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The April 1 Jewish Family Service of Somerset, Hunterdon, and Warren Counties Job Seeker Support Group meeting attracted 50 people, necessitating a venue change to the Shimon and Sara Birnbaum Jewish Community Center, Bridgewater.

JFS holds a monthly Job Seekers Support Group at their office in Somerville, where according to project coordinator Elise Prezant, usually 15 to 25 people attend. She said once she saw the amount of people that had signed up for the meeting, she called the JCC right away. Attendees at the program were unemployed, underemployed, or seeking a career change.

The topic of the meeting was "What is LinkedIn," and it was presented by Michael Klass, a recruiter at Joan Leslie Search Group.

LinkedIn is an Internet-based job assistance network that is comprised of more than 35 million people throughout the world, in more than 150 industries. Users sign up and create a Web site profile, which then allows the user to find others and to be found by colleagues, clients, and future customers and business partners. Klass said the main goal of this site is to help people network and find jobs. As a person invites more people to their network, they become linked to more networks.

Klass said a person's network consists of his connections, which are his friends and colleagues, and friends of friends. A profile on LinkedIn includes what the person is currently doing, what positions they have held in the past, their education, the amount of people that have recommended them, and their amount of connections.

Recommendations, Klass said, are a big part of networking, because the more recommendations that a person's profile has, the better the profile looks to prospective employers. Furthermore, all recommendations that a user on LinkedIn has must be given by another person on LinkedIn.

"You should offer a recommendation for someone you worked with," Klass said.

Klass said searching on the network is very important. Some common searches are by college, university, job titles, company names, or industries.

Advanced searching is also important when trying to network, he said. In advanced searching, a user can put their location, the title of the job they are looking for, and any keywords that pertain to the job, Klass said.

"In advanced search, only check an item if you want to limit [your search] to that item," he said.

Klass pointed out when viewing a person's profile that if it says "in transition," they are unemployed. Also, people can get locked out of LinkedIn, he said.

"You can get locked out if you request to link with someone and they say they don't know you," he said. "Then, if it happens five times you are locked out."

When creating a profile, the information is dependent on the age of the person, he said. Listing any types of awards and honors is imperative, he said.

"If the person is 40 or over, list the last 10 years of work, not their education," he said.

The first way to start a network is by building it through co-workers or friends, he said. Also, it is very important always to have a purpose for networking, Klass said.

"In networking, it is important to write what can I offer that person," he said.

In the description of why a person would fit a position they need to say in 140 characters or less what type of skills they are offering and why they would be the best fit for the job, he said.

Prezant said prior to networking with any employer, it is very helpful to research the company. Doing research about the company may help the person find some common interest between them and the person interviewing them, like where they may have gone to college, she said.

"I learn something new every meeting, and the job seekers learn new tricks and how to network," she said.

Fulvio Benato, of Raritan, who is currently in a transition, said the meeting was extremely helpful. He said he used LinkedIn before, but was discouraged by the site and stopped using it.

"I wanted to get information about it (LinkedIn)," Benato said. "Now I know what not to do."

Scott Brenner, who attends the meetings regularly, said the job seeker meeting helped him find a job. When he began going to the group he was unemployed, and he met someone at the group that led him to a job he had for a year, he said. Although he has a job now, he still attends the meetings because he feels he needs to give back and help other people just as someone did for him.

"One way that they help is especially for people recently unemployed, you're not alone," he said.