The degrees on LinkedIn have nothing to do with how important a professional is within the platform, it is not used to define their worth, or to give them points, or to say that they are better than the other, none of that.
The grados o grados de conexión en LinkedIn are scales that this social network puts, to categorize your contacts within the platform.
Remember that on LinkedIn, there are no friends, they are called contacts, so we are going to use this term throughout the article.
Types of degrees on LinkedIn
The contact system within LinkedIn works as follows:
This is level zero, here we have: Your fellow LinkedIn groups and other professional users. If you belong to a group, these members will not be part of any degree of connection in your contact list, unless you add them. On the other hand, general LinkedIn users, who don't even share groups with you; neither will they have a degree within your network of contacts.
Here are all your contacts; the professionals who accepted your invitation or those who sent it to you and you accepted.
Professionals connected to one or more of your first degree contacts.
People who have added to your second degree contacts.
Examples of degrees on LinkedIn
Let's give an example, with one of the most used social networks, which you probably also know: Facebook.
Cuando agregas a una persona a Facebook, pasan a ser “Amigos”, en LinkedIn se les llama “Contactos” y hasta aquí son de first grade.
On Facebook, your friends 'friends are called> Mutual friends, on LinkedIn, your contacts' contacts and they are the second grade from your network.
On Facebook there is no option of Friends of your mutual friends, but LinkedIn does, therefore, the contacts of your second degree contacts, would form your network of third degree.
Let's look at a much more detailed example of friendship ratings on LinkedIn.
- friend of - - friend of - - friend of -
First grade: Pedro
Second grade: Veronica
Third grade: Ana
How to upgrade on LinkedIn?
We wanted to ask this question, because many professionals are confusing the degrees on LinkedIn, thinking that these are levels of importance given by the platform.
However, as we already explained, grades are only used to categorize contacts in your network.
If what you want is to level up, that is, to be an outstanding professional, the only way to do it is by working on you, in every aspect.
We refer to having a very complete profile, where you add your certificates, studies, experiences, have recommendations, achievements, etc.
If you really care about moving up a grade on LinkedIn, we would be talking about having more contacts in the first grade, which would obviously mean making more friends within the platform. This is not recommended, LinkedIn does not work like other social networks, therefore, you will not look so cool having many more contacts.
The degrees of connection between LinkedIn contacts do not define your professional level at all.
The advantages that you could obtain by having more first-level contacts is that you establish connections through messages with these people and be able to specify or start a business, you can also ask them to write recommendations about you, help you get a job, help you in a job, associate with one of them, etc.
