Having a profile, even a new one, will almost certainly be a net positive over not having one, and it just gets better.
It’s worth noting that while a few people do actually use LI as a social network (with the joining groups and posting statuses/comments/links and so on), and that there may be a benefit of doing so if you’re actively job hunting (gets your name out more), most people seem to just basically treat it as a “here’s my employability credentials, click that button to message me with offers” site. It works too; I get regular offers despite having almost no activity on the site and indicating that I’m currently employed. It doesn’t seem to have Facebook’s “gotta have all the friends!” mentality so much, though.
You’ll probably find that connections will grow quickly. Pretty much any recruiter—either at a career fair or similar, or a headhunter looking for people online—will offer to connect, and it’s generally fine to connect with all your current colleagues and any past ones that have/had a non-negative association with you. I’ve got connections through my current employer, my past employers including internships, friends and faculty from university, people I met through my work (admittedly, as a consultant, I work with a lot of people in my field but outside of my company), people I met at conferences, and various recruiters who’ve tried to rope me in. Almost all of them added me first, not the other way around.
Be aware that it’s really easy to leak info that you would want to keep private. A few years ago, there were a bunch of interesting leaks out of big tech companies when employees posted stuff that they were working on before it became public. Yeah, you shouldn’t put still-confidential stuff on your resume anyhow, but much worse when it’s publicly searchable on the Internet...
Having a profile, even a new one, will almost certainly be a net positive over not having one, and it just gets better.
It’s worth noting that while a few people do actually use LI as a social network (with the joining groups and posting statuses/comments/links and so on), and that there may be a benefit of doing so if you’re actively job hunting (gets your name out more), most people seem to just basically treat it as a “here’s my employability credentials, click that button to message me with offers” site. It works too; I get regular offers despite having almost no activity on the site and indicating that I’m currently employed. It doesn’t seem to have Facebook’s “gotta have all the friends!” mentality so much, though.
You’ll probably find that connections will grow quickly. Pretty much any recruiter—either at a career fair or similar, or a headhunter looking for people online—will offer to connect, and it’s generally fine to connect with all your current colleagues and any past ones that have/had a non-negative association with you. I’ve got connections through my current employer, my past employers including internships, friends and faculty from university, people I met through my work (admittedly, as a consultant, I work with a lot of people in my field but outside of my company), people I met at conferences, and various recruiters who’ve tried to rope me in. Almost all of them added me first, not the other way around.
Be aware that it’s really easy to leak info that you would want to keep private. A few years ago, there were a bunch of interesting leaks out of big tech companies when employees posted stuff that they were working on before it became public. Yeah, you shouldn’t put still-confidential stuff on your resume anyhow, but much worse when it’s publicly searchable on the Internet...