The following is a guest post from Jessica Holbrook Hernandez courtesy of Recruiting Blogswap.

If you’re currently searching for a job, LinkedIn offers a free and easy way to create a presence for yourself online.  While some people think of the site as simply another place to post their resumes, it offers many other career promotion tools as well.  For example:

Start a reading list

LinkedIn is not a great place to advertise the trashy romance novel you read by the pool, but it does allow you to show professional colleagues where some of your intellectual interests lie.  Personal hobbies like rebuilding motorcycles or visiting Civil War reenactments make for awkward resume material, but mentioning that you’ve read books on the subject will cause you to appear interesting to an employer.

Join groups

Groups are a great way to network in a somewhat casual way.  Your university alumni groups are an easy place to start.  It might feel awkward to e-mail a stranger who happened to go to the same school you did, however, there’s nothing unusual about saying, “I saw through the ABC University group on LinkedIn that you work in insurance.  Do you have any tips that would help me break into the industry?”  Displaying your membership in various groups is also a subtle way to let employers know how you’re connected and where your interests lie.

Post status updates

Much like Facebook, LinkedIn allows you to post status updates.  These updates can let other people know about a big project you’re currently working on or a conference you’re attending, or they can include a link to an article you found particularly interesting or salient to your field.  Just be careful to not bore your connections with irrelevant personal information or touchy political editorials.

Keep your profile current

If you don’t do anything else to your LinkedIn profile, be sure you keep it updated with your current job title and duties at all times.  It’s confusing for an employer to look you up and see information that’s different from what you’ve presented on your resume.  As an HR manager once told me, “It’s important to care for your LinkedIn profile the same way you would a plant in your office—make sure you check on it at least once a week!”

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

Looking for some quick advice on how to improve your resume? Check out 8 Things You Must Know While Writing a Resume over at Employment Digest. Written by Anna Stewart, it provides some simple but useful tips for helping your resume stand out.

Among the advice:

Avoid The Use Of Pronouns

Using the words “I” “he”, “she” etc. in the resume does not leave good impact on the employers. It rather seems weird. Use of pronouns in the resume shows your amateurish and unprofessional nature. Actually there is no need to use pronouns as it is but obvious that the resume is about you.

and…

Use Bullets And Numbering

Bullets and numberings make a resume readable; therefore it is important to use the numberings or bullets in the resume. It also makes your resume look neat.

Check out the full list here.

Each week I’m blasted with emails and tweets from random people hoping that I will mention their blog/service/article on Gradversity. Most are just looking for free advertising without any thought about how you (the reader) will benefit.

While I almost always give them a chance to impress me, most of the time they fall short. However, Sara Allen is not in that category.

A few days ago she sent me a link to a blog post called 10 Things I Learned from Graduating in a Recession. It focused on her candid thoughts and experiences from graduating into one of the toughest entry level job markets in recorded history.

I won’t steal her thunder by quoting her post, but check it it out. It’s one of the most uniquely uplifting things I’ve read in the last month.

Enjoy!

It appears that salaries for entry level jobs are going down.

According to the article Starting salaries of new college graduates drop:

The National Association of Colleges and Employers said in its quarterly report on salaries that 2010 graduates’ average starting salary was $48,661, down 1.3 percent from the initial salaries of 2009 graduates.

As if new grads need more bad news in this economy…