It don't really see that happen but he was totally serious about it!

What is xing?

That bears remembering! I have no idea, either.

Many web sites have a greatly inflated notion of their own (self-)importance . . .

Haha. ok.
Apparently Xing is more popular in Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

It's a community where people have profiles and talk about their profession, join groups, advertise themselves a.s.o.

I thought it might be known in other countries, too because there many English-speaking professionals with profiles on xing.com.

But I guess it speaks for itself - and for my friends argument - that you've never heard of xing...
Seems like you proved me wrong.

Well, the problem with both kinds of sites is that people are talking to themselves. No matter who "you" are, no matter who you know and what your "connections" are, etc., you are one among tens of thousands of equal hopefuls. The only people who really make money from that are the sites themselves, which collect $25 (USD) from each one of you.

Selling doesn't work that way. It's not enough to create a little shoppe: you have to find the people who need to buy from you and to drag them in there. This is what these sites don't do. (Of course, they have no incentive. There are millions of you out there looking for jobs, and they just got $25 from every one of you... It's a legitimate business model, yes, but it's preconditioned upon the notion that you can, ahem, sit on your asterisk and a job will come to you. It won't.)

I posted a simple (free) profile as an adjunct to my sales-piece because I know that people tend to "scan" those pages because they're easier to parse. I did that much because it was basically obligatory. But since then I have been inundated with "Learn about so-and-so's 'connections'" emails. I programmed my mail-client to recognize 100% of them as the spam they are. I can't take the time to walk through every single tree in a vast orchard, shaking every one to see if fruit will gratuitously fall to the ground. And, no one else does either.

Out of the thousands of hopefuls, one or two will distinguish themselves, and they'll do it by "the hustle." They'll be the ones who take the initiative to show up with a well-reasoned sales pitch that actually shows an awareness of what I need to buy ... even if I was not yet aware of my need to buy it.

Don't laugh. That's how "sales" works, and it does work extremely well.

The one good thing that these sites do is that they distract your competitors. They leave them like Charlie Brown, checking his mailbox every hour for the valentines that never come, instead of getting out there competing with you.

Want a job? Want to sell something? Turn off your computer and put on your shoes.

A very good point. Very cleany, clearly and bluntly put. But then there is something that is very negative about me (happpens with everyone I guess) but it seems like whenever I am speaking at an interview I tend to go tangent to every question (perhaps the brain/mouth filter does not really work well). Secondly I somehow blank out at some very simple questions and that perhaps shows on my face (you know how the HR are) and then lastly for some reasons unknown to me I _always_ feel threatened by anyone taking my interview (specially if this is someone of the opposite sex). To sum everything up I
think I am a bit ani-social and shy and so it is really hard for me to talk my way into a job or even convince anyone that I can do the job (though I can).
I have given my share of interviews but then it seems like I am not able to work my way out of problems.
Once I was annoyed at one HR because he took an interview of 90 minutes and then declined the job. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was a dimwit - most HRs would decide in the first ten minutes wether this person is fit for the job or not.
Because of all these factors I think I need to avoid person-to-person interaction and find a way around it. I thought linkedin was something that would provide me some sort of workaround and so I am working on it. This is all the more complicated when the HR just knows what is the full form of DHCP and then has the gall to ask how to set up a DHCP server. I mean, comeon, it is not something that can be learned by route and even if you _know_ how to set up a DHCP you would have to look at the OS and see what you have and what is needed for full installation. And no one can gurantee that there would no troubleshooting once the DHCP is setup.

By mentioning HR, you mean the non-technical questions?
Whatever, have you noted down those simple questions?
Do the questions get repeated in several interviews?
Have you ever tried to sit down and list out all the "simple"
questions?

How do you sit in the interview? Do you sit in "comfortable" posture?
For example me - I always want to have a pen and paper in my hand
in the interview [and my sleeves rolled up] even if I don't have
anything to write about.

I carry the pen and paper in my hand in all interviews. It gives me
a kind of "satisfaction" that if I can't explain "verbally", I'll
just pen it down, and then explain while pointing towards the paper.
This way you won't have to "stare" in eyes of the interviewer.

Secondly, in the interviews is speaking English compulsory?
If yes, are you confident enough in "explaining" in English?
If no, have you tried to tell the interviewer that you more
comfortable in talking in your native language?

Thirdly, if you are uncomfortable in talking with the opposite sex,
one suggestion is to "start talking to "yourself"".
Lock yourself in a room.
"Visualize" that a person of opposite sex is in front of you, and start
talking to her, "loudly".
Read the first simple question you had in the list.
Say this (loudly) to the person in your "imagination" - "Oh yes, I can talk
about DHCP. So, the way to set up DHCP is this and that. The prerequisites
to install DHCP are this and that. Here is one important feature of
DHCP. "

While you talk loudly, do keep on "visualizing" the person. See
if you feel the need to explain on paper?

One more way to get around the blankness is to tell the interviewer to give
you a minute to recall.
Write the topic on the paper immediately.
And then write on the "paper", the "headings" of the points that you know
about the topic. Don't look at the interviewer, look at the paper.
e.g
DHCP:
1. This.
2. That.
3. Something else.

Now you have three "headings", so you already know what you'll be talking
about. Within that minute you'll get a chance to breathe.

And BTW, the loud self talk method is "tested". It "works". Yes, I know
what I am talking about.

Was that a "fake" interview?
Did you ask for "feedback" after you got out of the room?

Besides my above post, one more important thing to learn is to
speak with "pauses".
Noticed how Shri. Atal Bihari Vajpayee speaks?
Listen to him, and copy him while practicing self talk at home.

Speaking with pauses is "important". The 3 second pause gives your
mind a chance to think about what to say next.
This is tested too. It works.