A trip to the hospital for a body scan taught me how easy it could be to find new job titles and reminded me of the practical use of LinkedIn.

While waiting to get ready for the body scan, I met several people, all focused on preparing me for the scan. I asked each of them what their title was; in every case, it was a title that I had not heard of before. My interest in job titles resulted from years of working with people on their LinkedIn profiles and observing how many unexpected titles you see.

Learning more title options for jobs is something that LinkedIn can be a help for while researching the company. Using the LinkedIn Jobs Tab on the Dashboard, job openings are fou. , When a company of interest is identified, clicking on that company will lead to the y job posting. The next step where the job post is shown is clicking the company logo in the upper left-hand corner, which takes you to the companies page. This page has its dashboard with these categories: Home About, Posts, Jobs, People, Events, and Videos. Clicking the Jobs option, the company employees can be found, and you can see connections you have in common and their profiles that will show you their title, experience, and skills. You might also find the Director of Human Resources in the location you want to apply for, and connect with that person by adding a note that you are applying for a particular job.

This section can also be used to learn more about people you have an interview coming up with or who you have already interviewed with. Since this section has LinkedIn links for these people, it is easy to use this approach to send a “request to connect” or “thank you for the time today” message.

You can see the career path of the people you might work for and their prior position. If that person is your potential boss, then the last job they had might be one you would qualify for, and it may also reveal a new title for you to consider. The label on the potential supervisor's last job might offer a new direction since you often will see it as something you're qualified to do. The title will usually be one you had not thought of, but searches by that title can help your ongoing job search.