An Investigator's Gude to LinkedIn

These days, LinkedIn is the default social media tool for professional contacts and one of the key tools for job hunting. Bellingcat has published a guide to LinkedIn, focusing on using it as an investigative tool. That's not something most of us will want to do, but there's much useful information here that should be relevant to the casual user or someone wanting to do a deep dive into a company when job hunting.

Some of the useful information you might glean from the social network for professionals include:

• Biographical details, including employment history, education and other affiliations
• Personal and work contact information
• Approximate location
• Profile photo
• Username
• Personal website
• Employer’s website
• Members of an individual’s social network

It’s important to keep in mind that all of the information listed on a profile is self-reported and can be completely made up (for example, no, David Jewberg is not the name of a senior Pentagon Russia analyst).