I have been using LinkedIn a lot the past few weeks and found some ways to connect with people and build relationships. I've gotten a couple of referrals from doing this-

• If you're not on LinkedIn already, build a profile and start connecting with people you know. The quality of your first degree connections will directly impact the kind of content and professionals you'll see on your feed. The obvious connections are your coworkers, but alumni and former coworkers should give you a good place to start.

• Now you have to actually spend time on it. I know too many people who don't use their network enough so I try to spend 10 minutes a day browsing and interacting. I following a few product managers at companies I like, people at Spotify, Apple, Sony, and others. I don't connect with them, I just follow so I can see their posts and tbh, lurk on their page.

• Every now and again, I comment or share posts that my network would benefit from. People appreciate it when you comment and interact with things they spent time and energy on. When people give first, it's easy to trust them and as a thank you for helping me learn something, I try to pay it forward. I try to also reply to other people's comments so we can get a nice discussion going. I can give my opinion and bounce ideas and build real relationships to people in the industry.

• When the opportunity presents itself to take a conversation to a separate thread, aka DM, just ask! "I enjoyed our conversation about ____ and wanted to connect to keep the discussion going." Something like that. Genuine and honest with a clear motive. Then once you get connected, stay connected by checking in every now and again directly and engaging on their posts (and their networks posts).

If you follow these steps, you can pivot into whatever industry or company you want. I have found it very rare to encounter someone who doesn't want to connect or interact.