By William Arruda – Forbes

Many of us have retained the mindset that came with the launch of LinkedIn: “LinkedIn is the place I to go to find a job and build my virtual network.” Well, it’s time to replace that mindset with this one: “LinkedIn is the place I go to do my job better.” LinkedIn is replete with features that help you amp up your performance at work.

In this post, I share five of them with you. Some are relatively new features. Others have been around for a long time, but maybe you never tried them out.

1. Get And Give Career Advice

This feature allows you to connect on a deeper, more meaningful level of engagement by getting advice from, or giving advice to, other members. Think of it as “mentoring light.” To find this feature, click on your photo in the top right, then click on View Profile. One of the sections you’ll see is the Career Advice Hub. From there, you can identify the type of advice you’re seeking or are willing to offer. This is a great way to broaden your perspective when you’re looking to solve a career challenge and, of course, it is a great way to give back.

2. Make Meetings More Productive

There used to be an app called Refresh, which allowed you to get a “dossier” with information about the people who show up in your calendar. Well, LinkedIn bought that app, and then we heard nothing about it for years. That is, until now. That same valuable resource is now available from LinkedIn. When you sync your calendar with the LinkedIn app, you can get the 4-1-1 on the people you’ll be meeting. This will help you have more productive and connected interactions.

3. Connect With Likeminded Professionals

I am amazed at how many professionals I speak with are not using the LinkedIn Groups feature. Some have joined groups but virtually never engage in them and others have not joined one group. Groups are powerful. They are like professional associations with no geographic boundaries. Because groups are focused on specific topics, they connect you with “your people” (some groups have hundreds of thousands of members) and help you keep the saw sharp. They’re also a great way to share your thought-leadership and build your visibility with professionals in your field.

4. Get Customized Notifications

With the ever-increasing number of members and the increase in the number of LinkedIn articles being posted and updates being created, your feed is getting full. It’s hard to stay on top of what’s happening with your people and it’s time consuming to sort through the volume of content that your connections post. Well, LinkedIn now makes it easy for you to sift through the clutter. You can turn off, mute, or unfollow content that clogs the feed – reducing the content that’s just not relevant or appealing to you.

When you turn off or mute content, it doesn’t remove your connection, but it does make your feed purer and more potent. And this feature does something else that’s important: It challenges you to up your game with what you post, because your connections can also opt out of seeing what you put out there.

5. Refine Your Communities

When you’re on the LinkedIn homepage, you’ll see in the left hand column Your Communities followed by a series of hashtags. These hashtags are generated from what you post and what you read. You can manage the hashtags you follow by going here.

Your LinkedIn feed changes based on your preferences. Those posts with your preferred hashtags appear at the top of your feed. You can pin hashtags that are most important to you. To personalize your feed, you can follow hashtags in these categories:

• Popular in the industry you’re associated with
• Related to your interests
• Based on your recent activity
• People in your community are interested in
• People in your community follow
• Popular with people skills that match your skills
• Recommended for you

By making the most of these five features, you can transform LinkedIn into your go-to learning and performance enhancement center.